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BRIEF HISTORY OF SPECIALEDUC

Special education, as its name suggests, is a specialized branch of education. Claiminglineage to such persons as Jean-Marc-Gaspard Itard (1775 - 1838), the physician who

"tamed" the "wild boy of Aveyron," and Anne Sullivan Macy (1866 - 1936), the teacher who "worked miracles" with Helen Keller , special educators teach those students who

have physical, cognitive, language, learning, sensory, and/or emotional abilities thatdeviate from those of the general population. Special educators provide instruction

specifically tailored to meet individualized needs, making education available to students

who otherwise would have limited access to education. In 2001, special education in theUnited States was serving over five million students.

Although federally mandated special education is relatively new in the United States,

students with disabilities have been present in every era and in every society. Historical

records have consistently documented the most severe disabilities - those that transcend 

task and setting. Itard's description of the wild boy of Aveyron documents a variety of  behaviors consistent with both mental retardation and behavioral disorders. Nineteenth-

century reports of deviant behavior describe conditions that could easily be interpreted assevere mental retardation, autism, or schizophrenia. Milder forms of disability became

apparent only after the advent of universal public education. When literacy became a goal

for all children, teachers began observing disabilities specific to task and setting - that is,less severe disabilities. After decades of research and legislation, special education now

 provides services to students with varying degrees and forms of disabilities, including

mental retardation, emotional disturbance, learning disabilities, speech-language

(communication) disabilities, impaired hearing and deafness, low vision and blindness,autism, traumatic brain injury, other health impairments, and severe and multiple

disabilities.

Development of the Field of Special Education

At its inception in the early nineteenth century, leaders of social change set out to curemany ills of society. Physicians and clergy, including Itard, Edouard O. Seguin (1812 -

1880), Samuel Gridley Howe (1801 - 1876), and Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet (1787 -

1851), wanted to ameliorate the neglectful, often abusive treatment of individuals withdisabilities. A rich literature describes the treatment provided to individuals with

disabilities in the 1800s: They were often confined in jails and almshouses without decent

food, clothing, personal hygiene, and exercise. During much of the nineteenth century,

and early in the twentieth, professionals believed individuals with disabilities were besttreated in residential facilities in rural environments. Advocates of these institutions

argued that environmental conditions such as urban poverty and vices induced behavioral

 problems. Reformers such as Dorothea Dix (1802 - 1887) prevailed upon stategovernments to provide funds for bigger and more specialized institutions. These

facilities focused more on a particular disability, such as mental retardation, then known

as "feeble-mindedness" or "idiocy"; mental illness, then labeled "insanity" or "madness";sensory impairment such as deafness or blindness; and behavioral disorders such as

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criminality and juvenile delinquency. Children who were judged to be delinquent or 

aggressive, but not insane, were sent to houses ofrefuge or reform schools, whereas

children and adults judged to be "mad" were admitted to psychiatric hospitals. Dix andher followers believed that institutionalization of individuals with disabilities would end

their abuse (confinement without treatment in jails and poorhouses) and provide effective

treatment. Moral treatment was the dominant approach of the early nineteenth century in psychiatric hospitals, the aim being cure. Moral treatment employed methods analogous

to today's occupational therapy, systematic instruction, and positive reinforcement.

Evidence suggests this approach was humane and effective in some cases, but thetreatment was generally abandoned by the late nineteenth century, due largely to the

failure of moral therapists to train others in their techniques and the rise of the belief that

mental illness was always a result of brain disease.

By the end of the nineteenth century,  pessimism about cure and emphasis on physiological causes led to a change in orientation that would later bring about the

"warehouse-like" institutions that have become a symbol for abuse and neglect of 

society's most vulnerable citizens. The practice of moral treatment was replaced by the belief that most disabilities were incurable. This led to keeping individuals withdisabilities ininstitutions both for their own protection and for the betterment of society.

Although the transformation took many years, by the end of the nineteenth century the

size of institutions had increased so dramatically that the goal of rehabilitation was nolonger possible. Institutions became instruments for permanent segregation. Many special

education professionals became critics of institutions. Howe, one of the first to argue for 

in stitutions for people with disabilities, began advocating placing out residents intofamilies. Unfortunately this practice became a logistical and pragmatic problem before it

could become a viable alternative to institutionalization.

At the close of the nineteenth century, state governments established juvenile courts andsocial welfare programs, including foster homes, for children and adolescents. The childstudy movement became prominent in the early twentieth century. Using the approach

 pioneered by G. Stanley Hall (1844 - 1924; considered the founder of child psychology),

researchers attempted to study child development scientifically in relation to educationand in so doing established a place for psychology within public schools. In 1931, the

Bradley Home, the first psychiatric hospital for children in the United States, was

established in East Providence, Rhode Island. The treatment offered in this hospital, as

well as most of the other hospitals of the early twentieth century, was psychodynamic. Psychodynamic ideas fanned interest in the diagnosis and classification of disabili ties. In

1951 the first institution for research on exceptional children opened at the University of 

Illinois and began what was to become the newest focus of the field of special education:the slow learner and, eventually, what we know today as learning disability.

