This guide, designed for families of children with disabilities and educators in Washington state, is intended to provide a shared understanding of special education and encourage partnership for the child's benefit. Each section specifies what families and educators should expect, their responsibilities, possible questions to ask, and their…

A survey was conducted of 55 regular classroom teachers who referred students to special education in three Connecticut school systems to determine their predictions of the results of psycho-educational assessment and their perceptions of the instructional relevance of standardized psychological and educational test results. The findings of this…

This report presents a study that examined the effects of symptom item formats on estimates of risk status across alternative attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) behavior checklists for 38 referred children. The mean age of the children was 7 years 9 months. The study focused on ADHD risk as measured by two behavior checklists which…

This paper discusses the outcomes of a survey of 39 special education practitioners (including 24 school psychologists) and 280 elementary classroom teachers on the identification of students with reading disabilities. Practitioners were asked to rate five empirically valid and five clinical-traditional non-valid student traits for their…

This bulletin summarizes provisions of federal law as they pertain to special education and juvenile justice. It discusses provisions of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act 1997 including: the definition of disability; free appropriate public education; identification, referral, and evaluation; the individualized education program…

The case typing, or student profile, method of assessing learning disabilities is discussed, along with guidelines for adequate assessment, obstacles to adequate assessment, the characteristics of good remedial instruction, and pitfalls of individualized education programs. (SEW)

The author considers the legality of minimum competency testing diploma requirements applied to the handicapped in light of (1) their constitutional and statutory rights to nondiscriminatory treatment, (2) their statutory right to an appropriate education, and (3) their constitutional right to substantive and procedural due process. (Author/SSH)

The agreement between the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (ADI- R) and the Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS) was investigated in the diagnostic assessment of 54 children (ages 22-114 months) referred for possible autism. The observed agreement between the two systems was 66.7%. The CARS identified more cases of autism than the ADI-R.…

Explores current policies and practices concerning the definition, identification, and educational needs of students who are both gifted and learning disabled. Recommendations stress the need for less rigid definitions and cutoff scores for program eligibility and the provision of a wide variety of settings (resource rooms, special classes) and…

This article profiles the Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing (CTOPP), an assessment designed to detect phonological processing deficits in students ages 5 through 24. The theoretical framework of the CTOPP, age-based versions of the CTOPP, subtests, testing procedures, test scores and interpretation, and reliability and validity are…

This article examines how to interpret reading problems among individuals with a home language (L1) that is different from the language of instruction in school (L2). A tentative model is proposed where the various factors involved in L2 reading are specified, providing guidelines for assessment strategies. (Contains references.) (CR)

This article addresses issues rising from the British government's Code of Practice on the Identification and Assessment of Special Educational Needs. It argues that the process of Recording of Achievement is closely related to the school-based stages of assessment in the Code of Practice. The Recording of Achievement assessment process recognizes…

The Preschool Development Inventory (PDI) obtains parents' assessments of their children's present development and possible problems. Of 220 children (ages 3 and 4), 11% obtained low General Development Scale scores, whereas 14% showed potential major obstacles to learning. Data concerning the PDI's sensitivity/specificity indicate that parents'…

England's "Draft Code of Practice on the Identification and Assessment of Special Educational Needs" presents a five-stage assessment procedure. The five stages range from the class or subject teacher identifying a student's needs and consulting the Special Educational Needs coordinator, to the local education authority making a…

The disproportionate representation of children of color in special and gifted education can be conceptualized through an a-b-c analysis: antecedent, behavior, and consequence. The focus for remedies should be shifted from antecedent conditions and the resulting behaviors to the consequences that perpetuate disproportionate representation.…