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As a result of a lack of understanding for intellectual disabilities, individuals with a disability like this would sometimes kept in chains. Society viewed them as sub citizens who had no rights and so they would cast them out to live in isolation.
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Residential institutions were built and designed to provide an education designed to productive life in society.
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The number of institutions has grown considerably since the and the costs to support these institutions were becoming a concern.
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Howe founded a school in Massachusetts so that people with intellectual disabilities could be trained for manual labor, and anyone under twenty five could receive an education.
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The first classroom created for children who are intellectually disabled is established.
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It became know to people around the world that people with intellectual disabilities needed to annihilated or sterilized because they were a defective part of their perfect human race.
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Questions began to be raised about whether or not the students' needs were being met in the special education classroom.
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In 1954, separate schools were ruled unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court providing the foundation for the inclusion of students with intellectual disabilities in public school settings.
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Institutions became terrible places to live in. People with intellectual disabilities were not the only ones housed but also people experiencing mental illness. There was overcrowding and highly unsanitary conditions.
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The Civil Rights Act of 1964 had passed Congress and government began programs to address poverty, illness, racism and oppression in our society. Also, because of the horrific conditions that individuals with intellectual disabilities were facing in institutionalization the change towards closing these institutions began.
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As the large institutions are closed, the parents of children with disabilities realized that the government had made services to them simply non-existent. Parents began to realize that now their children had no access to education because their children were not allowed to participate to public education because of their disability.
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The Pennsylvania's Association of Retarded Citizens sued the Pennhurst State Institution in Pennsylvania because of the horrific conditions endured by the residents. The judge ordered the institutions to be closed.
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In 1971 the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama
v. Stickney ruled that people in residential state schools and institutions have a constitutional right “to receive such individual treatment to give them a realistic to improve his or her mental
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Keystone started began the establishment of residential homes that offered a much more respectable way of living to people who had been institutionalized. Many of their residents were able to live independently.
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This act protects the rights of persons with handicaps in programs and activities that receive Federal financial assistance. Section 504 protects the rights not only of individuals with visible disabilities but also those with disabilities that may not be apparent.
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1975 - The Education for All Handicapped Children Act, Public Law 94-142 was passed, giving rights to children with disabilities to a public school education.
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This Act mandated that mentally handicapped should have the best education possible. The law provided funds for public schools to provide such education.
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1980 - Congress passed the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act allowing the U.S. Justice Department to file civil suits to defend residents of the few remaining institutions whose rights were being violated.
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n 1990, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) replaced the Education of the Handicapped Act. This act states that children with disabilities are entitled to a free appropriate public education and that each child's education will be planned and monitored with an individualized education program or an individualized family service plan.
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This law requires that students with disabilities also show growth in educational outcomes by imposing new requirements for standards, assessments, accountability, and parental involvement.
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There were new elements added such as the "highly qualified teacher" requirement and It authorizes formula grants to states, as well as discretionary grants for research, technology, and training.The latest revision of IDEA became effective in October 2006.