So You're Going to Hearing: Preparing for a Public Law 94-142 Due Process Hearing (review)

Reviews damental to mathematics and reading. Its purpose is to identify potential in subjects who otherwise might be thought cognitively deficient , rather than to measure particular cognitive skill levels. The Silver Test suffers from the common tendency to fail to distinguish beyond cognition as the process being measured. The three subtests are designed to reflect different types of cognition —conceptual, spatial, and sequential thinking —but not to distinguish among levels of sophistication . Silver is not to be faulted for the imprecision that attends our limited knowledge of just what is involved in cognition, but there is regrettable generality in any measurement that fails to distinguish between primarily perceptual and clearly conceptual cognitive processing (as in the difference between matching objects by color and distinguishing between two abstract theories). While it is true that the role of language in cognition is unclear, there is no doubt that highly abstract thought depends upon language . Hence an instrument that bypasses language cannot measure language-dependent abstract thought, and the claim of testing cognitive ability is too broad. A second concern arises from Silver's report of four studies in which subtests were significantly better than their pretraining scores while control group scores remained stable. Silver implies that art training facilitates cognitive development , presumably through practice with visual representations and resultant cognitive manipulations, but he does not address a basic problem: If the test measures presumably stable cognitive ability, rather than learned cognitive skills, then subjects' scores should remain stable . Significant improvement in a 3 month period suggests that something more specific than general cognitive capacity is being measured. Silver's failure to deal with this fundamental problem undermines the confidence with which this test can be taken as an equally strong alternative to standard cognitive measures. However , the fact that it does provide a vehicle to subjects who do not have faculty with the language of the standard cognitive tests, and the fact that the Silver Test does correlate well with those standard tests, makes it a useful instrument for identifying cognitive potential where it otherwise might be overlooked. Susan L. Sharpe University of Wyoming Laramie, WY 82071 So You're Going to Hearing: Preparing for a Public Law 94-142 Due Process Hearing, Barbara Bateman, J.D., PhD, 32 pp., paperback, Hubbard, P.O. Box 104, Northbrook, IL 60062, 1980. "Due process" hearings under PL. 94-142 are odd legal creatures. Originally intended to be relatively informal dispute-resolution mechanisms , they have become increasingly legalistic. As a result, hearings present many traps for unwary parents, lay advocates, school teachers, and administrators. This booklet succinctly outlines the procedural steps in a typical hearing. It is intended to advise lay participants how to organize and conduct hearings. It warns of some of the likely procedural and logistical problems they may confront. But if there is one unspoken message here, it is that parents and administrators may be better advised to hire lawyers to deal with legal procedure, and use their own expertise to better advantage by focusing on the substantive issues of what a particular child may need. This booklet would be very useful to supplement a lawyer's advocacy, so that the lay participant will understand the process, be more confident during the hearing, and be better prepared to assist in preparation and presentation of a case. A lay person relying solely on this booklet would be ill-prepared for the subtleties of legal procedure and strategy that should be employed. The booklet is well-written; the material is clearly organized. There are useful suggestions for organizing testimony, conducting prehearing conferences, and selecting witnesses. However, there is little more than a general overview of hearing procedure. This is not a comprehensive handbook of legal procedure. For example, a party must frequently object to the proposed use of evidence. This section of the booklet is not sufficient to teach a lay person when and how such objections should be made, when they should be waived, and what to do when the other side objects to crucial evidence. There is no mention of the responsibility for procuring sign language interpreters for deaf parents, teachers, or witnesses. There is minimal discussion of utilizing expert testimony effectively...