Diagnosis of developmental disability lacks precision, partly because of differences in definitions of the concept, but largely because of problems specific to the use of psychometric measures with children who have a developmental disability. These problems arise from inadequate evidence of reliability for psychometric measures at extremes of the normal distribution, from lack of comparability between different tests and between different editions of tests, and from practical considerations in the assessment of people with various disabilities. Adaptive behaviour assessment has been introduced to supplement intelligence testing, but lack of a clear conceptualisation of this concept and doubts about the appropriateness of United States norms for Australian children add to the difficulties of interpreting results of standardised scales. Systematic assessment of behavioural problems needs to be incorporated into diagnostic procedures. This paper argues that improvements in the accuracy of diagnosis are unlikely to come from further technical advances in psychometric assessment, and suggests that diagnosis in the future should take into account new technologies which link etiology to specific behavioural patterns to supplement existing procedures.

This paper reviews the recent behavioural research on instruction of children and young adults with mental retardation in schools settings and community-based school programs. Instructional research in 12 skill areas (motor, self-care, communication, social skills, choice making, school behaviours, health and safety skills, home management, leisure skills, community use, vocational skills, and academics) meeting specified criteria on population (age and disability), location of instruction, functionality of skill, and research integrity was identified in 11 journals from 1990 through 1996. The pool of identified research is discussed by skill category and by intervention method, with critical comments made regarding strengths and weaknesses. Conclusions are drawn for practitioners and future researchers.

We examined the prevalence of comorbid psychopathology, family psychiatric history, and perceptions of family environment in 20 women with binge-eating disorder (BED) and 20 non-binge-eating obese controls. Women with BED were significantly more likely to report current or lifetime affective and anxiety disorders as well as family histories of BED. Family histories of substance abuse did not differ across groups. Significantly more women with BED rated their parents' parenting style as consistent with “affectionless control” on the Parental Bonding Instrument, and reported significantly lower cohesion, expressiveness, conflict, independence, intellectual-cultural orientation, and active-recreational orientation on the Family Environment Scale.

Information-processing speed and cue reactivity were evaluated in women with bulimia nervosa and controls in response to neutral, mood, and food cues in isolation, and mood and food cues in combination. Significant differences were consistently observed between women with bulimia nervosa and control women on information-processing speed for food/body-related words, but not for words unrelated to food/body concerns. As expected, women with bulimia nervosa demonstrated slower processing of information related to food/body concerns. In addition, the presentation of mood and food cues affected speed of information processing. Especially for women with bulimia nervosa, information processing was slowest when either mood or food cues were presented in isolation. Significant cue reactivity was also observed, again especially for women with bulimia nervosa. In conclusion, both transient and more enduring subject characteristics affected information-processing speed. Moreover, the way transient factors were presented significantly affected speed of information processing. This suggests a more complex relationship between cue presentation and information processing than was anticipated.