Foundations of Special Education · 6 min read
History and Philosophy of Special Education and Inclusion
The chapters follow the framework. Chapter 1.1 traces the history and philosophy of special education and inclusion. Chapter 1.2 explains the federal laws and landmark court cases. Chapter 1.3 turns to New York State, including Part 200 of the Regulations of the Commissioner of Education, the committees that make decisions and the procedural safeguards available to families. Chapter 1.4 covers ethics, family partnerships and collaboration, and Chapter 1.5 covers reflective practice, research and advocacy. Throughout, remember that New York regulations are updated from time to time; when a detail matters for your own practice, check the current Part 200 regulations and guidance from the New York State Education Department (NYSED).
This chapter explains how the education of people with disabilities moved from exclusion, to segregated institutions, to a legal right to a free appropriate public education, and finally toward inclusion in general education. You do not need to memorize dates for the test, and this guide does not use them. What you need is the sequence of ideas, the reasons each change happened and the philosophy that drives present-day practice.
From Exclusion to Institutions
For most of history, people with disabilities were excluded from schooling altogether. Many were kept at home, hidden from public view or placed in poorhouses. The first organized educational efforts came from a few pioneers who believed that people with disabilities could learn.
- Jean-Marc-Gaspard Itard, a French physician, worked intensively with Victor, a boy found living alone in the woods (often called the "wild boy of Aveyron"). His systematic, individualized teaching is often cited as an early example of special education.
- Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet and Laurent Clerc founded the first permanent school for deaf students in the United States, in Hartford, Connecticut. Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., is named for the family.
- Samuel Gridley Howe led what became the Perkins School for the Blind in Massachusetts and taught Laura Bridgman, a student who was deaf and blind. Anne Sullivan, Helen Keller's teacher, was a graduate of Perkins.
These schools were important, but most were residential and separate. Over time, large state institutions grew overcrowded and often neglectful. In New York, conditions at the Willowbrook State School on Staten Island were exposed by journalists, and the resulting public outrage and federal court case helped drive reform toward community-based services and protections for people with developmental disabilities.
Civil Rights and the Right to Education
The modern right to special education grew directly out of the civil rights movement. In Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court held that racially segregated public schools were inherently unequal. Disability advocates argued that the same reasoning applied to children with disabilities who were excluded from school or segregated without justification.
Two federal court cases then established that states could not exclude children with disabilities from public education. In PARC v. Pennsylvania, a settlement required Pennsylvania to provide a free public education to children with intellectual disabilities. In Mills v. Board of Education, a court ruled that the District of Columbia could not exclude children with disabilities, including those with behavioral and emotional needs, and could not use a lack of funds as an excuse. These cases led Congress to pass the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, public law 94-142, which was later renamed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).
| Era | Dominant Approach | Key Idea |
|---|---|---|
| Exclusion | No public schooling | Disability seen as a reason not to educate |
| Institutions | Separate residential schools and state facilities | Care and training apart from the community |
| Right to education | Federal law guarantees FAPE | Every eligible child is entitled to a public education |
| Integration and mainstreaming | Students placed in general classes for parts of the day | Access to general education settings |
| Inclusion | Students belong to the general education class with supports | Bring services to the student, not the student to services |
Normalization, Mainstreaming and Inclusion
Normalization is the principle, developed by Bengt Nirje in Sweden and popularized in North America by Wolf Wolfensberger, that people with disabilities should have patterns of daily life as close as possible to those of everyone else. It fueled the move away from institutions toward community living.
Mainstreaming refers to placing students with disabilities in general education classes, usually for part of the day, when they can keep up with the class with limited support. The student is often seen as a "visitor" whose home base is a special class. The Regular Education Initiative later argued that general and special education should share responsibility for students with mild disabilities.
Inclusion goes further. In an inclusive model, the student's home base is the general education classroom, and special education services, supports and specially designed instruction are delivered there whenever appropriate. Full inclusion means all services are provided in the general class; most schools use a continuum that includes inclusive settings alongside more specialized options.
Common Trap: Equating inclusion with simply placing a student in a general education room. Inclusion without supports, specially designed instruction and collaborative planning is sometimes called "dumping," and it does not meet the student's needs or the law's requirements.
Exam Tip: The law requires the least restrictive environment (LRE), not full inclusion for every student. When a test question asks for the best placement decision, look for the answer that begins with the general education class with supplementary aids and services and moves to a more restrictive setting only when data show the student's needs cannot be met satisfactorily there.
Person-First and Identity-First Language
Professional writing traditionally uses person-first language, such as "a student with autism" or "a student who uses a wheelchair," which emphasizes the person before the disability. Some disability communities, notably many autistic and Deaf people, prefer identity-first language ("an autistic student," "a Deaf student"), viewing disability as part of identity. Capital-D "Deaf" refers to a cultural and linguistic community that uses a signed language such as American Sign Language (ASL).
Classroom Example: A parent at a CSE meeting refers to "my autistic son." Ms. Haddad uses person-first language in her reports by default but asks the family which phrasing they prefer and uses it when speaking with them. Describing needs rather than labels ("Jamal needs extra time to process oral directions") is always appropriate.
Memory Aid: When in doubt, put the person first and the need second; when the family or student states a preference, follow it.
Present-Day Philosophy
Contemporary special education rests on several shared beliefs that show up in the correct answers on the test:
Key Takeaways
- Early pioneers such as Itard, Gallaudet and Howe showed that people with disabilities could learn, but early services were mostly separate and residential.
- Brown v. Board of Education, PARC and Mills laid the civil rights foundation for public law 94-142, later renamed IDEA.
- Normalization led to deinstitutionalization; mainstreaming placed students in general classes part-time; inclusion makes the general class the home base with supports.
- The law requires the least restrictive environment, not full inclusion for every student.
- Current philosophy emphasizes high expectations, presumed competence, family partnership, self-determination and evidence-based practice.
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