Problems of affirmative action programs in labeling minority group students as such are discussed from the viewpoint of a Mexican American who does not think of himself as disadvantaged but who was given special consideration and opportunities due to his label. (LBH)

Discussed are some negative implications of the final federal rules for evaluating specific learning disabilities (Federal Register, December 29, 1977), which conceptually redefined learning disabilities to mean an "underachievement." (DLS)

The rush to label schoolchildren as suffering from attention deficit disorder (ADD) or attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has reached nearly epidemic proportions. The diagnosis often meets parents' needs to assign behavior control to Ritalin; it should be an explanation leading to genuine help, not a license for unacceptable student…

An examination of state laws and regulations reveals confusion with regard to the classification of exceptional children, particularly in the structuring of delivery systems for language, speech, and hearing services. (LH)

Criticized are conventional special education approaches which are said to diagnose, label, and exclude handicapped children from educational services; and described is the diagnostic prescriptive teacher model developed at George Washington University in Washington,D.C. (DB)

A questionnaire survey of 565 professionals in seven occupational and organizational contexts (physicians, psychiatrists, elementary school counselors and principals, public and private social workers, and police officers) in Rhode Island was undertaken to investigate the process by which child abuse is defined and identified. In addition to the…

The development of the Social Work Problem Classification is an early step in the provision of a uniform nomenclature for classifying the needs and problems of children and youth. There are many potential uses for a diagnostic classification and coding system. The two most important for the practitioner are: (1) problem identification and…

Reports a study which shows that subjects can make discriminative judgments of a speaker's height and weight from his tape recorded speech. This ability is not altered by the filtering of the speech signal. (PMJ)

Explores ways that school counselors and other school personnel can identify children of substance abusers (COSAs) and address the issues and concerns associated with identification and labeling. Reviews pervasiveness of parental chemical dependency and potential impact of parental substance abuse on COSAs. Discusses behavior patterns of COSAs…

The practice of identifying violence-prone students via checklists of personal characteristics and behaviors is accompanied by unanswered questions, recognized weaknesses, and serious implementation implications (for special services, suspensions and expulsions, and student rights). Stereotyping, discrimination, and wrongful identification of…