The Development of Special Education in Institutions and Schools

Although Itard failed to normalize Victor, the wild boy of Averyon, he did produce

dramatic changes in Victor's behavior through education. Modern special education practices can be traced to Itard, and his work marks the beginning of widespread attempts

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to instruct students with disabilities. In 1817 the first special education school in the

United States, the American Asylum for the Education and Instruction of the Deaf and

Dumb (now called the American School for the Deaf), was established in Hartford,Connecticut, by Gallaudet. By the middle of the nineteenth century, special educational

 programs were being provided in many asylums. Education was a prominent part of 

moral therapy. By the close of the nineteenth century, special classes within regular  public schools had been launched in major cities. These special classes were initially

established for immigrant students who were not proficient in English and students who

had mild mental retardation or behavioral disorders. Descriptions of these childrenincluded terms such as steamer children, backward, truant, and incorrigible. Procedures

for identifying "defectives" were included in the World's Fair of 1904. By the 1920s

special classes for students judged unsuitable for regular classes had become common in

major cities.

In 1840 Rhode Island passed a law mandating compulsory education for children, but not

all states had compulsory education until 1918. With compulsory schooling and the

swelling tide of anti-institution sentiment in the twentieth century, many children withdisabilities were moved out of institutional settings and into public schools. However, bythe mid-twentieth century children with disabilities were still often excluded from public

schools and kept at home if not institutionalized. In order to respond to the new

 population of students with special needs entering schools, school officials created stillmore special classes in public schools.

The number of special classes and complementary support services (assistance given to

teachers in managing behavior and learning problems) increased dramatically after World

War II. During the early 1900s there was also an increased attention to mental health anda consequent interest in establishing child guidance clinics. By 1930 child guidance

clinics and counseling services were relatively common features of major cities, and by1950 special education had become an identifiable part of urban public education innearly every school district. By 1960 special educators were instructing their students in a

continuum of settings that included hospital schools for those with the most severe

disabilities, specialized day schools for students with severe disabilities who were able tolive at home, and special classes in regular public schools for students whose disabilities

could be managed in small groups. During this period special educators also began to

take on the role of consultant, assisting other teachers in instructing students with

disabilities. Thus, by 1970 the field of special education was offering a variety of educational placements to students with varying disabilities and needs; however, public

schools were not yet required to educate all students regardless of their disabilities.

During the middle decades of the twentieth century, instruction of children withdisabilities often was based on process training - which involves attempts to improve

children's academic performance by teaching them cognitive or motor processes, such as

 perceptualmotor skills, visual memory, auditory memory, or auditory-vocal processing.

These are ancient ideas that found twentieth-century proponents. Process trainingenthusiasts taught children various perceptual skills (e.g., identifying different sounds or 

objects by touch) or perceptual motor skills (e.g., balancing) with the notion that fluency

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in these skills would generalize to reading, writing, arithmetic, and other basic academic

tasks. After many years of research, however, such training was shown not to be effective

in improving academic skills. Many of these same ideas were recycled in the latetwentieth century as learning styles, multiple intelligences, and other notions that the

underlying process of learning varies with gender, ethnicity, or other physiological

differences. None of these theories has found much support in reliable research, althoughdirect instruction, mnemonic (memory) devices, and a few other instructional strategies

have been supported reliably by research.

The History of Legislation in Special Education

Although many contend that special education was born with the passage of the

Education for All Handicapped Children Act (EAHCA) in 1975, it is clear that specialeducators were beginning to respond to the needs of children with disabilities in public

schools nearly a century earlier. It is also clear that EAHCA did not spring from a

vacuum. This landmark law naturally evolved from events in both special education and

the larger society and came about in large part due to the work of grass rootsorganizations composed of both parents and professionals. These groups dated back to

the 1870s, when the American Association of Instructors of the Blind and the AmericanAssociation on Mental Deficiency (the latter is now the American Association on Mental

Retardation) were formed. In 1922 the Council for Exceptional Children, now the major 

 professional organization of special educators, was organized. In the 1930s and 1940s parent groups began to band together on a national level. These groups worked to make

changes in their own communities and, consequently, set the stage for changes on a

national level. Two of the most influential parent advocacy groups were the National

Association for Retarded Citizens (now ARC/USA), organized in 1950, and theAssociation for Children with Learning Disabilities, organized in 1963.

Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, advocacy groups were securing local

ordinances that would protect and serve individuals with disabilities in their communities.

