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Increasingly, students with special educational needs, even those with severe mental handicaps, are being integrated into ordinary schools. Professionals in the field are evaluating not only the placement of these students in integrated settings but also the quality of the education they are receiving. There appears to be a consensus of opinion that the education of students with severe mental handicaps should help them to develop skills which they can use in a variety of community settings. For the adolescents and young adults in this population it is critical that their educational programmes be directly related to purposeful activities. This paper outlines the development of an approach towards achieving functional educational goals for these students and illustrates how this has been implemented in one programme where young adults with severe mental handicaps attend an integrated secondary school.

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