Too many students have difficulty comprehending information presented in the textbooks intended for their use. One reason for this is that textbooks are often organized so that the task of reading and thinking about them is made unduly difficult. Further, teacher editions offer little in the way of helping teachers improve the textbook's usability for students who struggle with reading. This article summarizes the existing literature on effective textbook instruction. The author then proposes how special educators and content instructors can combine their talents to compensate for poorly written books and maximize good books when teaching all their students, but particularly those students who do not learn in the expected ways.

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The role of employment in the lives of young adults and adults with developmental disabilities has received a considerable amount of attention during the past few years. This study attempted to document the movement of this population into the areas of competitive employment. A survey of 1,629 facilities and organizations throughout the U.S. revealed that more developmentally disabled persons are being hired in competitive employment settings, and that job retention is good. Further, the data confirm that the movement of this population into competitive work settings is both realistic and financially sound.

Twenty-nine males with hemophilia completed the Medical Compliance Incomplete Stories Test (M-CIST), and their scores were correlated with health care professionals' ratings of four aspects of medical compliance, along with measures of possible moderating variables. The results indicated that significant associations were found between most of the M-CIST category scores, particularly the Compliance/coping subscale, and the health care specialists' ratings of how well the children exhibited compliant responses to bleeding episodes, and inverse associations with the incidence of monthly bleeding episodes. The findings suggested that the M-CIST continues to demonstrate promise as an instrument to be used in studies of compliance among pediatric chronic illness patients.