For example, in 1930, in Peoria, Illinois, the first white cane ordinance gave individualswith blindness the right-of-way when crossing the street. By mid-century all states had

legislation providing for education of students with disabilities. However, legislation was

still noncompulsory. In the late 1950s federal money was allocated for educating childrenwith disabilities and for the training of special educators. Thus the federal government

 became formally involved in research and in training special education professionals, but

limited its involvement to these functions until the 1970s. In 1971, this support wasreinforced and extended to the state level when the Pennsylvania Association for 

Retarded Children (PARC) filed a class action suit against their Commonwealth. This

suit, resolved by consent agreement, specified that all children age six through twenty-one were to be provided free public education in the least restrictive alternative (LRA,

which would later become the least restrictive environment [LRE] clause in EAHCA). In

1973 the Rehabilitation Act prohibited discriminatory  practices in programs receiving

federal financial assistance but imposed no affirmative obligations with respect to specialeducation.

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In 1975 the legal action begun under the Kennedy and Johnson administrations resulted

in EAHCA, which was signed into law by President Gerald Ford. EAHCA reached full

implementation in 1977 and required school districts to provide free and appropriateeducation to all of their students with disabilities. In return for federal funding, each state

was to ensure that students with disabilities received non-discriminatory testing,

evaluation, and placement; the right to due process; education in the least restrictiveenvironment; and a free and appropriate education. The centerpiece of this public law

(known since 1990 as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA) was, and

is, a free appropriate public education (FAPE). To ensure FAPE, the law mandated thateach student receiving special education receive an Individualized Education Program

(IEP). Under EAHCA, students with identified disabilities were to receive FAPE and an

IEP that included relevant instructional goals and objectives, specifications as to length of 

school year, determination of the most appropriate educational placement, anddescriptions of criteria to be used in evaluation and measurement. The IEP was designed

to ensure that all students with disabilities received educational programs specific to their 

"unique" needs. Thus, the education of students with disabilities became federally

controlled. In the 1982 case of  Board of Education of the Hendrick Hudson Central School District v. Rowley, the U.S. Supreme Court clarified the level of services to be

afforded students with special needs and ruled that special education services need only provide some "educational benefit" to students - public schools were not required to

maximize the educational progress of students with disabilities. In so doing the Supreme

Court further defined what was meant by a free and appropriate education. In 1990

EAHCA was amended to include a change to person-first language, replacing the termhandicapped student with student with disabilities. The 1990 amendments also added

new classification categories for students with autism and traumatic  brain injury and

transition plans within IEPs for students age fourteen or older. In 1997, IDEA wasreauthorized under President Clinton and amended to require the inclusion of students

with disabilities in statewide and districtwide assessments, measurable IEP goals and

objectives, and functional behavioral assessment and behavior intervention plans for students with emotional or behavioral needs. Because IDEA is amended and reauthorized

every few years, it is impossible to predict the future of this law. It is possible that it will

 be repealed or altered dramatically by a future Congress. The special education story, both past and future, can be written in many different ways.

Trends in Special Education

Researchers have conceptualized the history of special education in stages that highlight

the various trends that the field has experienced. Although some of these

conceptualizations focus on changes involving instructional interventions for studentswith disabilities, others focus on the place of interventions. The focus on placement

reflects the controversy in which the field of special education has found itself throughout

history. Samuel G. Howe was one of the first to assert - in the nineteenth century - thatinstructional settings had inherent qualities that alone insured effective interventions.

Belief in the essential curative  powers of place spurred the late nineteenth century

crusade for bigger and better institutions, as well as the mid-twentieth-century movementfor deinstitutionalization. Exclusive focus on the importance of place distracted many

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 professionals and prevented them from recognizing that dramatic changes in philosophy

were accompanying the movement for deinstitutionalization. In the late nineteenth

century, social Darwinism replaced environmentalism as the primary causal explanationfor those individuals with abilities who deviated from those of the general population,

opening the door to the eugenics movement of the early twentieth century, and leading to

the segregation and sterilization of individuals with mental retardation. At the beginningof the twentieth century, the debate had suddenly shifted from whether the disadvantaged

should be helped to where these individuals should be served. As the institutionalization

versus deinstitutionalization debate raged, many individuals were given custodialtreatment, which is contrary to the mission of special education.

Almost a century after the placement debate began, special educators still focused on the

importance of place. Many were calling upon the field to create not one perfect setting for 

the delivery of services, but a continuum of placement options that would address theneeds of all students with disabilities. The civil rights movement had reconceptualized

special education as a case of access of minorities to the educational privileges of the

majority, and the least restrictive environment clause of EAHCA/IDEA promptedadvocates for people with disabilities to call for mainstreaming - the return of studentswith disabilities to the regular classroom whenever and wherever possible. In the 1980s

the Regular Education Initiative (REI) was an attempt to return responsibility for the

education of students with disabilities to neighborhood schools and regular classroomteachers. In the 1990s the full inclusion movement called for educating all students with

disabilities in the regular classroom with a single, unified and responsive education

system. Advocates for full inclusion, following in the footsteps of Howe, argued for appropriate instruction in a single, ubiquitous place, contrary to the mandate of IDEA.

