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ABSTRACT Current special education practices in the USA have failed to produce satisfactory results for students in terms of their learning, return to general education settings, graduation or preparation for post‐secondary education, employment or citizenship. Minor changes at the margin will not produce the necessary educational reforms. What is needed is a new paradigm based upon a different set of premises. These include new conceptualizations in terms of: (1) the relationship between the individual, his or her impairment and the resulting handicap; (2) the understanding of intelligence; (3) the location of the problem; (4) the role of the individual as learner; (5) the relationship between location of learning and level of services; (6) the roles of parents; and (7) the relationship of special to general education. Only with new understandings in these (and other) areas can we build an educational system that provides quality education for students labelled as handicapped, one that sees them as ‘capable of achievement and worthy of respect’.
Gartner et al. (Wed,) studied this question.