This article discusses health fraud in special education. Psychopathology of health fraud, standards by which pseudoscience and quackery are defined, and the complexities of learning disorders are considered. A scale to determine whether an alternative therapy is reasonable is presented. Several popular therapies are used as examples. (Author/PB)

Twenty-four abused children, judged unable to participate in a public school setting due to developmental delays and abnormal behaviors, attended a therapeutic preschool for physically and sexually abused children from 1985-88. Most children made developmental gains at a faster-than-expected rate, and over 79 percent were staffed into the public…

A treatment approach for sexually abused adolescent girls, using a group work model, incorporated three treatment modalities: a skills component, a psychotherapeutic component, and an educative component. Abused girls demonstrated difficulties in many areas of their lives. The six participants showed improvement according to self-statements and…

This article presents key ideas from Lev S. Vygotsky's social-interactionist zones of proximal development theory and applications of this theory to assessment and intervention with children having language impairments. A case study illustrates the steps in coordinating assessment and intervention. (Author/DB)

This test, the Silver Drawing Test (SDT), evolved from a belief that the intelligence of children and adults who have poor language skills tends to be underestimated. The aim of the SDT is to provide an instrument for assessing the cognitive skills of individuals who have difficulty understanding others and making themselves understood. There are…

Alternatives is a project designed for youngsters, ages 11-15, who display serious conduct problems and severe learning deficiencies. The primary goal of the project is to prevent the development of a chronic antisocial orientation among youngsters who are at high risk for such an outcome. The interventions employed at Alternatives are based on…

Looking at prevention from the perspective of the psychoeducational skill-training model sharply diminishes the apparent differences between psychologically based treatment and prevention since both are seen strictly as educational processes. The sole important difference is timing, with treatment being delayed and relatively inefficient and…

This paper describes the results of the first year of the Eagleville Reading Academy and Satellite Program, a demonstration project funded by the U.S. Office of Education, Right to Read. Eagleville Hospital and Rehabilitation Center treats addicts and alcoholics in a combined abstinent therapeutic community program setting. The goals of the…

Children who have learning disabilities which prevent achievement in skill subjects or behavioral difficulties which interfere with learning can be helped to learn to substitute more adaptive patterns for madadaptive ones. Because learning disabilities are only part of a disordered developmental process in a child, both clinical and competence…

This notebook for teachers is the result of (1) a workshop held to discuss ways of working with children who do not respond in traditional ways to learning, despite their high IQ's and apparent abilities, and (2) a questionnaire which was sent to various schools inside and outside the United States designed to elicit specific information on what…

"Communication apprehension" is a broad-based fear or anxiety associated with either real or anticipated communication with another person or persons. The purpose of this paper, the fifth in a series of five dealing with communication reticence is to speculate on the causes, correlates, and effects of communication apprehension. The…

This paper defines social withdrawal from a social skills perspective and presents a fourfold classification system of children's social skills deficits. The paper reviews the literature in discussing assessment procedures; social skills training strategies (modeling, coaching, peer-mediated interventions, and group contingencies); and…

This literature review focuses on behavioral intervention strategies for the reduction of school-related fears and anxieties. Major behavior therapy procedures are discussed: systematic desensitization and its variations, modeling, self-control, and cognitive behavioral approaches. General research trends in fear and anxiety reduction are also…

The article describes components of school-based programs that have demonstrated efficacy in treatment of depressed children and adolescents. Components include self-monitoring, activity scheduling, cognitive restructuring, attribution retraining, self-evaluation training, self-reinforcement training, and relaxation training. Results of studies…

Research evidence relative to three intervention strategies (medication, behavior modification, and cognitive training) was examined to determine the intervention effects on handicapped students' performance in personal/social, psychological processing, and educational skills domains. (PHR)