The point of this article is to suggest that preschool special education programs which concentrate exclusively on identifying and ameliorating developmental deficits should have to empirically document the relevancy of these deficits to the children's functioning in future environments. If absence of the need for special placement is the only valid criteria against which early intervention efforts can be measured, as Lazar and Darlington (1978) have argued, then there is a need to rethink present approaches to assessment and curricular design. The consequence of not being intensely concerned with skills that increase the probability of referral to and maintenance in less restrictive settings is that the LRE requirement will not be achieved. Young handicapped children will be denied the communication, social, and academic skill gains that researchers are now beginning to document in integrated environments (Apolloni & Cooke, 1975; Guralnick, 1978, 1980).
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