Improving physician/teacher collaboration

This paper describes a three-phase project designed to improve physician/teacher collaboration with exceptional school children. In phase 1, the school district's 54 special education personnel completed a 24-item questionnaire designed to identify communication and role-expectancy problems. Phase 2 consisted of a series of workshops in which physicians explained their evaluations and and treatments of exceptional children. In phase 3 a collaboration model linking the school district and a university-based medical center was developed and implemented. Questionnaire data, the collaboration model, and suggestions for other models are presented.