The Journal of Special Education

Efforts to determine the cause of, diagnose, and prescribe treatment for behaviors associated with what is called hyperkinesis have been fraught with inconsistencies and confusion. Although the validity of the term has been questioned and the research plagued by problems of definition and design, the term continues to have appeal among educators, psychologists, and pediatricians. Because discussions and opinions are diverse, most reviews of research have focused on specific aspects of the term. This review attempts to identify collectively for the reader the myth, mystery, and substance of the salient issues. In addition to a general discussion and categorization of the research findings, a set of criteria is established to assist with identification and clinical judgment. Although the findings are unclear, there appears to be enough evidence to justify using the term. In view of the recent shift to the term attention-deficit disorder, outlined by the Diagnostic and Statistics Manual (DSM-III), and the repeated call of professionals to define subpopulations of children, there is a continued need to examine research outcomes in terms of its explainability, substance, trends, and new developments. This paper summarizes research findings and discussion regarding cause, diagnosis, and treatment. The information has implications for teachers as well as for other clinicians.

Mothers of learning-disabled and nondisabled children were interviewed to determine their perceptions of their child's strengths and weaknesses, causal attributions for these strengths and weaknesses, predictions for future performance, and evaluations of their child relative to other children. In comparison with mothers of nondisabled children, mothers of learning-disabled children described their children more negatively on each of the areas. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for the success of intervention programs.

Using INDSCAL (Individual Differences Scaling), the author investigated perceptions of disabilities of special education teachers, regular teachers, and nonteachers under conditions of undefined and defined disabilities. The perceptual spaces obtained were all multidimensional in nature, with the differences among them reflecting various degrees of complexity as well as specific types of contrasts used. The differences among the separate perceptual spaces notwithstanding, they share a common core that reflects a tripartite classification of disabilities, namely cognitive impairments, physical impairments, and behavioral-emotional disorders, as well as a generalized contrast between so-called normal and disabilities. Substantive implications of the findings are discussed in relation to current attempts to mainstream the handicapped.

Special education teachers of severely handicapped children are expected to identify appropriate educational priorities from among multiple programming needs. While such decisions are initially formulated with parents and other professionals at the Individualized Education Program (IEP) meeting, little is known regarding decisions teachers themselves are most likely to make on behalf of handicapped children. Study 1 investigated the relative importance attributed to various reasons for selecting target behaviors by teachers in comparison with ratings of naive subjects and clinical psychology doctoral students. A factor analysis suggested possible decision dimensions reflecting professional education practices. Study 2 presented special education teachers with a simulated but realistic IEP experience in which they were asked to formulate and rank their annual goals and objectives based upon a child's diagnostic and assessment data. The frequency of the child's excess behaviors had significant impact on the nature of identified educational programming priorities, while developmental level did not. Implications for the IEP process and for the quality of school programs for children with multiple behavior problems are emphasized.

To compare the effects of 3 tutorial reading programs, 53 elementary-aged disabled readers were assigned to 1 of 3 experimental (tutorial) treatments — hypothesis/test (H/T) instruction, oral-reading (OR) practice, or word-recognition (WR) training — or to a small group H/T control. Students received 20, 15-minute lessons and were tested on WR, OR, and cloze comprehension measures, and on a standardized comprehension test. Differences were significant on the cloze measure only: The H/T tutorial group scored significantly higher than the WR group. The tutorial and H/T control groups did not differ. Thus, the cross-aged tutors administered the H/T program as successfully as did the teachers working with small groups. The use of tutoring and H/T instruction in programs for disabled readers is advocated.

Learning-disabled (LD) and normal-achieving (NA) pupils' attributions, expectancies, affect, and persistence were assessed. Ability attributions for failure differed for LD and NA pupils. In addition, effort was judged as more important in determining success than failure for both LD and NA pupils. Furthermore, it was found that LD pupils were less persistent and were perceived by teachers to be more learned helpless than NA pupils. Findings are discussed in light of attributional and learned-helplessness literature.

The gifted child may appear in programs designed for handicapped children because giftedness is found in all student groups. Three relevant tasks are discussed: (a) developing staff sensitivity to the existence of gifted students who are also handicapped; (b) formulating an identification process that will not allow the weaknesses of children to mask their giftedness; and (c) developing a transdisciplinary team approach composed of regular class teachers, special program teachers, and gifted program teachers all working together with parents in creating an individualized educational program for each child. Within the identification process a major new element is the Teacher Observational Item (TOI) list, which contains 7 generally accepted indicators of giftedness that appear to not be influenced by a diverse culture, disadvantaged background, or handicapping condition.

A survey of state education agencies with respect to the use of special education paraprofessionals indicates that these personnel are gaining widespread popularity in the provision of educational services. As a result, their importance in the development of state and local comprehensive systems of personnel development is apparent. The authors support their position with data relating to certification, training, and local programming variables that pertain to special education paraprofessionals.