The public schools have taken on increasing responsibility over the last decade for providing in-school educational services to chil dren with low-incidence handicaps, children who, not very many years ago, would have been relegated to custodial care or limited to care only in the home. With the increasing responsibility for educating these children has come recognition that few of us have the requisite knowledge or skills to deliver high-quality services to these chil dren. University programs are providing more staff, but the existing staff must also be trained. We have been involved for several years, with the special education branch of the Nebraska Department of Edu cation in the provision of in-service training in the early identifi cation and assessment of handicapping conditions, when we realized an even greater need for training regular classroom teachers, administra tors, and psychologists in addition to early childhood special educa tion personnel about the nature of low-incidence handicaps and how they might be dealt with in the public school setting. Knowing the enormity and the expense of such an undertaking, we tenuously ap proached the State Department. They too were cognizant of this need and welcomed our ideas. Jan Thelen and her capable staff then took to coordinating the planning with us and the Nebraska Department of Education provided the fundings.

Our knowledge of the cognitive and social-emotional functioning of developmentally disabled infants and preschoolers derives, in large part, from our assessment of such children. This book has been developed to familiarize readers with the characteristics of developmentally disabled children, and to introduce to readers aspects of measurement that are of relevance to the assessment of atypical infants and preschoolers. The book has been developed with clinicians and prospective clinicians in mind. These are individuals who are committed to the care and education of developmentally disabled infants and preschoolers and the families of those children. The book has thus been written to provide support for the use of assessment data in planning early interven tion programs. Of special note in the development of this edited book is that it is divided into four major parts with interrelated chapters in each part. The authors of chapters in Parts II and III had access to the chapters in Part I before writing their chapters. The summary chap ters found in Part IV were similarly written by authors having access to all chapters in Parts I-III. This approach to the development of an edited book was chosen as a way of ensuring an integration of major concepts throughout the book. This process is also a reflection of our belief that assessment is an interdisciplinary process, involving the syn thesis of a number of diverse interests.

First multi-year cumulation covers six years: 1965-70.

First published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.