EXPLORATION OF

PHILOSOPHICAL OR
HISTORICAL FOUNDATIONS
OF SPECIAL EDUCATION
BY JANETTE BRIONES
EDU 203
 BEFORE 1740 IN THE UNITED STATES

➢ 1601 – English Poor Law required parish governments to tax households in order to care
for the “worthy” poor. (2011)
➢ 1614 – First Law in Massachusetts regarding the care and treatment of “Children, Idiots,
Distracted Persons, and all that are strangers or new comers to our plantation” was passed.
(Neuhaus, Smith, 2014, pp.46)
➢ 1642 – Plymouth Colony’s Poor Law, shaped primarily by Elizabethan Poor Laws, which
classified poor/dependent people into three categories and confirmed residency before aid
was provided. The three categories; dependent (vagrant, the involuntary unemployed and
the helpless), worthy poor (orphans, widows, handicapped, frail elderly) and unworthy
poor (drunkards, shiftless, lazy). (Hansan, 2011)
 1740-1770

➢ Jacob Rodrigues Pereire was one of the first to “introduce the idea that persons who were
deaf could be taught to communicate.” He developed an early form of sign language.
(Gargiulo, 2014, pp. 17)
➢ Philippe Pinel was concerned with the humanitarian treatment of individuals with mental
illness and pioneered the field of occupational therapy. Pinel served as Itard’s mentor.
 1771-1800

➢ 1799 – French physician Jean-Marc Gaspard Itard endeavored to “civilize” Victor. Victor
was discovered by a group of hunters in a forest, unclothed, without language, did not
walk, and exhibited animal-like behavior. Itard, after five years, was able to teach Victor
basic social and self-help skills through sensory training.
➢ Itard’s student, Edouard Seguin, developed instructional programs for youngster and
assessed student’s strength and weaknesses to carefully construct plans of sensorimotor
exercises designed to remediate specific disabilities.
 1801-1830

➢ 1817 – Connecticut Asylum for the Education and Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb
Persons, first residential school in the US.
➢ 1829 – Perkins School for the Blind, in Watertown, Massachusetts.
➢ By 1830 almost every state had an almshouse, to shelter those considered unwanted or
unable to contribute to the community. Unpleasant living conditions and abuse were
common in the almshouses. (Neuhaus, Smith, 2014, pp.46)
 1831-1860

➢ 1834 –Louis Braille publishes the Braille code.

➢ In 1846 Massachusetts enacted legislation to create public facility for persons with
“feeblemindedness.”
➢ 1848 – Seguin immigrated to the US and later helped establish the American Association
on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities.
➢ In 1857 federal law created the first post-secondary institution for students with
disabilities, the Columbia Institution for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb and the
Blind.
 1861-1890

➢ “Ugly Laws” first passed in 1867 in San Francisco, California then spread to other cities. The
Chicago Municipal Code Sec. 36034 stated, “no person who is diseased, maimed, mutilated or in
any way deformed to be an unsightly or disgusting object or improper person to be allowed in or on
the public ways or other public places in this city, or shall therein or thereon expose himself to
public view. . . .” (Neuhaus, Smith, 2014, pp.46)
➢ “In 1883 Englishman Francis Galton termed the word eugenics. Eugenics was a widely accepted
policy in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The eugenics movement posited mental and physical
impairments as the reasons for social problems such as poverty and crime; the remedy to these
social problems, therefore, lay in such public policies as compulsory sterilization, restricted
immigration, restricted marriage, and institutionalization, with the goal of keeping the less-desirable
genes from being passed to the next generation.” (Neuhaus, Smith, 2014, pp.46-47)
 1891-1920

