Social behavior is of major concern in many classes for the educationally handicapped. Teacher nonverbal communication is one of the processes by which social behaviors are learned. In this case study, the relationships between socially reinforcing nonverbal behaviors of a teacher and that teacher's perception of the social-personal attributes of his/her pupils in a self-contained class for the educationally handicapped were investigated. There was no relationship between a high or low rating on social-personal attributes and receipt of positive nonverbal behaviors or overall teacher attention. However, low-rated pupils received a significantly greater amount of negative nonverbal behaviors. These low-rated pupils also were younger, less preferred by the teacher, and rated lower academically. Attention should be given to communication skills in training teachers for the educationally handicapped.