Since the U.S. Department of Education's first child count in 1976-77, the number of students served under the Education for All Handicapped Children Act and Chapter 1 has grown each year, with an increase of 712,688 children, or 16%, from 1976-77 to 1986-87 (see U.S. Department of Education, 1988, p.4). To some extent this growth is a result of legal, legislative, and professional initiatives helping to assure handicapped youth a free and appropriate education. There is increasing suspicion, however, that too many children are being identified as handicapped. Incorrect identification is undesirable for numerous and obvious reasons, including the unnecessary separation and stigmatization of children (e.g., Reynolds & Balow, 1972), disruption of school programs (e.g., Will, 1986), and high costs (e.g., Singer, 1988). TEACHER REFERRALS Contributing to the apparent overidentification of handicapped children is a large number of teacher referrals. New referrals for the 1984-85 school year, reported by 28 large urban districts (Research for Better Schools, 1986), ranged from a low of 600 (Memphis) to a high of 33,855 (New York City). The median number of new referrals for the districts was 2,358. Over half of these students were certified handicapped, indicating the importance of teacher referral to eventual special education placement. Many students referred for testing and possible special education placement are characterized as "off-task," or by related adjectives such as "inattentive," "distractible," and "unproductive" (Bahr, Fuchs, Stecker, Goodman, & Fuchs, 1988; Hutton, 1985). Offtask behavior also seems to describe many children eventually labeled learning disabled (LD) as indicated by teacher ratings (e.g.
