ABSTRACT
Like I.Q. theory, verbal-deficit theories have had an enormous impact on educational theory and practice. However, because the verbal-deficit movement is more diffuse, the educational results have been more varied and ambiguous. However, there was nothing ambiguous about the early claims of some of the verbal-deficit theorists, and it is salutary to be reminded of some of them as this is the form in which they were-and still are-often most influential at a popular level. We have already seen how psychologists like Bereiter and Engelmann decided to treat certain children as if they did not possess a language. Their "academically oriented pre-school program" (see also Blank and Solomon 1969) proceeded on the assumption that certain nursery-class children needed to learn the basic elements of English.
