Who

The first schools for people with special needs where developed between the 1800s, and 1900s. While these schools were forming there were two goals that were hard to achieve first to provide human treatment; and second remove the disabled from society. According to Sacks “in 1817 Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet and American minister and educator, established the first American residential school for the deaf” (3). Samuel Howe formed the Perkins Institute for the blind and supported public financial support for teaching and providing help for people with special needs. A man named Eduoard Seguin helped create the first home for the mentally challenged.

During the mid 1800s, a woman named Dorothea Dix, an educator and social reformer, helped people to view mental institutions differently. She got them to see them as hospitals for people who are ill rather then a prison for the criminally insane.

At the end of the century Alfred Binet invented an intelligence test named Binet-Simon. This test measured the intelligence and determined peoples mental status. Lewis Terman made improvements on the Binet-Simon test and named it Stanford-Binet. He also invented the first Longitudinal test for gifted children.

Nationwide compulsory school attendance in the early 1900s, flooded schools with thousands of new students, and policymakers had to find ways to deal with children who did not fit the mold. A lot of the students stayed in school until they could withdraw. There were many jobs available to someone who dropped out of school so there were not many consequences.