Given the relative decline in the number of students identified with mild retardation, public schools are presumably now serving a more multiply handicapped population in educable mental retardation (EMR) programs. Therefore to examine the types of pupils with whom school personnel may be needing critical assistance, a sample of 84 school-aged children referred from a specific geographic catchment area of public school EMR programs was analyzed. Associated psychiatric and biomedical problems were clearly in evidence while levels of psychosocial adaptation at the time of referral were quite low. Data on these problems and on related services provided suggest that the types of educational and related service needs of the current population may indeed by quite different from those traditionally associated with this group.
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