Historical Foundations

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Historical Foundations

• A Past and Present Perspective

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A society is judged by how it treats is weakest
members

• Over 50 million Americans
• Attitudes
• A little HISTORY lesson Societys attitudes
  toward disability Five Periods

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1. Spiritual-Medical-Magical

• Prehistoric to 500 B.C.
• Work of gods or evil spirits
• Congenital Death
• Acquired Death / Banishment

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2. Logic - Nature (EVIL)

• 500 B.C. to A.D. 500
• Hippocrates and Galen
• Rome and Greece - infanticide
• Infants with deformities and the law
• Older adults with disabilities and Commodus
• Lycurgus and the idiot
• Objects of amusement
• Emotional disabilities and prescription

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3. Middle Ages Cruelty and Confusion

• 500 to 1500
• Religion dominates over medical explanations
• Mixture of attitudes
• Differences between cognitive and physical
  disabilities

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4. Turning Point

• 1500 to early 1900s
• Locke and Rousseau philosophy
• Luther (Germany) and Calvin (Switzerland)
• Other physicians and the Celius model
• Pinel and Dix move to medical attention
• 1801 Itard The Young Savage of Aveyron -
  systematic training

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4. Turning Point

• Montessori (1964)
• Educational task ranking
• 1817 - 1st residential institution for people
  with disabilities
• 1899 - public schools began to serve pupils with
  disabilities

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5. Advocacy

• 1900s to Present
• Increased care, treatment, and educational
  services
• By early 1960s special education enrollment
• Today ?
• Reasons for increase in numbers of children
  served?

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5. Advocacy

• Year-round residential facilities -
• Blatt Kaplan (1966) photo essay
• The 1980s and deinstitutionalization
• TASH
• CBI Functional Training Transition

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Pity and Fear

• Poster Child
• Pity Oppresses
• No other symbols of disability play up pity
  more, than charity telethons and their poster
  children
• Poster Children
• Ex. Cyndi Jones (publisher and editor of
  Mainstream national disability magazine)
• Paralytic Polio is Increasing Again
• Vaccinate Your Family Now Against Polio
• Rejection of Societys Deeply Held Thinking

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Miracle Cure and the Rise of the Supercrip

• This could happen to you
• Your child or grandchild, but if you just donate
  money, the disabled children will go away
• Early Campaigns of the 40s and 50s
• Disability to be overcome
• Supercrip

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Poster Child and Supercrip Obstacles

• Examples
• Jim Abbott
• Mary Lou Breslin
• Evan Kemp
• Kemps Issue with the MD Telethon
• Jerry Lewis
• Issue of money vs. prejudice

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Discrimination and Misconception

• Zoo Owner and Restaurant Manager
• New Jersey High School Athletes
• Ambulance Rescuers
• Tiffany Callo
• Rhett Lee

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Lebensunwertes Leben

• Meaning a life unworthy of life
• Larry James McAfee
• 34yr quad from motorcycle accident (respirator)
• Requested right to die judge granted him wish
  praised him as sensible and brave
• 1920s Practices
• 1942 Dr. Foster Kennedy
• Dr. Jack Kevorkian
• 1983 Baby Jane Doe