The paper reviews difficulties in special education interdisciplinary team decision making and relates the experiences of one team's efforts to increase intra-team communication. Among problems cited are lack of focus in discussions, unequal levels of participation, and limited abilities to produce recommendations or provide therapy in a truly integrative fashion. The team discussed, which is involved with hearing impaired students, developed methods that address two goals: (1) to increase the degree of integration and cooperation among team members; and (2) to increase the probability of the team's recommendations being implemented by school and family. The integration goal is furthered by clarifying the focus of assessment efforts, setting the agenda for assessment and staffing efforts, and modifying the questions during the agenda. To increase the probability of having recommendations implemented, four strategies are suggested, including presenting the information to all interested parties in a manner directly responsive to their expressed concerns and incorporating teacher and parent input into the assessment process as much as possible. (CL)