This study reviews a 2 year research project in which two former psychiatric aides were trained to serve as language developmentalists for small groups of institutionalized severely retarded children. Forty children participating in the program were compared with a matched control group on variables of IQ, language age, and social quotient. Children attending language classes met daily for approximately one hour. They were taught from the Peabody Language Development Kits and a series of lessons developed during the project. Results showed significantly greater language scores made by the language training group. IQ score increases were equivocal, but again favored those children attending language classes.

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Four quantitative judgment tasks in which psycholinguistic and motivational variables were minimized were presented to 35 advantaged and 35 disadvantaged Ss comprising 7 age levels from 2 yr. 4 mo. through 4 yr. 7 mo. of age. Responses indicate that conservation-like cognitive operations may be affected by: (a) difficulty of the discrimination task, (b) presence of cultural disadvantages, and (c) age of advantaged is.

Although the decade of the sixties was marked with many significant achievements in the education of handicapped children, two of these achievements in particular will rank near the top of any listing of outstanding accomplishments. One of them was the heavy emphasis upon the development of instructional materials for the handicapped. The other was the renewed effort to develop diagnostic assessment devices with the purpose of prescribing appropriate educational experiences for the child.Both of these movements have had a common educational objective, i.e. to provide the child who has a specific learning problem an appropriate and successful learning experience. However, a common rationale has not guided the development of diagnostic devices and the development of instructional materials. When instructional material and diagnostic development have occurred simultaneously, it has been within a limited range of educational experience needed by particular children who have specific learning deficits ( Frostig et al., 1961;Frostig & Home, 1964, Karnes, 1969. Even though a common rationale has not guided the overall development of diagnostic tests and instructional materials, most of these devices would appear to have their place in an educational program for a child experiencing learning difficulties if a common procedure were established in analyzing both types of information. Without a common procedure the classroom teacher currently finds it difficult to determine what materials to use based on diagnostic information to decide if materials are at all complimentary to one another. The teacher discovers many theoretical positions presented for teaching children with specific learning disabilities ( Cruickshank et.al., 1961;Ebersole, Kephart and Ebersole, 1968; Johnson and Mykelbust, 1967; Kephart, 1960;Peterson, 1967) and many instructional materials for remedial teaching, but no logical system for combining the theories and the materials. The purpose of this article is to propose a system for teachers to use in analyzing instructional materials as well as for modification or development of materials for use with children possessing specific ·learning strengths and weaknesses.

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