The article examines trends in the role of special educators, including effects of social change on schools and teachers, the perceptions of teacher supply and demand, the increased legal responsibilities of teachers, the relationship of increased demands to teacher burnout, and future trends. (DB)

Contrasts ethical rationales for special education against the clearly identifiable motives and observable actions of special educators. Motives for special education career choice include altruism, scientific scholarship, economic necessity, opportunism, idiosyncratic bias, incompetence, and personal needs. Calls for consensus of what comprises…

The article briefly reviews the literature comparing group and individualized instruction and suggests ways special teachers who work on an individual basis with mild to moderately handicapped students can promote transference of independent work habits to the larger classroom situation. (DB)

Two measures to aid in the evaluation of instructional materials for use by either gifted children or their teachers are described. (DB)

Mainstreaming will increase the responsibilities of teachers, many of whom have little training in teaching the handicapped. A new relationship must be developed between regular and special educators. Special training and support services should also be supplied for teachers. (RLV)

The article discusses the problems and stresses teachers of the gifted may encounter in working with other teachers and the school system. The difference between role pressure, which is seen as a positive pressure, and role strain, which is viewed as a negative force leading to low morale, tension, and poor communication patterns, is considered.…

The author reviews past struggles over professional identity issues between speech therapists and learning disabilities (LD) teachers and current problems between reading teachers, occupational therapists, and LD teachers. (CL)

The article addresses three questions: What are the competencies needed for parent involvement in special education? What are the components of a training program? Who will do the training? Answers to the questions are discussed, particularly in relation to P.L. 94-142 (the Education for All Handicapped Children Act). (SBH)

Discusses fiscal support for special education personnel preparation programs in terms of factors which have altered and will alter service eligibility and service delivery patterns for the handicapped or developmentally disabled, current and future determinants of fiscal support for specialized personnel preparation programs, and ways in which…

Discusses the shift in special education teacher preparation programs from a medical orientation and a focus exclusively on the child, to a focus on the whole system in which the child functions. Highlights the need for special education teachers to work with communities toward more inclusive environments. (CR)

Describes the growing nihilism in teacher education and the charge that special education is not special but rather good general education. Discusses the need for special education teachers to articulate what is special about what special educators do, or risk being seen as inconsequential. (CR)

The seminar examined integration of blind children into regular primary schools in Argentina through defining the functions of the "integrating teacher" and the classroom teacher, specifying components of educational planning for the integrated blind child, and evaluating the importance of inter-institutional actions on integration. (DB)

An American who spent 18 years as a teacher at the Special School for Visually Impaired Children in Zurich, (Switzerland) recounts program characteristics in 1972, changes in the school since 1972, and personal reflections. (Author/DB)

This paper addresses methods of training special educators in the skill of reflective thinking during immediacy situations in the context of a structured intervention at Haifa University (Israel). Discussion considers D. Schon's reflection-in-action model of decision-making and problem-solving modes and R. Eisikovitis's Ethnographic model.…

The authors of EC 610 841 comment on problems encountered in their research, such as difficulties in analyzing interview data, and discuss their ongoing three-year study of personal and environmental influences affecting attrition of special education teachers. (DB)