It is axiomatic that people with intellectual disabilities have the same human and civil rights to education as other citizens and that they must therefore have the same opportunities to attend their local schools and educational facilities. This is a fine vision. But it is far from the reality experienced by the majority of people with intellectual disabilities across the world.

No country in the world has reason to be satisfied with the quality of the educational facilities which it provides for people with intellectual disabilities. But enough examples of good practice exist in different countries to make it possible for all of us to reappraise ways in which a higher quality of inclusive education and schooling could be provided for people with intellectual disabilities and the contribution that we can make personally and professionally to that process.

In the field of intellectual disabilities, we need to define education in very broad terms as anything which systematically promotes learning and development. Defined in this way, education is a lifelong process which neither begins nor ends with schooling. Similarly, it is carried out by many people who are not teachers. Parents are at the heart of this process from the outset. The years spent at school are clearly of vital importance but they are only one element of the educational process. There is a sense in which all work with people with intellectual disabilities is educational, whatever the setting, in so far as it helps them to learn and to develop knowledge, skills and understanding.

There can be no simplistic model of a “good teacher” - the perception of good teaching, like beauty, lies in the eye of the beholder and depends on the nature of the interaction between teacher and student (Batten: 1993, 13).

Autistic disorders are characterised by an absence of two way social interaction, an impairment in communication and a markedly restricted range of interests. Children with an autistic disorder often appear unmotivated and are prone to under utilise important environmental cues. Consequently they are often considered to be ponderous, callous and pedantic. Although debate still exists regarding the aetiology of the condition, a number of researchers (Leslie, 1987; Frith, 1991; Baron-Cohen, 1993) have proposed that what children with autistic disorders are displaying is a lack of “Theory of Mind” which prevents them from recognising that others have their own thoughts, beliefs and emotions. A discussion on the diagnosis of the disorder, with particular reference placed on Asperger’s Syndrome, is presented. Implications for educators and classroom intervention strategies are considered.

Education authorities throughout the world are striving to implement the principles of inclusive education. The Malaysian Ministry of Education has adopted these principles and is presently involved in translating them into practice. As part of this program, three teachers college lecturers and an officer of the Teacher Education Division undertook an intensive short-term training course at Flinders University in South Australia. The aim of this project was to devise a course in Inclusive Education that would be taught to trainee teachers in colleges throughout Malaysia. This keynote address describes the collaborative efforts of the Malaysian and Australian lecturers who developed the course and the experiences of one of these lecturers who has introduced the course into the curriculum of the Sarawak Teachers College. There are many lessons to be learned by examining how different countries attempt to solve similar problems. A number of these lessons are explored in this address.

I am honoured by your invitation to present a Keynote Address at the 19th National Conference of the Australian Association of Special Education, and particularly pleased to have the opportunity to return to Darwin. I last visited here in 1990, to attend the UNESCO South East Asia and South Pacific Sub-Regional Conference “Education for All”. In 1991 I left Australia to undertake an AIDAB (now known as AusAID), project in the South Pacific region. So I have had the opportunity to view at first hand the progress that has been made towards the UNESCO goal of “Education for AH”, in a number of Pacific countries, during the past four years.

Children who are admitted to hospital for short or long periods of time are affected by the medical circumstances in which they find themselves, but they are also disadvantaged by their inability to continue attending their local schools. In many Western countries, hospital school services are provided to meet the needs of this group of special students. This paper overviews the development of hospital school services, the role they play in the medical and educational welfare of hospitalised children, and the importance of their existence in fulfilling the social justice goal of education for all students.

Behaviour state appears to be a powerful variable in students who experience the most severe and multiple disabilities, impacting upon the effectiveness of educational interventions and ultimately the quality of life experienced by individuals with such high support needs.

Most recently, research attention has been paid to the many qualitative dimensions of behaviour state and although at an early stage, such studies have allowed for the delineation of important influencing factors in state change as well as serving to stimulate many new avenues for further research.

This discussion paper will examine, albeit tentatively, the implications of current research in this area with respect to best practice, including aspects of curriculum design and professional development. How effectively does a functional curriculum articulate with the priorities and directions suggested by such research? How can teachers and others working in this area be supported in the provision of meaningful interventions which promote and produce increases in optimal behavioural states? The paper concludes by suggesting future directions for research and practice.

It is a great privilege to give this lecture in memory of Len Cosson who was a colleague and a close personal friend. Life is full of ironies because those of you who remember Len’s teaching methods will know that he thought lectures were a total waste of time. However I think he would enjoy this occasion on two counts. Firstly he would appreciate the tribute and secondly, knowing his sense of humour he would enjoy enormously the spectacle of me struggling to turn a lecture into an educational experience. The theme of this lecture will be “Learning from George the Third’s Physicians or Minding is not Good Enough”.

Although support for the integration of students with disabilities has increased in the past 20 years in Australia, it has not been clear to what extent this support has resulted in less restrictive educational placements for these students. This paper reports the results of an analysis of trends in the placement of students with disabilities in Australian schools. The paper also discusses the influence on this educational placement by sex, age and number of disabilities of school students, and their State of residence. This discussion follows the analysis of portions of a national data set compiled by the Australian Bureau of Statistics that related to people with disabilities.

Apart from Iceland, Finland is the northernmost country in the world. Geographically it is one of the largest countries in Europe, but with only five million people it is one of the most sparsely populated. Like most other western countries, Finland has undergone a rapid process of urbanisation and change in occupational structure, although this did not begin until the 1940s. Nowadays about 65 per cent of the population live in urban areas (Statistics Finland 1991).

This study examined parent influence as perceived by gifted junior high school students and their parents. The 172 parents and their children ages 12 to 14 responded to parallel versions of the Parent Strengths and Needs Inventory which identified: (a) aspects of parenthood that are satisfying, (b) ways in which parents successfully perform their role, (c) the scope of teaching expected of parents, (d) difficulties with the obligations of parenting, (e) child behaviors which are frustrating to parents, and (0 information that parents need to know to function more effectively. Multivariate analysis of variance was utilized to determine the effects of generation of respondent, gender of parent, and child school performance on parent effectiveness. Analyses revealed significant main effects for all three independent variables. Interaction effects emerged for child school performance and parent gender. Implications are considered for planning parent education programs.

Hearing parents of young children newly diagnosed with a hearing loss typically know little of this condition or how it can best be managed. Information and assistance is available through early intervention programs. However, these take a variety of forms and offer different, sometimes conflicting, philosophies. The selection of an early intervention program is an important choice and one which requires parents to collect and assimilate large amounts of information and opinion. This must be done during what is, for most, a highly traumatic period. It is generally accepted that parents should make the major choices for themselves and their children, rather than have them made for them by experts, but that this should be done in a collaborative manner. This requires that the relevant experts are able and willing to provide information and advice which is balanced, comprehensible, and appropriate to the needs and abilities of the parents - that is, information and advice which is helpful. This study surveyed parents who had been through the early intervention process to identify the sources from which they obtained their information, and their perceptions of the helpfulness of the information provided.