Abstract
The misunderstanding and misuse of the label “severely/profoundly handicapped” may appear to call for the possible creation of yet another special education category. To create a new category would be a serious error, since it would tend to remove these children from the educational and social mainstream; it also would obscure the fact that the severely/profoundly handicapped exist across all of special education. This article examines various approaches to the problems of definition and categorization of the severely/profoundly handicapped, proposing a service-need definition, with emphasis on teacher competencies. Finally, the authors review what must be done within the profession to make it possible to achieve such a classification system.
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