Special Education and the Electroencephalogram: Marriage of Convenience'

Timmy was 7 when he was referred by his school for neurological evaluation because of his short attention span and disinhibited behavior in the class-room. The school specifically re-quested an electroencephalogram (EEG). When after the neurologist’s examination an EEG was not recom-mended, the school informed the clinic that if one was not done the case would be referred elsewhere. An unusual case? No. In the exper-ience of the writer and his colleagues, there is an increasing tendency for educators to request an EEG to estab-lish the cause or category of a pupil’s difficult behavior. Educators have be-come more sophisticated recently in dea!ing with IQ scores, realizing both the limitations of the method and the attractiveness of a concrete number in a field where certainty is rarely pos-sible. However, in some parts of the country an abnormal EEG has been made a legal requirement for admis-sion to special education classes for the brain damaged or neurologi-cally impaired. This paper will attempt to clarify some of the limitations of the EEG and the controversies surrounding its use. This will be done in a critical and per-haps iconoclastic spirit that is not, however, meant to detract from the valid clinical usefulness of this instru-ment.