The paper reports on application of a case-by-case reintegration approach to helping 10 behaviorally disordered elementary students transition into less restrictive environments. The strategy combined transenvironmental programing, student-directed interventions, and collaborative consultation. Effectiveness was suggested by the number of students…

The study investigated whether a consultant-driven prereferral intervention (Mainstream Assistance Teams) may be shortened in duration, thus improving its efficiency, without reducing its effectiveness. Subjects were 60 general educators, their 60 most difficult-to-teach nonhandicapped pupils, and 22 consultants, representing 17 elementary schools…

The Mainstream Assistance Team (MAT) project is a 3-year research program designed to develop, implement, and validate a prereferral intervention model. The model is a least-restrictive, preventative, ecologically-based, problem-solving approach, using a multidisciplinary team composed of a school psychologist, special educator, and general…

Prereferral intervention is designed to reduce referrals for special education placement, by modifying teacher instruction or management of difficult-to-teach (DTT) pupils prior to formal referral. A 3-year project is described in which Mainstream Assistance Teams offer consultation services to teachers in elementary and middle schools. The…

Forty-three general educators were assigned to one of three versions of the Behavioral Consultation model, to assess the model's effects on problem behavior of difficult-to-teach intermediate-grade students. Observations of student behavior indicated that more inclusive Behavioral Consultation versions exerted stronger effects than the least…

The Peabody Reintegration Project utilizes curriculum-based measurement (CBM) to help integrate pupils with mild and moderate disabilities into mainstream math instruction. CBM is seen to be particularly relevant to a transenvironmental programing process involving environmental assessment, intervention and preparation, promoting transfer across…

The investigation assessed the effects of three increasingly inclusive versions of the Behavioral Consultation (BC) model on problem behavior in mainstream classrooms, in an effort to develop an effective and efficient approach to pre-referral intervention. Subjects were 43 general educators, their 43 most difficult-to-teach nonhandicapped…

This study attempted to implement and validate a 5-month effort to transition 42 pupils with mild and moderate disabilities (most with learning disabilities) out of math instruction in special education resource rooms and into regular education math. A preliminary discussion examines the "cascade of services" model and transenvironmental…

The debate about whether special education should abolish or conserve its cascade of services model has produced conservationists, who believe in a case-by-case approach to integration by which movement into less restrictive settings is planned, implemented, and evaluated individually, and abolitionists, who work for full inclusion of all students…

The Mainstream Assistance Teams Project in elementary and middle schools involves prereferral intervention embedded within a larger process of teacher consultation to better accommodate difficult-to-teach pupils in regular classrooms. Project interventions are prescriptive, student directed, and designed to transfer to additional school settings.…

This article documents decreasing support for education research and introduces this special issue. The difficulties in obtaining research grants, getting schools to cooperate, maintaining treatment integrity, and communicating findings are noted. High-quality school-based research is encouraged. (DB)

Teachers in Tennessee are using the Classroom Ecological Inventory (CEI) to prepare students with mild disabilities for moves into mainstream settings. The CEI was field tested as part of the Peabody Reintegration Project and involves observation of the regular classroom, regular teacher interview, comparison of the special and regular classrooms,…