Although it is generally acknowledged in research that handicapped children represent a disproportionate number of abuse and neglect victims, nearly half of the states do not collect any information on "special characteristics." Results suggested a significant lack of services to improve awareness about the influence of exceptionalities in abusive…

The underlying reasons for muddled definitions of emotional disturbance and their resultant befuddled diagnostic processes are discussed in terms of four factors: (1) the impact of theory, (2) societal diversity, (3) benchmarks for decision making, and (4) instrumentation. The author presents a method for diagnosis that is practical, functional,…

The author asserts that the diagnosis learning disability is applied too often and too loosely. It is recommended that the possibility be considered that poor school adjustment may be due simply to immaturity and unreadiness rather than to some general learning disability. (Author/CL)

The author reviews research on early deprivation and neglect and recounts his own experience with children whose dwarfism is attributed to abuse or neglect. The existence of specific learning disability and diminished IQ in many of these children is cited. The author suggests further attention to the problem. (CL)

PANESS total score was reliable and significantly correlated with relevant indices of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised. (Author/CL)

Paraprofessionals can be valuable in the education of handicapped students by taking part in assessment and identification, instruction, behavior management, record keeping, parent interaction, career education, and transportation. (CL)

The authors describe their methods for establishing the presence or absence of the fragile-X chromosome and discuss some of the clinical implications of their findings in relation to the clinical diagnosis of autism. (SW)

The study examined the use of A. Bannatyne's Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R) subtest score recategorization hierarchy in identifying elementary students with learning disabilities (LD). The results indicated that Bannatyne's pattern was of little value in differentiating between LD students and nonLD students and, if…

The author discusses the dangers of using grade equivalency scores to identify learning disabled students. Deficiencies include that grade equivalents invite misleading interpretations, assume that the learning rate is constant throughout the school year, and exaggerate the significance of small differences in performance. Standard scores are…

Thirty kindergarten children with teacher-identified learning difficulties were matched for age, sex, and socioeconomic status with 30 children who were not experiencing any problems learning. The matched control group exhibited superiority on all A. Bannatyne categories. However, the predicted Bannatyne pattern for the group with learning…

Preliminary findings from a longitudinal study of 32 preschool children who stutter and 32 nonstuttering controls reveal 4 subgroups: (1) persistent stuttering; (2) late recovery; (3) early recovery; and (4) control. Comparative data for the groups regarding frequency of disfluency, acoustic features, phonologic skills, language development,…

Evaluates the effects of rater reliability of common IQ and achievement tests on subsequent learning disorder eligibility determinations, particularly with respect to difficulty level of individual subtests and expertise of the scorer. The study corroborates previous findings of strong interrater reliability on most subtests of common IQ and…

The differentiation of childhood apraxia of speech from severe phonological disorder is a common clinical problem. This article reports on an attempt to describe speech errors in children with childhood apraxia of speech on the basis of gesture use and acoustic analyses of articulatory gestures. The focus was on the movement of articulators and…

Unfortunately, racial disparities are well documented in the delivery of behavioral health services. This study examines the effects of implementing a decision support process, integrating clinical information into the administration of mental health services, on racial disparities in psychiatric hospital admissions for children in state custody.…

Down syndrome is the most common genetic cause of mental retardation and one of the most frequently occurring neurodevelopmental genetic disorders in children. Children with Down syndrome typically experience a constellation of symptomology that includes developmental motor and language delay, specific deficits in verbal memory, and broad…