The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) Division of Special Education (DSE), per Missouri Revised Statute 162.1136, conducts an annual study of the educational status of eligible blind/visually impaired students and reports the findings to the Missouri Legislature on December 1st each year. The information contained in…

Congressional intent and regulations, and court decisions interpreting the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, recognize the preference for mainstreaming handicapped children. Cases discussed indicate that mainstreaming is secondary to the goal of the Act to provide an appropriate education that meets the unique needs of each handicapped…

Short-term placements of children with visual impairments in residential schools for the visually impaired are presented as a feasible solution to difficulties experienced by these children in regular classrooms. The article discusses the duration, goals, implementation, evaluation, and administrative considerations of these placements and…

The types of programs that can be established for behaviorally disordered (BD) students are discussed, along with behavioral monitoring systems and approaches to establishing staff and administrative support for programs. In addition, a checklist of program components for BD students is included. The following program alternatives are described:…

Involving seven Tucson school districts, a children's home, and a child guidance clinic, the Covert School (Children Offered Vital Educational Retraining and Therapy) was designed to initiate, compare, and evaluate educational approaches to the problems of emotionally disturbed children. Six distinct approaches were implemented, including a…

This report covers year 3 of a 5-year longitudinal study that is applying a bilingual language approach to development of American Sign Language (ASL) and English language and literacy skills in deaf learners. Specifically, the report describes how 45 teachers and mentors in five residential schools participated in inservice training on the use of…

The paper examines state policies relevant to current alternative educational environments in each state's continuum of services for handicapped children. The analysis resulted from a review of information about program models in state special education regulations and state annual program plans. State descriptions of available program models fit…

Suggests how insights from Paul Bohannon's book, "How Culture Works" (1995), could be used to address such questions as, "How do deaf people learn their culture?" and "How do deaf children learn (what) culture?" Bohannon's idea of cultural dynamics is applied to deaf culture to trace how that culture evolved, how it…

This policy brief reports on a study exploring state by state variation in placement rates for students with disabilities in either regular or special education settings and the relationship of economic, sociodemographic, and educational factors to these rates. The study analyzed data for the school year 1992-93 and compared the percent of…

The difficulties experienced by deaf parents' hearing children (n=10) as they approached puberty were studied and compensatory education programs sought for them through residential and regular schools. The children exhibited conversational difficulties, memory problems, reasoning difficulties, and poor language comprehension. Children's…

Twenty-five graduates of the National Technical Institute for the Deaf were interviewed concerning their mainstream and residential school experiences. Respondents had an average age of 27 at the time of the interviews. Topics of discussion included classroom experiences, social interactions with other students, and participation in…

This paper presents an educational program for seriously emotionally disturbed students at the Yellowstone Ranch, a residential treatment facility and school focusing on the enhancement of each student's self esteem. Located in Montana, which in 1965 created a special school district to serve the needs of special needs children, the school has as…

This document is a compilation of Colorado Special Education Administrative Decisions issued in 1993 and 1994, including Impartial Hearing Officer decisions and complaint findings. Topics covered in the compilation include decisions on procedural safeguards, due process hearings, the extended school year, discipline (suspension and expulsion),…