History Of Special Education

Examines the history of special education by categorical areas (for example, Learning Disabilities, Mental Retardation, and Autistic Spectrum Disorders). This title includes chapters on the changing philosophy related to educating students with exceptionalities as well as a history of legal and legislation content concerned with special education.

An introductory history, written by a special educator for special educators, aiming to resurrect and interpret the past in order to cast new light on important issues of today. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

In A Class by Themselves?, Jason Ellis provides an erudite and balanced history of special needs education, an early twentieth century educational innovation that continues to polarize school communities across Canada, the United States, and beyond. Ellis situates the evolution of this educational innovation in its proper historical context to explore the rise of intelligence testing, the decline of child labour and rise of vocational guidance, emerging trends in mental hygiene and child psychology, and the implementation of a new progressive curriculum. At the core of this study are the students. This book is the first to draw deeply on rich archival sources, including 1000 pupil records of young people with learning difficulties, who attended public schools between 1918 and 1945. Ellis uses these records to retell individual stories that illuminate how disability filtered down through the school system’s many nooks and crannies to mark disabled students as different from (and often inferior to) other school children. A Class by Themselves? sheds new light on these and other issues by bringing special education’s curious past to bear on its constantly contested present.

"Elizabeth Farrell made inclusion, individualized education, and comprehensive assessment her causes at a time when prominent psychologists argued to segregate people with disabilities from society. In this male-dominated field, Farrell made a case for what would become special educaiton and found success, but she could not have anticipated that her efforts to reoganize other teachers around her cause would evolve into the world's largest and most influential special education association, the Council for Exceptional Children. This engaging work ensures Farrell's incredible story wil not be forgotten." from the cover.

In today's schools the number of students who receive additional resources to access the curriculum is growing rapidly, and the ongoing expansion of special education is among the most significant worldwide educational developments of the past century. Yet even among developed democracies the range of access varies hugely, from one student in twenty to one student in three. In contemporary conflicts about educational standards and accountability, special education plays a key role as it draws the boundaries between exclusion and inclusion. Comparing Special Education unites in-depth comparative and historical studies with analyses of global trends, with a particular focus on special and inclusive education in the United States, England, France, and Germany. The authors examine the causes and consequences of various institutional and organizational developments, illustrate differences in forms of educational governance and social policy priorities, and highlight the evolution of social logics from segregation of students with special educational needs to their inclusion in local schools.

Despite widespread concern about special education in recent years, there has not hitherto been any comprehensive survey of its origins. Even more than in other branches of education, however, an understanding of how it has evolved in the past is essential to any full appreciation of the social and educational issues it raises in the present.

Osgood examines the history of the school lives of children placed in formal or informal special education settings in American public schools during the last 120 years. As the public school system in the United States grew throughout the 20th century, special education became a recognized and dependable, but marginalized, arm of public schooling. Throughout the 1900s special education emerged as its own world in many ways, developing policies, practices, structures, and an identity that became more diverse and inclusive. This work describes and interprets the nature and characteristics of special education. It examines carefully the human aspects of identification and placement; the nature of work and play in the classroom; the relationship among students, teachers, administrators, and parents involved in the process; the status and relation of children with disabilities to their non-disabled peers in various school settings; and the impact of school experiences on the lives of these children beyond school.