An investigation was made of the use of vocational assessment instruments with students with special needs as part of the requirements of the Carl D. Perkins Vocational Education Act. Coordinators at the 20 regional Educational Service Centers in Texas distributed surveys to personnel in each district who were responsible for vocational assessment. The process resulted in a total of 130 completed survey instruments. Special education personnel were the most frequent responders; resulting survey information was likely biased in the direction of assessments of persons with disabilities. The survey requested information in these categories: aptitude tests, interest inventories, combination instruments, work samples, other instruments, instruments currently being considered for use, and opinions of instruments being used. A total of 12 instruments emerged as most used: Career Ability Placement Survey, Occupational Aptitude Survey and Interest Schedule, Differential Aptitude Test, Becker Reading-Free Vocational Interest Inventory, Career Occupational Preference System, Wide-Range Interest-Opinion Test, Pictoral Inventory of Careers, Apticom, McCarron-Dial Evaluation System, Talent Assessment Program System, Social and Prevocational Information Battery, and Vocational Training Inventory & Exploration Survey. Findings indicated uncertainty about what the instruments were designed to measure, mixed satisfaction with instruments used, and no emergence of instruments with a uniformly positive rating. (Ten data tables are attached.) (YLB)