The paper, nearly half of which consists of appendixes, reports on a national survey investigating the relationship of individualized instruction for handicapped and gifted students to their placement, and the extent to which geographical area affects their placement and instruction. The literature is reviewed, focusing on legislation and mainstreaming service delivery models. Eight areas of exceptionality are considered: learning disabilities, emotional disturbances, mental retardation, giftedness, speech handicaps, and visual impairment. Significant relationships were found between all possible combinations of the four variables (placement, geographical area, instruction, and type of exceptionality), with the exception of type of exceptionality with geographical region. Among the results it was also revealed that placement in the least restrictive educational environment was not a good predictor of individualized instruction, but that placement in the most restrictive environment was. Appendixes include survey questionnaires and data in tabular form. (DLS)