Twelve chapters describe efforts under Project AMES (Actualization of Mainstream Experience Skills) to teach functional vocational and community living skills to moderately and severely handicapped students. The first chapter details Project AMES' components (vocational, community mobility, domestic living, and recreation/leisure skills) and describes the project's approaches to such aspects as parent involvement, community support, personal awareness/sex education, recordkeeping/data analysis, nonschool functional instructional strategies for speech and language, and program evaluation. Additional projects using similar approaches are then described, including nonschool instruction; community based training; training in using a calculator for grocery purchases; an environmental analysis for grocery shopping; task analysis of vocational tasks; school based simulated workshops and community development; training in community functions (such as using a library, eating out, and using a phone booth); leisure skill instruction; and daily living skills development. Projects share philosophical commitment to the need for generalizing skills to the community, teaching skills that are chronologically appropriate as well as functional, and providing opportunities for students to participate as much as possible in the curriculum. (CL)