California's approach to developing programmatic and administrative models for the implementation of Individualized Family Service Plans (IFSPs) in providing services to young handicapped children is discussed. The models focus on implementing recognized best practices as well as changing state policy and administrative structure to enhance…

Patrick O'Hearn School in Boston (Massachusetts) has been a model integration elementary school, integrating children with disabilities with regular education students since 1989. Elements of the program include 2 teachers in each classroom of 20 students, a visually impaired principal, a family center, and a planned home visitation program. (JB)

This review of 20 years of literature on sight word instruction for individuals with handicaps examines effectiveness data for procedures teaching word recognition and comprehension. Covered are "errorless procedures," prompt elimination, stimulus fading, time delay, easy to hard discrimination, and trial and error with feedback. Two tables…

A total of 155 educators in rural Kentucky participated in 4 inservice education sessions on learning disabilities and adaptive teaching, delivered via an interactive telecommunications network. Participants' reactions indicated that interactive television was an acceptable format for delivery of inservice education. (Author/JDD)

The application of learning styles to the teaching of reading to students with reading disabilities is critiqued in light of four factors: (1) inability to adequately assess learning styles; (2) failure to acknowledge the necessity of phonics instruction for beginning readers; (3) failure to consider the nature of reading disabilities; and (4)…

This paper describes the historical events that have influenced the evolution of field-based experiences in preparing special education teachers, describes the state of general practice, identifies the unresolved issues and promising trends, and outlines a future research agenda for analyzing preservice special education field-based experiences.…

This article describes LINK, a campus-based program of William Paterson College of New Jersey that bridges the interval between secondary school-leaving and full community participation for youth with mild disabilities. The paper describes student participants, undergraduate student mentors, the campus setting, program structure, student…

The Carolina Longitudinal Learning Disabilities Project identified 42 first- and second-grade students with learning disabilities (LD) and compared their development over 5 years with that of randomly selected peers. Different variables were predictive for the two groups. Teacher perceptions of intelligence, measured intelligence quotient, grade…

The main outcomes of the Prague (Czechoslovakia) longitudinal studies following over 1,000 children for almost 30 years are summarized. The children were either born from unwanted pregnancies, with alcoholic fathers, born out-of-wedlock, or in divorced families. A theory of psychological subdeprivation is offered and applied to children with…

Discusses four strategies teachers can use to encourage friendships among and to develop interpersonal skills of students when incorporating special needs children into regular classroom settings. Strategies involve: (1) establishing a classroom climate that encourages peer interaction; (2) encouraging deeper friendships with diverse children; (3)…

Suggests that most bioethical decisions concerning children born with catastrophic illnesses should be made by parents with input from physicians and health care workers and guidance from hospital infant ethics committees. The child protective service system should have the final authority to assure that the decisions of caregivers do not…

A process for readying students to change from special education to regular mathematics classrooms was implemented and validated in a study involving 42 students with mild disabilities in experimental and control groups. Preparation appeared to enhance achievement while in special education, but not in the regular class. (SLD)

This study of community-based instruction with 34 high school students with moderate to profound mental retardation found (1) students made significant gains in 3 of 4 independent behavior domains; and (2) amount of community-based instruction was a more powerful predictor of gains than were intelligence quotient, level of student ambulation, or…

Eighteen language/learning-disabled adolescents were compared with 18 nondisabled adolescents and 18 linguistically matched nondisabled preadolescents on requesting assistance from listeners who vary in power and familiarity. The language learning-disabled adolescents were sensitive to social and contextual features and modified their requests…

This article describes the federal grant funding process for initial special education career researchers, including discussions of research priority development, the application review process, review criteria, characteristics of projects funded in recent competitions, and recommendations to improve researchers' ability to write competitive…