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Connecticut Asylum for the Education and Instruction of Deaf and Dumb Persons started by Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, teacher of children with hearing impairments, teaching them how to communicate through a system of manual signs and symbols..
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Events that brought us to where we are today in the world of Special Education
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Louis Braille, a blind French educator developed the system for people who were blind to read and write through a tactile based writing system.
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Horace Mann Public School was founded in Boston by the Boston School Committee
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First Association of professionals concerned with Intellectual Disabilities, co-founded by Edouard Seguin, a French Physician who emphasized sensorimotor activities and encourage independence and self-reliance by combining physical and intellectual tasks.
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Vineland Training School opens the first school for training teachers in teaching students with disabilities.
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Original Organization which later becomes called the Council for Exceptional Children is created. Their first president was Elizabeth Farrell, who is also considered to be the first educator to teach a special education class.
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The compulsory law for the testing the hearing of school aged children is enacted in New York. This is the first compulsory law regarding children with disabilities. It is also the first law regarding the identification of disabilities.
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Dr Wolf Wolfensberger defines Normalization as "Utilization of a means which are as culturally normative as possible, in order to establish and/or maintain personal behaviors and characteristics that are as culturally normative as possible.". The Term was originally coined by Swedish Dr Bengt Nirje of the Center for Handicap Research. Trailer for Documentary on the subject: Valuing Lives Documentary Trailer
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PL 93-112, the Rehabilitation Act is enacted. Section 504 of this act is an anti-disciminatory law regarding individuals with a disibility. Section 504 is the first anti-discriminatory law aimed at children and adults with a disability.
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One of the most important acts to pass into law regarding Special Education in the US. This Act introduced FAPE(Free Appropriate Public Education) into the country's education system for all children with disabilities. This was also only the beginning of legislation with many amendments emerging in the coming years.
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Amendments are passed into law expanding the 1975 Education for all Handicapped Children Act, including but not limited to expanding the rights to early intervention services for toddlers and preschoolers. This was a hopeful sign to those in Special Education that more expansions may come in the future.
Click the Link for a list of the statutes in the amendment: Statutes of the Education of the Handicapped Act Amendmets of 1986 -
A more modern exansion of the 1975 Act. IDEA is the main guideline used today in Special Education. IDEA featured important provisions to consider in special education such as Least Restrictive Enviroment/Inclusion, transition planning, parental rights and more. IDEA was later expanded in 1997, click HERE to see the amendments.
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A law enacted in order to replace "mental retardation" and "mentally retarded" with "Severe/profound/moderate intellectual disability" from education and other public services. The law is named after Rose Marcillino, a nine-year old girl with Down Syndrome. The law was first passed in the State of Maryland in 2009 before being passed the following year(2010) into National Law.
