An examination was made of the employment patterns of school leavers who had graduated from the four Christchurch work-experience programmes for mildly retarded children during a 4-year period in the current economic recession. Contrary to expectations, no differences were found in the employment patterns for graduates of each of the four years. In each year-group, levels of employment were high as were meantimes in employment since graduation, and frequencies of job changes were low. Several methodological problems which cloud interpretation of the results are discussed and the need for comprehensive and consistent monitoring of the employment patterns of mildly retarded school-leavers over the next few years is emphasised.

Programmes for teaching English as a second language (E.S.L.) to infant school aged migrant children in Australia have not been systematically evaluated. With the exception of the Tate “Oral English” Course, no other programmes have been specifically designed for this very young age group, and programmes designed for use with primary aged children and even adults have been adapted and used by E.S.L. teachers in Infants’ Schools. The aim of this investigation was to evaluate an E.S.L. programme currently operating in some Infants’ Schools as well as to implement and evaluate the use of the Distar Language 1 programme in an E.S.L. Kindergarten group, and to compare outcomes from this programme with those obtained by the currently operating programme.

Results indicate that the Distar Language 1 programme was more effective than the standard programme for all language structures other than vocabulary development and phonological discrimination. The superior outcome of the Distar programme may be due to either a programme effect, a behavioural teaching technology, or both.

Alternative curricular and instructional approaches for behaviour disordered children are reviewed against a background of various definitions and perspectives of disturbance. Schooling is a major part in the life of all, including behaviour disordered children. An overview of curriculum designs and instructional approaches is discussed according to “appropriateness” and “effectiveness”. Consideration is made of the current trend to mainstreaming and individualization and it is noted that the great majority of “disturbed” children are currently in the regular class. They are seen to be included in the “handicapped” population. Five major projects which have focussed on instruction of the handicapped are examined. It is stressed that all teachers need to be equipped with competencies, skills and support services to be able to effectively teach all children who are either currently in their classrooms or are being placed in there as a “least restrictive alternative”. Behaviourally oriented, empirically based curricular and instructional approaches are seen as a vehicle by which the repertoires of disturbed or behaviour disordered children can be widened.

Recently Maggs described a model for the delivery of technical assistance in special education settings in which he emphasized the importance to service delivery of the role played by consultant personnel. This paper identifies three fundamentally important influences on the work performance of consultants, whether they are working “traditionally” or within a model such as that proposed by Maggs.

Concern for the academic-skills area of normal classroom students has marked the resurgence of interest in the basic skills of literacy and numeracy (Baum, 1976; Corbin, 1976; Hogan & Judy, 1976). School counsellors and other resource personnel can contribute to the classroom teacher’s effectiveness in these areas by providing advice and demonstrating procedures useful in the teaching of these basic skills. Although there has been a major focus upon such areas as reading and mathematics, the abovementioned concern with literacy skills should also encompass handwriting as a major medium of communication. As a result of many requests from teachers in the field, the authors instituted the following study with a child who was experiencing learning difficulties. The study had three aims:

• (1) to improve the handwriting performance of peter, a 7 year old with few successul handwriting skills;

• (2) to implement a self-evaluative teaching system in which Peter would eventually monitor his own handwriting Performance; and

• (3) to demonstrate to teachers a method of evaluating handwriting which they could use in their classrooms.

The extent to which young people with emotional and behavioural disturbances can remain integrated within the normal school is contentious. The article proposes that every effort should be made to maintain integration and that an Alternative Unit is one means of helping to bring this about. The Alternative Unit would not only work with students in the mainstream but could also function as an intermediary between mainstream and special education.