The Critical Need for Nonschool Instruction in Educational Programs for Severely Handicapped Students

Abstract

A brief historical review of educational service delivery models for severely handicapped students is provided, six learning and performance characteristics and some of their educational implications are discussed, and four instructional location strategies and some of the pros and cons of each are also addressed.

The thesis offered is that placement of severely handicapped students in chronological age appropriate regular schools that are both close to their homes and in accordance with the natural proportion is necessary but not sufficient to prepare for acceptable functioning in vocational, domestic, recreation/leisure, and general community environments upon graduation at age 21. Educators and related service personnel must provide direct, individualized, longitudinal, comprehensive, and systematic instruction in a wide variety of heterogeneous nonschool environments. Indeed, decisions related to selection of nonschool instructional environments are considered so important that they should take precedence over those related to selection of skills, materials, and measurement systems.