Issues in the Instruction of Mildly Mentally Retarded Children

It is a basic assumption of special education that children experienc-ing particular types of learning dif-ficulty achieve best with instruction-al strategies different from those that are provided readily in the regular school program. If the prin-ciple of matching instruction to relatively homogeneous groups of children were correct and effective-ly applied in practice, there would be considerably less concern about racial disproportion in groups of children labeled educable mentally retarded (EMR). When children are validly matched with programs like-ly to accelerate their educational progress, minority and nonminority students alike, in whatever propor-tions, benefit. However, it often proves difficult in practice to compose groups with similar instructional needs, and to demonstrate that they benefit espe-cially from instructional programs that are distinct from those offered to other children. This paper, fol-lowing chapter 4 of the National Re-search Council (NRC) Report (Hel-ler, Holtzman, & Messick, 1982) considers what is known about the effects of different instructional programs for differently labeled children. We identify three major