Alternative Futures for Rural Special Education. Proceedings of the Annual ACRES National Rural Special Education Conference (8th, Monterey, California, February 24-27, 1988).

The document contains the proceedings of a February 1988, conference on alternative futures for rural special education. After a keynote address titled "Rural Is Where the Heart Is" by Phyllis Kaplan, the approximately 100 presentations focused on such topics as the following: work experience service delivery; needs based approach for comprehensive family services; using peer coaching; cooperative learning and effective instruction strategies to promote social integration of middle school and junior high school exceptional students; transition team building; preparation of personnel for minority handicapped children; serving an at-risk population in a rural area; a cooperative model program for college-age learning disabled; quantitative and qualitative differences among special education programs in rural, regional, and metropolitan areas; Maine's support network for rural special educators; rural Child-Find services; Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and children at risk--a collaborative intervention approach; developing community resources to support rural gifted programs; college extension courses and field experiences; parent input for special education program development; training parents of developmentally delayed children; importance of rural behavioral disorder teacher competencies to teachers and faculty; adaptive physical education; training and employment of paraprofessional personnel; team building--a transdisciplinary approach; developing a low incidence preservice training program; using telecourses for continuing professional education; and identifying training needs for rural special educators. (DB)