The purpose of this article is to examine one of the possible undesirable consequences of the trend toward mainstreaming handicapped young children, i.e., the increasing tendency to overlap the roles of regular and special education teachers to the extent that the educational programs for the two populations become the same. The differences between the populations of normal and handicapped young children are reviewed in terms of their implications for essential program characteristics. These are then used as the basis of a plea for recognizing and maintaining the unique characteristics of training programs that prepare personnel to work with young handicapped children.
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