The Des English Memorial Lecture provides an unique opportunity each year to reflect on the history that has brought us together and has carried us to this point in the evolution of the discipline of special education. It provides us with a time to dream, a time to foreshadow, a time to hint or guess at the better world that we strive to create in our classrooms each day, in our schools each week and in our administrative or academic systems each year. There are many lessons from the educational past for us to heed as we move forward towards the 21st Century and help forge the changes that our schools and services must necessarily undergo in order to serve well future generations of students with special academic and social needs.

This paper reports the results of part of a three stage examination of services to students with mild intellectual disability in two educational regions of New South Wales. The purpose of the study was to obtain a comprehensive picture of the educational services being provided to these students. The stages in the study included a questionnaire completed by 68 teachers, an interview administered to a sub-sample of 27 teachers, and observations in seven classrooms. The results of the study reported in this paper relate to characteristics of the teachers and school and classroom variables, the nature of integration occurring in these settings, and the resources accessed and needed by these teachers. The study found that the average class size was 13.3 children; boys out-numbered girls by 1.66:1; fewer than half of the children also participated in an integration program; about half of the teachers had been trained in special education; and most teachers would have preferred more support services than they were receiving.

This paper is the second of two which report the results of a three stage study of educational services to students with mild intellectual disability in two NSW Department of School Education regions. The three phases of the study involved a teacher questionnaire, a teacher interview and classroom observations. This paper reports results in the areas of curriculum and programming, teaching strategies and materials, and classroom management techniques within the special class setting. The study found that 85% of teachers would like a specific curriculum for students with mild intellectual disability and a similar percentage saw a need for greater inservicing and feedback on their programming. While teachers reported the use of a variety of teaching techniques including small group instruction, classroom observations showed that individual or whole class instruction was commonly used with no evidence of data-based instruction, cognitive, metacognitive or problem solving strategies. Some teachers found that classroom management took a considerable amount of their time while others, including those observed, had strong classroom control. Recommendations based on the findings in each of the three areas are also reported and discussed.

The teacher competencies movement in Australia is part of the larger national movement which is concerned about competencies statements for all trades and professions. Special educators are not exempt so that professional competencies statements or lists either are, or will be, developed for this profession. In the formulation process several issues and challenges will need to be addressed: the definition of the term “competencies”; the question of generic versus lists re specific disabilities; the purpose(s) of these lists; their dangers and benefits. We would do well to consider these issues now. We should also consider whether such lists or statements can encapsulate the essence of what good special education teaching is about.

In two experiments, the acquisition of literacy skills by three to six year olds was examined to (1) assess a possible developmental sequence of knowledge about print and word reading, and (2) compare the skill levels of good and poor six year old readers using a developmental model.

The first experiment involved 30 three, four and five year olds from a preschool and primary school who were assessed on a battery of tasks designed to measure five aspects of awareness of print and word reading concepts. The five aspects assessed were concepts about print, graphic awareness, phonemic awareness, grapheme-phoneme correspondence knowledge and word reading. Analysis of the data showed a developmental expansion of print related concepts and skills with age.

In the second experiment, using similar methodology, 25 good six year old readers performed significantly better than 22 poor six year old readers across all component measures and a developmental lag reading disability model was thus implied.

Provision of a writer for students with learning disabilities in examinations is still controversial among some academics and teachers. This is partly due to a lack of empirical research demonstrating the effects of such provisions on the performance of the student with learning disabilities compared to that of the student without learning disabilities. This study addressed the question of equity in the granting of such a provision, by reviewing the literature on the factors relevant to the written compositions of students with learning disabilities. An exploratory study of the examination scripts of students with learning disabilities and students without learning disabilities was conducted. The scripts were produced with and without the provision of a writer. The study revealed that while students with learning disabilities performed considerably better when using a writer, students without learning disabilities appeared to perform worse. A follow-up questionnaire explored some possible reasons for this pattern of performance. The paper concludes that, while there are still unresolved problems surrounding the use of a writer, such a provision for students with learning disabilities may not put students without learning disabilities at a comparative disadvantage, and so may be accepted as equitable. Further research is suggested.