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Residential Placements
Inspired by Seguin’s work in Paris, educational program for persons with mental retardation proliferated throughout the world during the early 1800s. In the latter half of the nineteenth century residential institutions were built in the United States and, stimulated by Seguin’s immigration to this country. His teaching techniques were incorporated into many of these newly opened facilities. -
Nursery Schools
The mission of this experimental program was to provide comprehensive, prevention oriented services to meet the social, physical, emotional, and intellectual needs of young children. Unlike the religious orientation of Froebel’s kindergarten, the MacMillans’ curriculum was based on secular social values and focused on the development of self-care, individual responsibility, and educational readiness skills. -
The Children’s Bureau
In 1912, in an attempt to address the widespread problems of high infant mortality, poor physical health, and exploitation of working children, Congress established a Children’s Bureau in the Department of Labor to investigate and report upon all matter pertaining to the welfare of children and child life among all classes. -
Montessori School
Maria Montessori opened the first nursery school in the slums of Rome. Montessori applied the methods she had developed for training children with retardation to the preschool education of nondisabled, urban, poor children. The Montessori method departed significantly from traditional early childhood curricula in its emphasis on individualized self-teaching by children within a carefully prepared classroom environment. -
Section for Exceptional Children
In 1946, a Section for Exceptional Children was established within the United States Office of Education, which later (in 1996) became the Bureau of Education for the Handicapped and then (in 1980) the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services. By the late 1950s, legislation at both the state and federal levels was beginning to promote greater access to special education for wider segments of the population. -
Association of Medical Officers of American Institutions for Idiotic
The AMOAII and Feeble-Minded Persons was formed with Seguin as its first president to provide a mechanism for communication among those interested in the education of mentally retarded persons. By the end of the nineteenth century, residential institutions in the United States were well established, highly invested in the development of teaching strategies, and firmly committed to the integration, albeit in limited form, of disabled persons into community life. -
Kindergarten
The first formal kindergarten classes, which were based on a philosophy grounded in traditional religious values and in a belief in the importance of learning through supervised play, were established in Germany by Friedrich Froebel in the early 1980s. -
The Nature-Nurture Debate
Interest in the determinants of competence in young children is a relatively recent phenomenon. Although systematic evaluations of the emerging abilities of infants were conducted by a New Orleans physician in the late nineteenth century, the cataloguing of early achievements and the methods of childhood assessment were not well developed until the early decades of the twentieth century. -
Americans with Disabilities Act
Passed by Congress in 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is the nation's first comprehensive civil rights law addressing the needs of people with disabilities, prohibiting discrimination in employment, public services, public accommodations, and telecommunications. -
No Child Left Behind Act
The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), which passed Congress with overwhelming bipartisan support in 2001 and was signed into law by President George W. Bush on Jan. 8, 2002, is the name for the most recent update to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965