grams and the teachers they employed are classified in this report as serving partially seeing children only. Survey information about classification and placement practices in local and State programs are presented in chapter III.

Most special school programs make provisions for both blind and partially seeing children. Table 1 shows that a higher percentage of residential schools (more than 90 percent) reported services for both blind and partially seeing children than did local school programs. About one-fourth of the local programs contained provisions only for partially seeing children. Eight percent of the local programs and seven percent of the residential programs appeared from the findings to serve only children who are classified as blind and read and write by means of braille.

Number of Programs

Statistics on the number of local programs which utilized various organizational patterns by type of visually handicapped children served are summarized in table 2. Local school programs using an itinerant teacher pattern which served both blind and partially seeing children outnumbered those using any other type. Residential and local school programs which reported services for both blind and partially seeing children are arranged in table 3 according to the type of units contained in their programs. Most of these programs-74 percent of the residential and 64 percent of the local school programs-utilized only combination units to meet the special education needs of their visually handicapped children. Teachers of combination units either instruct both blind and partially seeing children together or work with each of these types of children separately at different times. Only 20 percent of the local school programs serving both blind and partially seeing children and 2 percent of the residential schools which served children with both types of visual handicaps did not utilize one or more combination units in their programs. Teachers in these schools and programs worked with either blind or partially seeing children exclusively. Information about schools and programs which utilized both types of units is presented in the last column of table 3. Some interesting differences will be found in the grade levels served by these various types of units. This information appears in appendix B, tables II and III. Combination units were utilized, for example, by 85 percent or more of the residential schools which had them throughout grades 1 through 12 but tended to rise in frequency of use at grade 4. In both residential and local school

TABLE 1.-Number and percent of special residential and local school programs, by type of visual handicap served, United States: 1962-63

TABLE 2.-Percent of the 353 special local school programs using the most prevalent types of organizational patterns, by type of pattern, type of visual handicap served and rank order of frequency of use, United States: 1962-63

1 Percentages do not total 100 because some school systems reported 2 or more types of organizationa! patterns. See appendix table I for additional details.

TABLE 3.-Number and percent of special residential and local school programs which served both blind and partially seeing children, by type of organizational unit used, United States: 1962-63

quently during the time reading and writing skills are developing in grades 1 through 3, as were separate units for partially seeing children. These units declined as the grade level rose and most markedly at grades 7 through 10.

Number of Teachers

The majority (61 percent) of full-time special teachers of visually handicapped children in the 1962-63 school year were employed as teachers of combination units for both blind and partially seeing. Table 4 shows that 43 percent of all special teachers of visually handicapped children in the Nation are in combination units in residential schools and 18 percent are in combination units in local schools. The next largest number is that of local school teachers of partially seeing children who constitute 20 percent of the national total.

1

Summary information is presented in table 5 about the types of visually handicapped children instructed by full-time teachers in residential and local school programs. Appendix B, table IV shows that nearly 85 percent of the residential teachers were employed in combination units for both blind and partially seeing children. More teachers in local schools, on the other hand, were employed to instruct only partially seeing children than were employed in combination units. The largest percentage of teachers who instructed partially seeing children only were employed as special class teachers. Sixty-three percent of the itinerant teachers in local school programs instructed both blind and partially seeing children. Some interesting regional differences are reflected in appendix B, tables V and VI. Local school teachers in combination units were employed more often in the West and Southeast than in other parts of the Nation.2

Types of teachers employed in county or regional programs are compared in tables 6 and 7 to those in city programs of various sizes. About three-fourths of the local school teachers of visually handicapped children worked in city programs. More of these teachers taught in resource rooms than in any other organizational pattern. They instructed partially seeing children exclusively more often than they did blind children or both types of visually handicapped children in combination units. There are some pronounced differences in the types of teachers in city school systems enrolling

1 Information about residential school teachers was derived from preliminary data collected in the Office of Education survey "Statistics of Special Education for Exceptional Children, 1962-63."

TABLE 4.-Percent of the 2358 special teachers in both residential and local school programs, by type of visual handicap served, United States: 1962-63.

TABLE 5.-Percent of the 2358 special teachers of visually handicapped children, by organizational pattern, type of visual handicap served, and rank order of frequency, United States: 1962-63

50,000 or more pupils as compared to those teachers employed in smaller cities. Teachers in the smaller cities tend to work in combination units (table 7) more frequently than those in the large metropolitan centers. Teachers employed in county or regional programs, consisting of several cooperating school systems or counties, served much more often in itinerant teacher units than in any other type of organizational pattern. The majority (53 percent) of the teachers in county or regional programs worked in combination units for both blind and partially seeing children.

TABLE 6.-Number and percent of special teachers of visually handicapped children in local school programs, by enrollment size, by administrative unit, and by organizational pattern, United States: 1962-63 1

Personnel in the 353 special local school programs were asked not only to provide information about their current program practices but also to trace the evolution of their program through the periods prior to 1946, from 1946 to 1955, and from 1956 to 1963. The shift from the full-time special classes which were so prevalent in local school programs prior to 1946 to the more fully integrated resource and itinerant teacher patterns in the period between 1956 and 1963 is apparent in figures 5 and 6. This information was not collected for residential school programs. The great majority of their teachers, however, are currently employed in combination units. Figure 6 reflects the abrupt change in local school programs away from employing teachers to work only with partially seeing chil