Responds to previous article (Gresham and Gansle, this issue) which reviewed relevance of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Third Edition-Revised (DSM-III-R), and concluded that DSM-III-R is largely irrelevant for school psychology practice. Calls Gresham and Gansle article rife with inaccuracies and misrepresentations that…

Responds to previous article (Gresham and Gansle, this issue) which reviewed relevance of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Third Edition-Revised (DSM-III-R), and concluded that DSM-III-R is largely irrelevant for school psychology practice. Discusses Gresham and Gansle's criticism of medical model views of abnormal behavior…

Reviews methods of treatment used with sex offenders, each based on the erroneous belief that sex offenders constitute a relatively homogeneous taxonomic class. Asserts that sex offenders are people with a sad personal history, in which their deviant sexual behavior represents an effort to banish the pain they experienced during their developing…

This paper suggests the use of the term "marked aptitudes" to describe exceptional attributes of pupils. It is felt that this avoids the misleading connotations of "gifted" and focuses on the specific area that is exceptional. (Author/DB)

Although Reuven Feuerstein's programs for culturally deprived, retarded, and autistic children have taken him 50 years to refine, this aging practitioner/philosopher/scholar looks forward to making further breakthroughs in helping "hopeless" youngsters grow and prosper. His Learning Potential Assessment Device, instead of pegging…

The paper discusses how to empower adult undergraduate students by removing the slightly negative term of nontraditional student, treating them as equals, and insisting that colleges and universities reframe their sense of services and activities to respect all ages and life circumstances. (SM)

A man with a developmental disability discusses the self-advocacy movement, the cruelty of stigmatizing labels such as "mentally retarded," and the need for greater involvement in professional organizations such as the American Association on Mental Retardation. He proposes a joint conference with a self-advocacy organization. (DB)

The overrepresentation of ethnic minority students, particularly African American males, in the exclusionary discipline consequences of suspension and expulsion has been consistently documented during the past three decades. Children of poverty and those with academic problems are also overrepresented in such discipline consequences. Sadly, a…

As people see a powerful technology and philosophical value system originally developed to promote the self-determination and inclusion of individuals students with severe disabilities applied to and having impact on the broader school population, they wonder what the outcomes will be. In this article, the authors reflect on two issues: (1) the…

The explanation of the anomalies that learning disabled students present depends on the discourse in which educators and researchers locate learning disabilities. The field of learning disabilities is a discipline in the midst of a paradigm shift in which the new discourses are incompatible with the field's basic tenets and assumptions.…

The paper raises concerns about current intervention practices used with children who, while not handicapped, have academic and/or behavioral problems and who may be labeled handicapped. A lack of options for these high risk students is noted in regular programs, and the impact on the student and the system of the referral-to-testing-to-labeling…

A commonly held bias in American society is that being an old woman is not a desirable state. One variety of this bias is stereotyping, which involves a restrictiveness of attitudes, so that old women are seen as possessing a limited and circumscribed set of qualities or characteristics. Restrictiveness also is associated with distortion and…

Individuals may be stigmatized (discredited) if their attributes make them less than what is expected for the social categories into which they are placed. A tentative typology of situations can be developed, based on their potential for producing the stigmatization of old age. In daily situations that do not demand excessive physical or mental…

The paper discusses H. Goddard's identification of the "moron" and advances the thesis that mild mental subnormality developed as a "scientific" explanation for the socially unacceptable behavior of economically marginal persons, with Goddard's classification being grafted onto a traditional identification based upon judgments…

It is argued that the same problems associated with the learning disabilities classification for hearing children may accompany this emerging classification for deaf children. Problems are discussed in light of instructional methods, individual learning and motivational styles, and parents' tendency to promote the learning disability level.…