ABSTRACT
Schools for mentally handicapped children need to consider teaching skills which in most normal children develop without formal tuition. There is a consequent need for knowledge of areas such as language development and self-help skills so as to provide guidelines for the curriculum. The chapter describes the original strategy, reformulations in the approach, the mode of dissemination and the problems associated with it. It is concerned with the development of a language intervention strategy for mentally handicapped children — the Derbyshire Language Scheme. Research on child development and education tends to have a slow and sporadic effect on teaching practice. The criterion for successful intervention was that the children used language skills spontaneously in social interaction in everyday settings. The facilitation of spontaneous use of language was to be based on a relationship with the child in which the adult did not dominate the interaction but encouraged the child to communicate.
