First multi-year cumulation covers six years: 1965-70.

Research has documented the reciprocal effects of exceptionality and secondary psychosocial and behavioral characteristics. This in-depth handbook examines the categories of exceptionality most often described in educational, behavioral, and health practices. Leading authorities from psychology, education, and medicine evaluate the key characteristics of particular exceptionalities from the vantage point of theory, research, assessment, and intervention.

This volume presents an integrative framework for conducting individualized assessments of children and adolescents with a wide range of disabilities and chronic conditions. Expert contributors first provide an overview of the field, reviewing general strategies and approaches to developmental assessment. The volume then addresses the issues that arise in working with young people with particular challenges, including motor impairments, auditory and visual impairments, autism, chronic health conditions, neurological problems, and exposure to trauma. Described are concepts and tools to guide the practitioner in deriving an accurate diagnosis, planning appropriate interventions in clinic or school, evaluating progress, and monitoring treatment outcomes. Structured in a cohesive format, chapters review the nature of each condition and its implications for health, development, and functioning at different ages and in various domains. The uses of specific assessment instruments are considered, and needed modifications in settings, tasks, and procedures identified. Emphasizing methods that are flexible and multidimensional, the volume includes numerous illustrative case vignettes.

discussion on assessment of preschool children with the McCarthy scales of children's abilities, Weschler preschool and primary scale of intelligence revised, the fourth edition of the Stanford-Binet intelligence scale, Differential ability scales, and the Kaufman assessment battery for children. It also includes sections on assessing the multicultural child, the severely handicapped child, and the gifted child.

The public schools have taken on increasing responsibility over the last decade for providing in-school educational services to chil dren with low-incidence handicaps, children who, not very many years ago, would have been relegated to custodial care or limited to care only in the home. With the increasing responsibility for educating these children has come recognition that few of us have the requisite knowledge or skills to deliver high-quality services to these chil dren. University programs are providing more staff, but the existing staff must also be trained. We have been involved for several years, with the special education branch of the Nebraska Department of Edu cation in the provision of in-service training in the early identifi cation and assessment of handicapping conditions, when we realized an even greater need for training regular classroom teachers, administra tors, and psychologists in addition to early childhood special educa tion personnel about the nature of low-incidence handicaps and how they might be dealt with in the public school setting. Knowing the enormity and the expense of such an undertaking, we tenuously ap proached the State Department. They too were cognizant of this need and welcomed our ideas. Jan Thelen and her capable staff then took to coordinating the planning with us and the Nebraska Department of Education provided the fundings.

Preschool children have been largely neglected in the mental health treatment literature, although research has established that many behavioral and emotional disorders in children result from events occurring during the preschool years or are first manifested during this period. This has occurred for several reasons. Traditional psychoanalytic thinking has considered preschoolers to be too psychologically immature for complete manifestations of psychopathology, and the limited language abilities of young children have complicated assessment procedures and made them less appropriate for treatment approaches that are largely verbal in nature. In addition, the developmental complexity of the preschool period has deterred many researchers from investigating clinical issues with this age group. Partly as a result of the lack of information on preschoolers in the literature, practitioners have historically been uncomfortable in conduct ing assessments and initiating treatment with young children. They have often adopted a "wait and see" attitude in which formal mental health diagnosis and treatment are not implemented until after the child's entry into school. Unfortunately, such a delay may mean wasting the time during which mental health interventions can be maximally effective. Recently, this attitude has changed and practitioners now recognize the need for assessment and treatment of behavioral and emotional disorders early in life. What they require to assist them in the timely delivery of such services is information about assessment and treatment procedures specifically designed for preschoolers and with demonstrated efficacy with that age group.