Controversial Issues in Special Education

Special education has been the target of criticism throughout history. Some of the

criticism has been justified, some unjustified. Some criticisms brought to light ineffective 

 practices, such as the inefficacy and inhumanity of relegating all persons with disabilitiesto institutions. Other criticisms were distractions with disastrous repercussions, such as

the singular focus on the importance of place while ignoring other inappropriate

 practices. The beginning of the twenty-first century found new criticisms being launchedat special education. Some argue that the use of diagnostic labels is potentially

stigmatizing to students, others that minority students are overrepresented in some

disability categories, and still others that education of students with disabilities in specialclasses and schools, even pulling students out for instruction in resource classes, is akin

to race-based segregation. Some of these criticisms may expose ineffective practices,

others may only distract educators from the effort of finding and implementing effectiveinstructional practices. Professionals must develop the ability to learn from history and

differentiate between unimportant criticisms and those with merit.

One valid criticism repeatedly launched against special education involves the

implementation of ineffective educational interventions. Although great concern aboutthe where of instruction was expressed in the 1980s and 1990s, little attention was given

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to the what of instruction. Throughout the twentieth century the field of special education

repeatedly adopted instructional strategies of questionable efficacy - interventions that

have little to no empirical basis. Additionally, special educators have adopted, with" bandwagon" fervor, many practices that have been proven ineffective and have thereby

repeated the mistakes of history. If special education is to progress, professionals will

need to address and remedy the instructional practices used with students withdisabilities.

Special education has also been validly criticized for the way in which students with

disabilities are identified. In the early nineteenth century, physicians and educators had

difficulty making reliable distinctions between different disability categories. In fact, thecategories of mental retardation and behavioral disorders are inseparably intertwined.

Many of the disability categories overlap to the extent that it is hard to differentiate one

from the other. Additionally, some of the categories - learning disabilities and behavioraldisorders, for example - are defined by the exclusion of other contributing disabilities.

Thus, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, much work remains on the

identification of students with disabilities.

Perhaps the largest, most pervasive issue in special education is its relationship to generaleducation. The relationship of special to general education has been controversial since

the beginning of universal public schooling. However, in the late twentieth and early

twenty-first centuries, the question of whether special education should retain a separateidentity or be fused with general education such that it has no separate identity (e.g.,

 budget, personnel) was made prominent by proponents of a radical restructuring of 

special education. Proponents of radical restructuring and fusion argue that such

integration is necessary to provide appropriate education for all students regardless of their disabilities and without stigma or discrimination. In their view, special education

suffers primarily from structural problems, and the integration of two separate systemswill result in a flexible, supple, responsive single system that will meet the needs of allstudents without "separating out" any. All teachers, according to this line of thinking,

should be prepared to teach all students, including those with special needs.

Opponents of radical restructuring argue that special education's problems are primarily

the lack of implementation of best practices, not structural. Moreover, they suggest,special education will not survive to serve the special needs of exceptional students if it

loses its identity, including special budget allocations and personnel preparation. It is not

feasible nor is it desirable, they contend, to prepare all teachers to teach all children;special training is required to teach students who are educationally exceptional.

Arguments about the structure of education (special and general), who (if anyone) should

receive special treatment, how they should be taught, and where special services should be provided are perpetual issues in special education. These issues will likely continue to

 be debated throughout the twenty-first century.

In the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, another issue became the basis for 

conceptual or theoretical bases for special education practices. Postmodern andantiscientific philosophies have been put forward in both general and special education.

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These ideas have been challenged by others who have noted the importance of the

scientific method in discriminating among ideas and assertions. Likely, postmodern ideas

and attempts to apply them to or refute them will be perpetual.

More than two hundred years after Itard began his work on the education of the wild boy

of Aveyron, special educators are being asked to make decisions concerning such issuesas placement and delivery of services. The inclusion debate, although important, has the

 potential to distract the field of special education away from issues of greater import -issues such as the efficacy of intervention and the accurate identification of students with

disabilities. If special educators are to avoid the mistakes of the past, they will need to

make future decisions based upon reliable data, evaluating the efficacy of differingoptions. Since the inception of what is now known as IDEA, significant progress has

 been made in applying scientific research to the problems of special education. In the

twenty-first century, special education need not remain a field of good intentions, but canfully employ the scientific child-study techniques begun in the late eighteenth century to

 provide free and appropriate educations to all children with disabilities.