Written to aid the professional in understanding parental attitudes toward their exceptional children in counseling, the text could also be used by parents to better understand their children. Described are types of exceptionalities, incidence, psychological assessment and evaluation, and the intelligence range from mentally handicapped to the gifted. Discussions concern various parental reactions to their handicapped child, research on these attitudes toward mentally handicapped children, advice to parents, and parental attitudes toward the physically handicapped child, the gifted, the blind, the deaf, the emotionally disturbed, and those children with special health problems. Also analyzed are the psychological problems of parents with blind or deaf children. (JM)