➢ 1896 – First public education classroom for students with disabilities, in Rhode Island.
➢ By 1897 half the states had passed laws declaring marriages between people deemed
“insane” or “feebleminded” null and void.
➢ 1907 – Indiana passed the first sterilization law, and by 1930 some 28 states had enacted
laws authorizing sterilization of those deemed unfit.
➢ 1918 – The Smith-Sears Veterans Rehabilitation Act was passed, creating vocational
rehabilitation programs for veterans with disabilities who had been discharged from
military.
 1921-1950
➢ 1924 – Virginia Colony passes the first legislation recognizing services and needs of disabled soldiers and
sailors based on “special work” contributions to society
➢ Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200 (1927). Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., writing for the Supreme Court, upheld
Virginia’s Sterilization Act of 1924, and in upholding the statute and ruling that Carrie Buck’s rights under the
14th Amendment had not been violated stated, “It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute
degenerate offspring for crime, or let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are
manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. . . . Three generations of imbeciles are enough.” (Neuhaus, Smith,
2014, pp.48)
➢ 1935 – The Social Security Act was passed, extending existing vocational rehabilitation programs and proving
benefits for older individuals and funds to states to provide for children with disabilities and individuals who
were blind.
➢ 1936 – The Randolph-Sheppard Act created employment opportunities for individual who are blind in federal
property.
➢ 1950 – “Aid to the Permanently and Totally Disabled” was added to the Social Security Administration’s
existing programs.
 1951-1980
➢ 1954 – The Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, confirmed the concept that every child deserves an
education and that education “is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms.” (Burgdorf, 2014, pp.49)

➢ The 1960s marked the beginning of the disability rights movement .

➢ 1969 – Wolf v. State Legislature, Civ. No. 182646, found the exclusion of children with intellectual disabilities from public schools on the
basis unconstitutional. (Burgdorf, 2014, pp.49)

➢ 1971 – Penn. Ass’n for Retarded Children v. Pennsylvania, 334 F. Supp.1257, helped establish the rights of children with disabilities to an
appropriate education. (Burgdorf, 2014, pp.49)

➢ 1972 – The number of students enrolled in special education program increased to by 716, compared to the 12 percent of children with
disabilities in 1948. (Gargiulo, 2014, pp. 16)

➢ 1973 – Rehabilitation Act; expanded opportunities for people with disabilities along with protection against discrimination .

➢ 1974 – Chicago was the las to repeal its “ugly law.”

➢ 1975 – Education for all Handicapped Children Act; landmark legislation ensures, among other provisions, a free and appropriate public
education for all children with disabilities.
 1981-2005
➢ 1986 – Education of the Handicapped Act Amendment; mandated a special education for
preschoolers with disabilities and provided early intervention services to infants and toddlers.
➢ Building curb cuts and ramps, accessible public transportation, changes in public school classrooms
and the working world were being created to lessen difficulties imposed by the environment on a
person with difficulties.
➢ 1990 – Americans With Disabilities Act; prohibited discrimination on the basis of disability.
➢ 1990 – Individuals with Disabilities Act; emphasizing transition planning for adolescents with
disabilities.
➢ 2004 – Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act; modified the individualized
education program process in addition to changes affecting school discipline, due process, and
evaluation of students with disabilities.
 2005-2017

➢ “During the 2007–08 school year, IDEA mandated programs and services were provided
to more than 6 million children and youths with disabilities and more than 320,000 infants
and toddlers with disabilities and their families.” (2010)
➢ 2008 – Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments; expanded statutory interpretation of
a disability while affording individuals with disabilities greater protection.
➢ 2010 – Rosa’s Law is approved on October 5. “An act to change references in Federal law
to mental retardation to references to an intellectual disability, and change references to a
mentally retarded individual to references to an individual with an intellectual disability.”
 REFERENCES
Gargiulo, R. M. (2014). Special Education in Context: People, Concepts, and Perspectives.
In Special Education in Contemporary Society (6th ed.) (pp. 1-39). Thousand Oaks
CA: SAGE.
Neuhaus, R. & Smith, C. (2014, Nov. & Dec.). Disability Rights through the Mid-20th
Century. GPSOLO, 31(6), 46-49.
Burgdorf, M. (2014, Nov. & Dec.). Equality for People with Disabilities since the Mid-20th
Century. GPSOLO, 31(6), 49-51
Social Welfare Developments in the 1600s. (2011). Retrieved September 15,2017, from
https://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/events/1600s/
Hansan, J.E. (2011). Poor relief in early America. Retrieved September 15, 2017, from
https://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/programs/poor-relief-early-amer/
 REFERENCES
U.S. Department of Education. (2010). Thirty-five Years of Progress in Educating Children
With Disabilities Through IDEA. Retrieved September 20, 2017, from
https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/osers/idea35/history/idea-35-history.pdf
Higher Education Act of 1965.--Section 760(2)(A) of the Higher
Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 1140(2)(A)) is amended by striking
``mental retardation or''.