Milestones in the History of Intellectual Disability, 1900-2013

What's in a name:

Accepted clinical terms for intellectual disability include "imbecility," "feeble-mindedness," and "mental deficiency." Segregation & isolation are the norm. The popular belief is that intellectual disability is synonymous with poverty, sloth, crime, and sexual profligacy.

• Dr. Benjamin Whitten, Superintendent, South Carolina Training School 1920

1904 First textbook about intellectual disability:

Martin Barr publishes Mental Defectives, the first text to suggest that hereditary factors play an important part in intellectual disability.

1907 Involuntary sterilization law:

Indiana becomes the first state to pass a sterilization law for people with intellectual disability held in state institutions.

1933

American Association for the Study of the Feeble-Minded changes its name to the American Association on Mental Deficiency.

1946 "Slaves or Patients?"

An article detailing the poor conditions inside Maryland's Rosewood State Training School is published in The Catholic Worker.

• "The wards are so having to place some of the patients on an open sleeping porch during both summer and winter. Twelve hundred patients, many of whom should be capable of ultimate return to society, are trapped there . . . It should be to the shame of every person that such a situation can exist." - Gordon C. Zahn, The Catholic Worker, October 1946

Institution overcrowding:

1930-1950 Number of people with intellectual disability in state-funded institutions grew from around 60,000 in 1930 to nearly 140,000 in 1950.

"That failure should be corrected." — President John F. Kennedy, 1961 White House Statement on Mental Retardation

Landmark court case:

Pennsylvania Association for Retarded Children v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania supports the right of all children with intellectual disabilities to a public education.

1975 Separate is never equal:

President Gerald Ford signs into law the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, or PL 94-142 (now IDEA), compelling schools to provide full educational opportunities to all children with disabilities.

The Americans with Disabilities Act is passed:

Protecting the civil rights of all people with disabilities.

1979 Community inclusion:

The Center on Human Policy at Syracuse University issues The Community Imperative, a declaration affirming the rights of all people with disabilities to live in and be part of a community.

"In the fulfillment of fundamental human rights . . . all people, regardless of the severity of their disabilities, are entitled to community living." - Center for Human Policy, The Community Imperative, 1979

1987 Willowbrook closes its doors.

"Nothing about us, without us."

1991 Self-advocacy soars:

Self Advocates Becoming Empowered (SABE), a national umbrella organization for self advocacy, is established at a conference in Nashville. Within two years, SABE has affiliated chapters in 37 states.