The decision of the Australian Association of Special Education to sponsor a national study to investigate the effectiveness of Direct Instruction with mildly retarded children, is the climax of several years of burgeoning interest in and support for the approach. Initial advocacy of Direct Instruction was undertaken by Alex Maggs and his co-workers at Macquarie University (Bracey, et al 1975a, 1975b; Maggs and Morath, 1975, 1976a, 1976b; and Maggs and Moore, 1978). Today, proponents of the approach may be found in any number of schools, colleges and universities across the country.

The effects that historical, philosophical and empirical factors have had upon the development of special education in Australia for children with learning disabilities/difficulties are examined. It is suggested that owing to the early neglect by the various education departments in providing effective services there has been a resultant dearth of professionally competent personnel to implement policies being formulated upon the emerging philosophies in special education. It is therefore argued that Australia requires an effective thrust into research at the classroom, the delivery and the teacher preparation levels so that the relatively diminishing resources for education may be better utilized for the child with a learning problem.

A program aimed at improving the quality and quantity of oral exchanges between teacher and pupils during oral language sessions was examined. The particular program devised and implemented focused on reducing pupil call-outs by means of a group contingency procedure where time spent on listening to a story being read was contingent on keeping below a particular call-out rate. The study involves the use of Grade Seven pupils as data gatherers and suggests that beneficial social ‘spin-offs’ resulted between the Grade Seven and Grade One pupils. The reduction in the rate of call-outs during both treatment phases was statistically significant. Reinforcement (i.e., story reading), either partial or maximum, was obtained 80% of the time.

The number of agencies inevitably involved with families of handicapped children suggests the necessity for co-ordination of services and liaison among professionals in the helping professions. This paper argues for the primacy of parents as both coordinators of services and fully informed partners in all decisions affecting their handicapped children. The far-reaching implications of this proposition for educational services are briefly discussed in the context of current developments in special education.

Community management is proposed as a sound, economical and demonstrably successful alternative in the management of young and disabled children. The author seeks to go beyond the health-education debate in this matter towards a welfare oriented model based upon principles drawn from a diversity of disciplines. One such principle incorporates the natural law of utilising forces to counterbalance forces – a principle fundamental to most areas of science but one which is rarely extrapolated for use within social science generally, or management of the disabled specifically. In the Darling Downs project in Queensland, Australia, resource families are deployed to counterbalance or assist “disabled” families with the support of professionals in the community network. The paper sets out the variously derived principles underlying the Darling Downs project and then provides a detailed description of other aspects of the framework including funding, administration, services, procedures and current developments. The programme is then analysed in terms of its anticipated directions, strengths/weaknesses, limitations and applicability to the other situations.