Leadership in education, particularly special education, implies both knowledge and application of professional behaviors, decisions, and ethics within the field. University students look for best practices in education to be modeled by faculty; this, in turn, underscores a fundamental belief in inclusionary principles. Such modeling is important…

Through personal experience, the author reestablishes the value of some principles that are basic to the practice of rehabilitation counseling. The challenges they pose for both rehabilitation consumers and providers are exemplified, and ways of truly embracing them are recommended. (Contains 13 references.) (Author)

This column introduces issues in research and practice concerned with assistive technology for students with disabilities including delays in transferring research findings into practice and ways to integrate what is known about research, effective practice, teacher professional development, and change. (Contains 14 references.) (DB)

Discussion of applying strategies of cooperative learning offers five principles and reflections of one teacher. The principles are: (1) teach what you preach; (2) accountability counts; (3) mediation versus aggravation; (4) publish or perish; and (5) create or satiate. Suggestions for evaluation include encouraging student feedback and moving…

This article by a recipient of the Council for Exceptional Children's Research Award presents the author's perspective of research as detective work, starting from the investigation of dyslexia, and progressing to such topics as the design of secondary education for students with learning disabilities, dropouts, classroom and instructional…

A rebuttal to three responses to an article opposing use of the natural science-technical model in special education research suggests that the responses demonstrate a continuing vitality of the positivist ideology critically opposed in the original article. (Author/CB)

This essay begins by discussing the current cynicism regarding the usefulness of research-based strategies in the field of education. Using examples of high-quality research that utilizes diverse methodologies, a framework is presented for thinking about various types of research and their implications. (Contains references.) (Author/CR)

This article describes the usefulness of a scientific approach to improving knowledge and practice in special education. Of four approaches to knowledge (superstition, folklore, craft, and science), craft and science are supported and implications for special education drawn including the need to bridge the gulf between research knowledge and…

To argue about the effectiveness of integration is to miss the point; both regular school and special education support services in Australia need to recognize the many changes essential to minimize failure and encompass the reasonable developmental needs of all children. A flexible education system can accommodate almost all children. (Author/JW)

This paper identifies themes of a July, 2002, seminar in the United Kingdom on the role of leaders in special schools in the development of inclusive policies and practices. These include: the need for enriched dialogue between school leaders and academics; the national context for inclusion; starting points for school leaders; and emerging…

This commentary on EC 602 595 questions cognitive referencing's validity as a model for allocating special services to young children with disabilities. The paper raises methodological issues in studies supporting use of the cognitive referencing model. These issues include the construct of delayed development, subject description, and use of a…

This review of research and related developments in special education in Scotland from 1975-1985 concludes that research has increased the knowledge and understanding of teachers of pupils with learning difficulties and has underpinned policy development, but that teachers need to be encouraged to be more involved in research. (Author/JDD)

This paper responds to commentaries on an original article which proposed decreasing the training of applied behavior analysts as if they were going to be researchers, because most are not. The paper supports high quality research but opposes inculcating proresearcher, antipractitioner values in graduate education and recommends trying harder to…

This reprint of one chapter from the 1975 text, "Issues in the Classification of Children" by Nicholas Hobbs and others, addresses the theoretical, methodological, and empirical issues involved in the "labeling" approach to the sociology of deviance. It examines the social process of classification, the use of classification in social agencies,…

This paper reacts to testimony on early childhood special education research before the President's Commission on Excellence in Special Education (EC 632 080). It supports the recommendations made by the authors of that paper and suggests that, in addition, recommendations be developed that address a broader systems perspective. (Contains 5…