Presents excerpts of interviews of leading trendwatchers who have studied or participated in early childhood and prekindergarten efforts in public schools. Provides an excerpt from the National Child Care Association's position statement on publicly funded pre-k child care programs in public schools. (BB)

A primary teacher describes what it was like for her to have a first grade student with Tourette Syndrome. After discussing diagnosis and intervention, she makes suggestions for teachers who think they have students with similar problems. (SM)

Developmental Sentence Scoring (DSS) is a measure of spoken syntax that provides a numeric variable, provides some developmental data, and serves an organizing function for asking and answering clinical questions. DSS is useful in making diagnostic judgments, selecting goals and planning treatment, and measuring intervention efficacy. Difficulties…

A revised system was developed for documenting the rights restrictions of persons with mental retardation at a state residential facility. The system included a new form, response effort reduction, inservice training for staff, and staff feedback. Results showed an immediate and sustained reduction in documentation errors of 96 direct-care and…

This paper discusses the use of facilitated communication training with individuals labeled as intellectually impaired, including individuals diagnosed as autistic, at the DEAL Communication Centre in Victoria, Australia. The paper describes the clients, hand use problems addressed by facilitation, literacy, structuring success, fading support,…

The Preventive Systemic School Counseling Model helps students, through increased involvement of integral subsystems (school staff, parents, and community resources), to become responsible, effective adults. As family, school, and community roles change, the model develops cognitive and affective strengths and helps the educational system produce…

Interviews with 536 Arizona families of special-needs infants and toddlers examined nature and type of services received; satisfaction with services; parental involvement in service delivery; and needs for additional services, financial help, information, and emotional support. Parents' greatest concern was access to information. Rural-urban…

Children at risk for cognitive difficulties were put in two intervention groups, family and day care education and family education alone, and one control group. Children were tested for cognitive performance. The family and day care group scored higher than other groups. No intervention effects were observed for the family education alone group.…

Proposes steps to address the broad developmental needs of children at risk. Discusses implementation of the President and Governors' Education Summit national performance goals to reform the schools and improve education, especially the goal involving readiness to start school. (BB)

Recent research shows that at-risk young people involved in well-planned and supervised peer-tutoring situations improve their grade point averages, literacy and study skills, reading comprehension, ability to identify long-range goals, and self-confidence. This article describes a high school peer-tutoring program applicable to middle school…

Jumpstart, a homegrown before-school tutoring program piloted at a Massachusetts school, has proven successful with at-risk first graders. Implemented as a low-cost alternative to Reading Recovery and Success for All programs, the 18-week action-research project employed 11 inclusion and Title I aides as volunteers. (MLH)

Describes the four modules of a project for enhancing the knowledge and skills of educators to better serve children with attention deficits, and the inservice personnel-preparation program based on these modules. Modules focus on characteristics and identification, model school programs, effective classroom interventions, and policy and…

A statewide survey was conducted of 529 early-childhood special-education professionals' perceptions of education and intervention for deaf and hard-of-hearing children. Recommendations include preservice and/or inservice training for professionals, as well as fuller participation and leadership from the field of deaf education. (DB)

A decade-long research program is described that has focused on the development of the functional writing systems and its connections during the development with the aural/oral language and reading systems in school-age children. Applications of this research to assessment and educational intervention for specific writing disabilities are…

In response to a legislative mandate to teach phonics, a rural North Carolina school district devised a plan where at-risk children received small-group instruction in phonics, reading, writing, and spelling in addition to regular reading instruction. A local university trained teacher assistants to implement the plan. Reading, writing, and…