The Behavior Problem Checklist was completed by the teachers of 192 deaf students who attended a special day school for the deaf. Three separate factor analyses were performed. Four factors that correspond to the dimensions found in earlier research and previously labeled conduct disorder, personality problems, immaturity-inadequacy, and socialized delinquency were found. An additional factor labeled passive inferiority was also extracted.

A questionnaire was sent to state directors of special education in each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia regarding the current status of public school services for emotionally disturbed children. Data of interest to the survey included: terminology and definitions, prevalence estimates, educational services available, program standards, eligibility and placement, termination of special services, exclusion procedures, and administrative organization of programs. Data were analyzed in two ways: (a) for the entire country and (b) by dividing the country into geographic regions. The highlights, both regional and national, are reported here to provide some current information pertaining to public school programing for disturbed children.

The Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities and the 1960 revision of the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale were administered to 40 Caucasian kindergarten children. Two years later the children were tested with the California Achievement Test, Lower Primary Form. The results indicate that the Total Language Score of the ITPA is at least as valid a predictor of school achievement as is the Stanford-Binet IQ. Using stepwise multiple correlation with the ITPA subtests increases the predictive validity of the ITPA. The ITPA has the added advantage of noting specific areas of language deficit so that remedial programs for individual children may be developed.

The mandate of Public Law 94-142 has precipitated some divergent thinking among professionals relative to its implementation. The authors have developed a position to provide a forum for discussion of this issue as it relates to educational programing for the severely and profoundly retarded. Their position focuses on three basic issues involving anticipated levels of learning, personnel training, and the appropriate locus of educational services for the severely and profoundly retarded.

To date, most studies of the efficacy of Facilitated Communication (FC) have been hampered by small samples, limited experience of the subjects with the FC, and diagnostically narrow samples. The present study has a comparatively large sample, and the subjects each had a minimum of one year's experience using FC. Diagnoses of the subjects were also arrayed across a broad spectrum. Pictorial stimuli that had been used as classroom teaching materials were presented to each subject and facilitator under three different conditions of five trials each. Responses were rated by independent judges who were not aware of the stimuli. Support for the communicative value of FC was not found.A number of school programs for children and adolescents diagnosed as having infantile autism and other pervasive developmental disabilities have recently incorporated Facilitated Communication (FC) as an alternative communication methodology. In FC, a specially trained facilitator supports the student's hand, wrist, elbow, or shoulder while the pupil apparently types (using a letter board, an electronic keyboard, or a traditional keyboard). The facilitator provides resistance to downward motion as needed during the communication activity under the theory that a form of apraxia otherwise precludes independent typing by the involved individual.As developed by Rosemary Crossley, an Australian educator, this technique was originally designed for individuals with cerebral palsy who were unable to communicate vocally. Over time the use of FC was extended to other persons with global developmental disabilities, including mental retardation and autism (Green, 1994). The technique was introduced into the United States in 1990 by Douglas Biklen of Syracuse University after a visit to Australia (Biklen, 1993). The popularity of FC has since grown in the U.S. at a very fast rate.Approximately a half dozen qualitative studies described by Green (1994) as "uncontrolled" have found a high degree of literacy among those who were facilitated, even when no prior instruction in reading or spelling was indicated in the pupil's educational history. However, 25 studies that were more empirical in nature, characterized by Green (1994) as "controlled," have cast serious doubt upon the efficacy of FC. In particular, these studies suggest that it is the facilitator, in a manner similar to the "Ouija board effect," who unintentionally manipulates the content of the communication. These empirical studies are themselves open to certain scrutiny. The number of subjects involved was often quite small, the length of time that the subjects and the facilitators had used FC was usually limited, and the samples of students tested were somewhat narrowly drawn.The present study, which also seeks to answer the question, "Just who is doing the communicating with Facilitated Communication?," draws in large measure upon the paradigm used by Wheeler, Jacobson, Paglieri, and Schwartz (1993). However, the present study distinguishes itself from that and other empirical investigatio...