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Due to absence of special education programs for academically delayed children in Korea, children with low motivation and behavior problems as well as with potential learning disabilities and mild mental retardation are all placed together in the regular classrooms. In such an educational setting, so called, mainstream-ing of education naturally occurs and children with potential academic handicap may benefit from the main-streamed educational environment and avoid the stigma resulting from being labeled "retarded"or "disabled". However, mainstreaming will lose its value unless children who need special instructional help are identified and provided with a curriculum appropriately tailored for them. The purpose of this study was to identify academically delayed children in the regular classroom and investigate their academic abilities as well as their academic achievement level to see whether they are chronic low achievers, learning disabled, or mildly retarded. A total of 406 children from 11 elementary schools were referred for their academic delay by their classroom teachers and 109 children who had parental consent participated in this research. Each child was given a WISC individual intelligence test, a Bender test for visual perception, and a laterality test for laterality dominance. A discrepancy study between academic ability and academic achievement was conducted by transforming the children´s WISC IQs and class ranks into percentile ranks. The results were: Mean WISC IQ was 87.2(range=67-117, SD=11.1). Out of 109, only 1 child fell in the definition of mild retardation(lQ = 67), 14 children had IQs above 100, and the rest fell in the borderline between IQs 90s and 70s. Out of 104, 60 children showed visual perceptual problems on the Bender test, and the relationship between visual perception impairment and mixed dominance on laterality was statistically insignificant. As to the discrepancy study, 23(37%) out of 62 children academically performed below their JQ percentile ranks, 6(10%) showed over-achievement, and 32(52%) academically achieved up to IQ percentile ranks. In short, among 62 children who were referred for academic delay, surprisingly 42 children(62%) academically performed up to or above their intellectual potential. The adoption of diagnostic prescriptive instruction into the regular education setting was discussed.
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