We began our teaching careers in special education in the
1970's, a decade in educational history which delivered a return
to the back to basics movement in general education coupled with
the landmark passage of the federal Law 94-142 requiring public
school education for all special education students. These two
movements led to increased scrutiny of classroom instructional
practices and a proliferation of commercialized programs for
special education teachers and students. Common buzzwords of
that decade's lexicon included "dyslexia", "multi-sensory
integration", and "visual perception training." We were led to
believe the panacea for every special education ailment was
simply using the right program, not in utilizing practitioner
judgment and decision-making. Being the young and inexperienced
teachers that we were, we followed the current party line until
realizing first-hand these programs did not work with our
students. We find it disturbing that 30 years later there exists
a resurgence of these same ine