The first edition of this Directory was published in 1971 following a recommendation by the fifth Commonwealth Education Conference, meeting at Canberra, that the Commonwealth Secretariat should assemble and disseminate information about handicapped children in the Commonwealth. At the time of its publication, recipients were invited to submit corrections and additional information; where such information has been received it has been incorporated into this second edition, together with new material compiled from reports and publications which have come to hand.