A Research Study On School Students With Disabilities

As the United States became more accepting towards students with disabilities in the 1930’s, the word remedial began to be used as a label for these types of students. Previous definitions of the word were used as a medical term to describe how a certain disease was slowing down, for example a cancerous cell in remission. The word remedial itself had been around since the 1650’s, originally Latin for a cure of an ailment or disease. As the word progressed into the medical field involving children, it was used to describe something that was noticeable at birth, an obvious disability. This meant they were slower than the rest and would need counteractive measures to help them catch up. Up to this point, more and more students with†¦show more content†¦Special education started in the U.S. right after World War II when a number of parent-organized advocacy groups surfaced. The revolutionary group that began the advocacy for special education was the American Assoc iation on Mental Deficiency, which held its first meeting in 1947. This group had come up with good ideas for special education legislation, but it took almost 30 years until the first public act, The Education for All Handicapped Children Act, was erected by Congress in 1975 (Triano 1). This public law was meant to help states and districts by â€Å"protecting the rights of, meeting the individual needs of, and improving the results for infants, toddlers, children and youths with disabilities and their families† (PL 94-142). This law was finally implemented in 1977, becoming the first genuine legislative foundation for federal funding of special education. In 1990, the law had been renamed to the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA) since the entire act included various types of people with disabilities, not just children (Triano 2). The reason was that almost no progress was shown for disabled students and persons from 1977 until the law’s renaming brought the c ause back to life. In a study by the U.S. Department of Education in 1970, only one in five disabled students were being educated in schools. Other states had even put