Culturally and educationally, the United States specializes in the production of kinds of persons described first by ethnic, racial, and linguistic lines and second by supposed mental abilities. Overlaps between the two systems of classification are frequent, systematically haphazard, and often deleterious. An examination of classrooms around the…

Denounces the mechanical application of "diagnosis and treatment" of educational ills to children and proposes to seek wider contexts in which to view the life of the child and of the teacher. Uses a case study employing a Native American archetypal character to explore ways of reading differently the difficult, abnormal, troubled children in the…

Described is the development of several key courses serving as a nucleus for a noncategorical program to prepare teachers of the mildly handicapped at Memphis State University. (CL)

Efforts to unify categorical programs for low-achieving elementary school students must address instructional validity issues (including similarities/differences between learning disabled and remedial students in instructional levels, learning rates, and learning styles) and political validity issues (including protection and equitable…

Drawing upon New Hampshire data, this article analyzes transition from early intervention to preschool programs, labels assigned to preschool children, label changes as children get older, and consequences of categorical labeling. Almost one-third of children in early intervention were not eligible for preschool services because of requirements…

The article summarizes concurrent policy and practice concerning categorical and noncategorical diagnostic procedures for young handicapped children. The strengths and weaknesses of four noncategorical policy options are discussed. Potential misuses of noncategorical policies are reviewed, and recommendations for policy research are offered.…

Personnel preparation in learning disabilities should stress a broad theoretical understanding of individual differences, interdisciplinary collaboration, and working with families. These goals can best be met by generic programs with specialization only in terms of severity of learning impairment. An outline for such a 2-year program is given.…

To evaluate suggested improvements in rural special education services, behavior disordered, learning disabled, and educable mentally handicapped students (total N=89) in grades seven through nine were compared on three measures. Instructionally relevant differences were minimal, the need for categorical resource rooms was questioned, and…

The study compared academic progress and behavioral ratings of students in an interrelated special education program with those of students in a categorical program. Subjects were 92 mildly disabled students from two rural special education cooperatives. Results indicated that overall student performance did not differ significantly between the…

Examined are the political, historic, and economic influences in England and Wales affecting the categorization and labeling of pupils with special educational needs. The paper concludes that adoption of a non-categorical classification system has been unsuccessful in abolishing labeling, but has obfuscated statistical information reported by the…

The paper compares current practices of identifying students with special educational needs in Australia and Scotland. Noted are problems generated by the abandonment of a category-based approach to such children. Australian and Scottish practice are also compared to United States' experience in light of Public Law 94-142. (Author/DB)

Children screened and served by an early childhood special education department were followed longitudinally through age eight. Results were used to evaluate effectiveness of the screening instrument and criteria which determined service eligibility. The lack of continuity between original and later disability category supported noncategorical…

This article describes the results of a survey of Alabama special education teacher educators, school superintendents, special education coordinators, and noncategorically certified teachers five years after implementation of a mild learning-handicaps teaching certificate in the state, and relates the findings to national reports on this topic.…

Students and recent graduates of a generic undergraduate special education program based on the Direct Instruction model as a basis for methods instruction were surveyed about their attitudes toward it. Results supported previous findings with inservice teachers that experience with Direct Instruction increases positive attitudes toward it.…

Mildly handicapped children share common educational needs and behavioral attributes. A general theory of learning outlines the characteristics of special learners and their implications for teaching. Components include expectancy of success or failure, selective attention, organization of input for storage, memory and recall, transfer,…