On November 29, 1975, President Ford signed into law the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of Public Law 94 - 142. This is the most comprehensive and complex piece of legislation for the handicapped to become federal law. Unlike other federal education laws, it is not permissive. States may or may not qualify for federal aid in carrying out the law, but regardless of the availability of funds, all states are required to provide free appropriate education to all handicapped children between the ages of 3 and 18 by September 1978, and between the ages of 3 and 21 by September 1980. Also, unlike other federal education laws, this law has no expiration date but is regarded as permanent. The law reflects not only interest but a specific commitment to all handicapped children.

Specialised methods that are geared toward individualized programs may prove ineffectual with the moderately retarded child when instruction is provided in a small group setting. The demands of attending behaviour and observing behaviour may conflict. The effects of vicarious learning may depend upon active verbalization by observers (Cullinan, 1976) the provision of verbal rules, task complexity and the gender of the observer and model (Litrownik, Franzini and Turner, 1976), the combination of modelling and verbal cues Yoder and Forehand, 1974) and the utilization of self-reinforcement and self-instruction techniques (Guralnick, 1976). Others have studied the effects of reinforcement given to one subject while a second observes (Bandura and Walters, 1963; Barnwell and Sechrest, 1965). Studies have examined the effects of vicarious reinforcement upon behavioural problems in educational settings (Becker, Engelmann and Thomas, 1971; Broden, Bruce, Mitchell, Canter and Hall, 1970; Meacham and Weisen, 1969) and upon work performance in a sheltered workshop setting (Kazdin, 1973).

In the last 20 years there has been considerable attention given to what has become known as the Doman-Delacato technique for the treatment of learning-disabled children (Delacato, 1959, 1963, 1966; and Doman, Spitz, Sucman, Delacato, and Doman, 1960). The treatment technique is based upon a theory of neurological organization that argues that each child's ontological neurological development is the same as phylogenic development of man as a species. It is argued that after conception the neurological development of man proceeds through successive resemblances to the fish, amphibian, animal, mammal, and finally becomes that of homo sapiens. This series of resemblances is considered to be a reflection of the development of the central nervous system from the spinal cord, through the old brain to the cerebral cortex and finally to the emergence of the dominance of one cerebral hemisphere.

The use of operant techniques in the teaching of language and speech skills has developed to the extent that rehabilitation of pathological speech conditions such as asphasia and stuttering has been repeatedly demonstrated (Sloane and MacAulay, 1968). Children labelled psychotic and autistic are also reported to have benefited from operant approaches (Lovaas, 1968; Hewett, 1965). Later work by Baer and Guess (1971), and Wheeler and Sulzer (1970) developed complex speech patterns in their subjects. The latter developed telegraphic speech into a complete sentence format and Baer and Guess developed correct use of comparative and superlative adjectives.