An increasing amount of research attention is being directed toward the educational experiences of students with profound and multiple disabilities. One technique that has allowed a better understanding of alertness and involvement in members of this population is behavior state assessment. In this study, eight matched pairs of school-aged students with profound and multiple disabilities were observed for one full day in either a segregated classroom or an inclusive classroom in Australian schools. Behavior states were systematically observed and recorded, along with several contextual indicators including measures of communicative behaviors, activity, and social grouping. Despite the absence of significant differences in most observed student behavior states between the two settings, the students observed in general classrooms in this investigation were involved in significantly higher levels of communicative interaction than their matched peers in special classrooms. Differences in the frequency of the communicative partners in the two settings were also observed. The implications of these findings are discussed in terms of enrollment practices, staff development issues, and the development of inclusive curriculum and instruction.

This qualitative study reports on the perceptions of a regular classroom teacher and an itinerant teacher about the challenges they faced in including a student with vision impairment in regular school in New South Wales, Australia. Some of the common strategies employed by both these teachers to address these challenges are discussed.

A restructured postgraduate teacher education programme is described specifically with regard to its commitment to prepare educators to work effectively with deaf and hard-of-hearing children in inclusive settings. The focus of the paper is on the design and development process rather than on the evaluation of the outcomes. Background information is provided about the design and development of the programme, including the components that support a strong relationship between special and general educators. The paper details the philosophical and pedagogical underpinnings of the programme, planned outcome measures for the graduate teachers, and highlights the challenges in programme design and development. IntroductionThe purpose of this paper is to describe the rationale and process we used to develop an innovative postgraduate programme for training teachers of the deaf and hard of hearing in New South Wales (NSW). NSW is Australia's most populated state and contains 35,000 students identified as having a disability and requiring some form of support while at school. The design of the training course reflects a collaborative partnership between university academics with specialties in special education and state special educational administrators.We begin by providing some background information about one of the significant controversies we faced as programme developers. We follow this with details of the chief sources that influenced our thinking prior to designing the course, how the task was conceptualised, and the course structure itself, including a brief discussion on what we propose as reasonable methods by which to evaluate the impact of the course on our graduates. We conclude with a discussion of the challenges we predict we will face in the implementation of the course and the impact we expect this programme will have on the preparation of our trainees. This paper has a focus on the challenges involved in the design and development of the course. We plan to leave the evaluation of course outcomes to future papers. 290 B.E. Furlonger et al. BackgroundEarly in the programme design effort, academic faculty and state educational administrators agreed that much more could be done to better prepare teachers to effectively support the increasing number of deaf or hard-of-hearing students being educated within inclusive settings. Currently, when pre-service students undertake a four year undergraduate teaching degree in NSW there is a mandated requirement for them to complete at least one unit in special education in which the broad parameters of special education are covered. While students can undertake a major in special education at the undergraduate level most do not, so a need for postgraduate training in special education was recognised by NSW educational authorities. The need to increase the number of teachers skilled to work with regular class teachers who had deaf or hard-of-hearing children in their class was initiated by of NSW Department of Education and Training's (DET) concern that, previously, ...

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