The general education curriculum comprises more than just the academic courses students take. The wide range of extracurricular clubs, sports teams, performing arts programs, student government positions, career development activities, service-learning projects, and other school-sponsored activities offered in middle and high schools provide a…

The handbook describes the structure and process of practica for teachers of students with severe and multiple handicaps at the University of Alberta. Guidelines for introductory practica are presented and eligibility, practica duration, and location of the practica are discussed. The handbook includes forms of evaluating individual and group…

The collection of papers by Swedish special educators, addresses approaches to helping mentally retarded and multiply handicapped people communicate. The papers are written by psychologists, educators, speech therapists, music instructors, and researchers and focus on the following topics: the context of communication (Mats Granlund), early…

A new approach to behavioral control with individuals having both visual impairments and multiple disabilities stresses the use of positive intervention strategies, bases treatment on functional assessments of challenging responses, and emphasizes broad changes in the lifestyles of individuals. Case examples illustrate applications. (Author/DB)

This article describes the use of a transition portfolio to help a student with severe, multiple disabilities make the transition from middle school to high school. It describes the information gathering process and desirable portfolio components including personal and medical information, positioning, educational programming, adaptations and…

Describes the work of the South Dakota Very Special Arts Festivals project to select creative media production activities and modify them to meet the needs of the mentally retarded or multiply handicapped festival participants. (CMV)

A teacher recounts a summer school program for 9 students (ages 9-16), all with hearing loss and several with other learning problems. Stressed is the role of the summer program in maintaining academic skills. Specific activities around the theme of "rivers" are detailed. (DB)

The mercury switch is a simple device which allows severely handicapped students to easily turn on or off electrical devices. Directions and diagrams are given for construction of the switch, its uses, modification of toys to utilize the switch, and correcting problems with the switch or other adaptive equipment. (DB)

Two new techniques that were used with a group of seven blind, multiply handicapped young adults in a half-way house are described. Structured learning therapy is a social skills training technique and group assessment is a method of averaging psychological data on a group of clients to facilitate program planning based on client needs.…

This article discusses the increasing incidence of cortical visual impairments, resulting from medical advancements making possible the survival of critically ill children with severe brain damage. Discussed are the prevalence of multiple handicaps, formation of visual concepts, foreground/background distinction, potential for mainstreaming, use…

Clinical features, pathogenetic hypotheses, and symptoms of the cardio-auditory or surdo-cardiac disorder first reported by Jervell and Lange-Nielsen are described, and methods of diagnosis and treatment are presented, to alert teachers and other professionals to potentially life-threatening symptoms they may observe when working with deaf and…

Case studies are used to demonstrate several strategies used in the San Francisco Bay area to ensure the inclusion of persons with dual sensory impairments and other multiple disabilities in integrated community employment. Strategies include heterogeneous group placement, job restructuring, use of natural support, volunteerism, and social skills…

Discusses the potential uses of literature with people with severe and profound learning disabilities and describes a series of multisensory interactive drama games re-telling the story of "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens. (Author/DB)

A blind multiply handicapped preschooler was taught to respond appropriately to two adjacency pair types ("where question-answer" and "comment-acknowledgement"). The two alternative language acquisition strategies available to blind children were encouraged: echolalia to maintain communicative interactions and manual searching…

A nationwide search to locate noncommercial instructional software appropriate for students with severe, multiple handicaps found 46 Apple II programs. Common curriculum areas were cause-and-effect training, language and communication, and cognitive development. Authoring programs were common, whereas academic programs were rare. The most typical…