Parents of 1003 children with moderate or severe intellectual disability attending state schools in New South Wales responded to a survey about provision of services from the time of suspicion or identification of their child’s disability. The survey sought to obtain information about the types of services the parents were offered, the services they used and were still using, and the extent to which they found the services beneficial. Another aim was to see if there were differences between responses of parents of older and younger children which might suggest changes over time or for children of different ages. Parents of younger children were more likely to have received helpful information and to have been referred to support services. Some children were found to be receiving up to eight separate services, while others were receiving nil. Special schools were rated as very useful by the highest number of parents, with parents of younger children showing a slight preference for an integrated placement. Work-related training or activity was mentioned by more than half of the parents as being required in their child’s future.

I am honoured to have been asked to deliver the Des English Memorial Lecture. While I never met Des English, I have long been aware of his signal contributions to the field of Special Education and have learned much in conversations with those who knew him well. It is thus a considerable challenge to respond to the invitation by the Conference Committee.

This article presents the background outlining the development of a locus of control measure designed to examine intellectually disabled students’ expectancy of control of reinforcement in the adaptive behaviour domains. The importance of students’ locus of control in behavioural situations is discussed, as is the theoretical framework upon which the Knight Adaptive Behaviour Locus of Control Scale was developed.

In the last decade, the 1980s, we have witnessed the consolidation and maturing of Special Education, a far cry from the post-Karmel era which saw a frantic rush to expand Australian Special Education, particularly in the area of teacher preparation. It is an appropriate time to review some of the key topics and issues which have shaped Special Education in Australia in the last decade and it should be a useful exercise, on the basis of mat review, to make recommendations for the next decade.

Corrective feedback has long been regarded as an essential element in the teaching-learning process. There is, however, little agreement among educators as to what constitutes appropriate feedback. In reading instruction, views on error correction differ in relation to the perspective on reading adopted.

In this study, the corrective feedback of whole language teachers was examined. The responses of teachers to a set of oral reading miscues were compared to recommended practices for whole language practitioners and to ideal feedback behaviour based on a review of the literature on effective teaching. This information was then used as a basis for examining both the strengths and limitations of whole language instruction for children who experience difficulty in learning to read.

Much of the international debate about reading and the acquisition of literacy skills has divided into support for psycholinguistic or phonemic approaches. Proponents of each have argued with evangelistic fervour.

More recently some researchers are suggesting an interactive model, which includes elements of both psycholinguistic and phonemic approaches. However, while recognising the need for cognitive strategies, the interactive model still fails to utilise fully the vast wealth of knowledge available from over two decades of cognitive research, and in particular, research into cognitive strategy training.

This article suggest that there is no one reading model to suit all learners, but that a reading program must consider the unique needs of each individual learner, and cater for the student by applying knowledge gained from a variety of relevant areas of research.

The desire of Nigeria as an independent country is to give to its citizens a free, just and democratic society where no one is oppressed. This humane philosophy guarantees maximum self realization to all citizens including children with special needs.

Nigeria was not always one country as it is today. The territory according to Iloeje (1981) was formerly made up of various states, empires and small territories. The largest and most influential of these was the Fulani Empire which extended over most of northern Nigeria in the nineteenth century.

As a result of British annexation of territory, Nigeria as a country came into being in 1914 when the then Northern and Southern Nigeria were amalgamated. Britain administered the country as one political unit for forty-six years. In 1960, Nigeria became independent as a federation of three regions - Eastern, Western and Northern, with Lagos as the federal capital. Nigeria now has twenty-one states, each with some degree of autonomy, and an estimated population of 120 million.

School failure often stems from a mismatch between the language used by children and the language used in schools. Central to the mismatch is the fact that schools use “extended texts” (i.e., long stretches of language that expound a topic). Extended texts impose major and unique language processing demands that are unfamiliar to many children. At the same time, these texts cannot be abandoned since they are central to the school’s educational mission. However, it is possible to modify the form they have commonly taken. This form, developed to meet the constraints of a prior time, is marked by dual disadvantages: a) it emphasizes memory for details, a skill that is problematic in many language disabled students and b) it is based upon “isolated” decontextualized concepts that do not support coherent discussion. This paper offers an alternative model for classroom text which involves the use of a) memory aids (i.e., materials to reduce the need for recall of verbal details) and b) “predicated topics,” (i.e., patterns for structuring conceptual information in a predictable and relevant manner).

Case-based teaching is one way of responding to the challenge of preparing general and special education teachers for the roles they are to assume. We discuss the rationale for case-based instruction and described our efforts to use this approach in teaching a course in behaviour management. Our impression is that although case-based instruction is a promising approach, it has limitations in teacher preparation. It is promising in that it gives voice to teachers’ practical knowledge and helps students become more reflective about teaching practice. It appears to be particularly limited as an approach with trainees who have no prior classroom experience, and it is no substitute for a working knowledge of basic principles.