Observational data were collected on the instructional tasks used by 122 elementary students (30 learning-disabled, 32 emotionally/behaviorally disturbed, 30 educable mentally retarded, and 30 nonhandicapped). No differences between handicapped and nonhandicapped students were revealed in an analysis of time using each of eight specific tasks (readers, workbooks, worksheets, papers and pencils, listening to lecture, other media, teacher-student discussion, fetch/put away) and two task composites (teacher-directed tasks and paper-focused tasks). For those students who received instruction in both mainstream and special education settings, comparisons of the tasks used for different handicap categories revealed that a greater proportion of time was devoted to teacher tasks with emotionally/behaviorally disturbed students as compared to other categories of students. Significantly larger proportions of time were spent on paper tasks and significantly smaller proportions of time on fetch/put away tasks in the special education setting compared to the mainstream setting. In general, findings suggested that the same instructional tasks are being used with handicapped and nonhandicapped students, as well as with different types of handicapped students; and there are minimal differences in instructional tasks used across mainstream and special education settings for handicapped students. (Author/JDD)