Four brief papers in this symposium examine clinical research, community mental health services, and policy issues of young children's mental health problems. First, "Risk Factors for Poor Mental Health Outcomes in Young Children Entering School" (Lynne C. Huffman, Sarah L. Mehlinger, and Amy S. Kerivan Marks) reviews the research and identifies…

The diagnostic framework presented in this manual seeks to address the need for a systematic, multi-disciplinary, developmentally based approach to the classification of mental health and developmental difficulties in the first 4 years of life. An introduction discusses clinical approaches to assessment and diagnosis, gives an overview of the…

This document presents guidelines for evaluation of early childhood special education programs in North Dakota. Following an introduction, a section considers six general program goals including the significance of families, the need for developmentally appropriate and individually appropriate practice, preference for service delivery in…

This booklet answers common questions about special education and students with disabilities. It was developed in light of the movement toward inclusion, through which more students with disabilities (and students with more serious disabilities) are being assigned to general education classes. The 28 questions and answers are grouped into five…

A study investigated (1) the everyday lives of Latino immigrant students at a large urban high school in the Southwest and (2) the educational program in place for this population. Subjects were 70 Latino students designated as limited-English-proficient (LEP) and placed in the freshman core English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) program in their…

This paper describes a model for assessing English speaking students with possible learning disabilities at a Spanish language immersion magnet school in St. Paul, Minnesota. The assessment process is based on established procedures for screening and assessment of Limited English Proficient/English Language Learners. Emphasis is on: (1) attention…

This thesis explores parental perspectives on hearing-screening of children, and the importance of the time of detection of a congenital hearing impairment for the child's development. A qualitative approach based mainly on interviews was employed, and the results were analyzed according to three different methods-empirical phenomenology, grounded…

Designed for teachers, this resource guide on gifted education discusses the identification of gifted students and different types of educational strategies that teachers can use with gifted students. Topics include: (1) providing gifted students with the most enabling learning environment possible; (2) identifying and defining characteristics of…

This final report describes the accomplishments and activities of a four-year federally funded project to improve special education and related services for children with deafblindness in West Virginia. The paper describes the accomplishments of each of the project's eight objectives: (1) to identify children with deafblindness; (2) to train…

This study provides a descriptive statistical analysis of the incidence of students who participate in the federal free/reduced lunch program and who are identified for a gifted education program at three Kentucky middle schools. There are 2,000 students enrolled in the three schools and the free/reduced lunch incidence varies from 60 percent to…

This paper reports on the first year's results of a screening procedure used to identify kindergarten and first grade children at risk of developing serious emotional disturbance. The Systematic Screening for Behavior Disorders (SSBD) is a three-stage, multiple-gated procedure for mass screening to determine whether a child should be referred for…

Six public specialized schools for high ability (gifted and talented) students that provide the opportunity to develop a particular skill or intellectual bent are described. Special attention is focused on philosophical concerns, problems, and benefits of the specialized school, along with student identification and admission, curricula, and…

Examined a trait-oriented job analysis technique based on 33 defined traits encompassing elements of the physical, mental, learned, motivational, and social domains of the work world. Discriminability tests showed support for the technique and indicated that job incumbents requiring a particular trait scored higher on measures of that trait.…

Among findings of the study were that over 75 percent of the states have statutory definitions of gifted and talented, 38 states have regulations or guidelines regarding the identification and screening of gifted children, and 42 states responded that they provided some type of inservice training for teachers (1976-77). (PHR)

This article questions the appropriateness of having self appointed specialists (the plaintiffs dictate to others (the school system) how to conduct their responsibilities, particularly with respect to providing children with the option of choosing to enroll in special educable mentally retarded programs. (CTM)