Evaluated was the effectiveness of four treatment procedures in reducing self-injurious behaviors (handbiting and headstriking) of 22 nonverbal severely mentally retarded children, approximately 10 years old. Among results were that contingent restraint was more effective in reducing behavior below baseline levels than positive reinforcement,…

Summarizes Miami-Dade Community College's comprehensive educational program reform, research concerning several components of the new program, and results of a longitudinal study comparing student performance prior to and after the reform. (DMM)

Describes the operation of Project HELDS (Higher Education for Learning Disabled Students) on one campus. Evaluation results showed the use of existing university resources such as tutoring and taping books and lectures had a meaningful impact on the academic achievement of the 27 participants. (JAC)

Urges accurate assessment of program implementation and the determination of student performance in areas not measured by achievement tests. Offers indicators of hard-to-measure levels of achievement in teachers and students, as they have been developed in the Johnson City, New York, Public Schools' mastery learning approach. (JW)

Sketches the Ohio Department of Education strategy for making effective schools, that is, by defining school effectiveness and by citing the general factors influencing the conduct of effective programs. (JW)

Asserting that school psychology has matured with increasing confidence and respect for its responsibilities, problems, and potential, the goals and action plans resulting from the proceedings are discussed. These include: professional accountability; political action; public relations, research roles and values in the discipline. (CM)

Curriculum developers should consider middle level learners' needs for intellectual growth and individual attention and their needs to understand themselves and know others. (MLF)

Describes a study of 300 college and university basic skills programs conducted to obtain information on organization, skills emphasis, placement and exit criteria, staff training and professional development, effective teacher qualities, and relationships with other college programs and services. Summarizes site visit and survey findings…

A personality research study using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator indicates that computer-assisted instruction programs favor introverts, i.e., those learners who can concentrate on details, memorize facts, and stay with a task until it is completed. (JJD)

Provides a systematic approach toward a remedy of the current stagnation in program monitoring and program evaluation, particularly in the field of drug abuse prevention and intervention. This approach introduces a Uniform Progress and Evaluation Reporting System (UPERS), which is capable of rendering comparative judgments across various agency…

Driving While Intoxicated (DWI) offenders (N=151) identified as alcoholics were coerced to seek treatment for their alcoholism. A follow-up study six months later revealed that these coerced alcoholics did no better or no worse than other alcoholics entering treatment without coercion. (Author/RC)

The failure of common methods of research synthesis to arrive at conclusions about effectiveness of special education is discussed. Meta-analysis, the analysis of analyses, is proposed as an alternative. Results of meta-analyses in the areas of special versus regular class placement, process training, and medically-based intervention are…

Describes an independent reading program for gifted students used by the the Blue Mountain Union Schools in Wells River, Vermont. (JL)

The first of three articles covering child nutrition programs discusses how these programs can be integrated into the school environment through effective management and public relations. (MLF)

Stressing the feasibility of "training," and not education, in the humanities for health professionals, the author presents a catalog of training activities at the University of Tennessee, assesses the successes and failures among them, and indicates some future directions for medical humanities. (SK)