Presented are guidelines for curriculum design and development for mentally handicapped children and youth. The diagrammatic introduction to the framework for curriculum development covers persisting problems of daily living, yearly scopes of investigations, and developmental organization of persisting problems. Practical guidelines on organizing for instruction include a tentative curriculum calendar, various scheduling forms, guidelines for conducting a core discussion, a listing of some furnishings and equipment for a primary classroom of educable mentally handicapped children, and goal oriented programing adaptable to residential training centers. Three extensive lesson plans are then presented for the educable mentally retarded in the primary range; the major topic is patterns for sequential learning of concepts and speaking vocabulary, which is divided into exploring things and tools around the child, and daily activities with family and classmates. A concluding section on special class dimensions and pupil selection consists of mention of tenets in education of the mentally retarded, a form for long range estimated needs, sampling of intellectual growth, suggested criteria for admission to special classes, and selected instruments related to educational assessment. (CB)