Community Services-Disabled history

Committee Of The Connecticut Asylum For The Education And Instruction Of Deaf And Dumb Persons (1817)The founders of the Connecticut Asylum—like most educators of the deaf during the antebellum years—saw their primary goal as saving the souls of deaf children.

Eighth Report Of The Directors Of The American Asylum For The Education And Instruction Of The Deaf And Dumb (1824)"During the first half of the nineteenth century, deaf educators saw their primary goal as ensuring that deaf students learned the Christian gospel.

Disability Rights & Universal DesignDisability rights originated in Boston, Massachusetts in 1846 with Samuel Gridley Howe.

Samuel Gridley Howe opened the Massachusetts School for Idiot and Feeble-Minded Youth in 1848.

In 1850, the United States made the first attempt to determine the number of people with intellectual deficiency, and there was a reported increase in the number of people with disabilities in the following decades.

Franklin Pierce's 1854 VetoThe legislation advocated by Dorothea Dix -- and passed by the House and Senate -- was not unprecedented.

Cretins And Idiots (1858)Of those not affected by epilepsy, who are brought under instruction in childhood, from one third to one fourth may be so far improved as to become capable of performing the ordinary duties of life with tolerable fidelity and ability.

Some Abnormal Characteristics Of Idiots And The Methods Adopted In Obviating Them (1883)What is called idiocy is a mental state.

By 1923, a wide number of private institutions had also been built across the country.

· 1933 Franklin Roosevelt elected president.

Henry Viscardi begins his work as an American Red Cross volunteer, training 1944 disabled soldiers to use their prosthetic limbs.

· 1946 The National Mental Health Foundation; Helped to expose the abusive conditions at state mental institutions and became an early advocate for people with disabilities to live in community settings rather than institutions.

· 1947 First ever meeting of the President’s Committee on National Employ the Physically Handicapped Week.

President Truman formed the National Institute of Mental Health in 1948.

Renamed the United Cerebral Palsy Associations, Inc., in 1950, it becomes, together with the Association for Retarded Children, a major force in the parents' movement of the 1950s and thereafter.

· 1953 In-home care for adults with polio as a cost savings began in Los Angeles County.

· 1954 The office of Vocational Rehabilitation provided federal funds for over 100 university based rehabilitation programs.

Congress passes the Social Security Amendments of 1956, which creates a Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) program for disabled workers aged 50 to 64.

· 1958 The Rehabilitation Gazette began publication, focusing on disability rights across the US. Many of its articles were written by disabled writers on their experiences.

Medicare and Medicaid are established through passage of the Social Security Amendments of 1965.

· 1967 The National Theatre of the Deaf was established.

The DD Act (A History of the Developmental Disabilities Act from 1970 to Present)

· 1971 WGBH a public television station in Boston begin providing “Closed Captioned” programming for deaf viewers.

Passage of the Social Security Amendments of 1972 creates the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program.

In 1973, the Rehabilitation Act was passed, and for the first time in history, civil rights of people with disabilities were protected by law.

The Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities is organized to advocate for passage of what will become the Developmentally Disabled Assistance and Bill of Rights Act of 1975 and the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975.

(01-Jan-1977) When Carter's administration took office, the Health, Education, and Welfare Department immediately began revising and watering down the regulations, with no input from the disability community. (04-May-1977) The Section 504 regulations were issued.

· 1978 A sit-in demonstration by disability rights activists was held, blocking the Denver Regional Transit Authority buses due to the inaccessibility of the mass transit system.

· 1979 The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) is founded in Madison Wisconsin for the parents of persons having a mental illness.

· 1981 The International Year of Disabled Persons began with speeches before the United Nations General Assembly.

The task force begins building grassroots; support for passage of the ADA. Congress overturns President Ronald Reagan's veto of the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987.

It did not begin in 1988 when the first ADA was introduced in Congress.

· 1989 The original version of the Americans with Disabilities Act, introduced into Congress the previous year, was redrafted and reintroduced.

The ADA was passed on July 26, 1990 so this year is the 28th anniversary.

As a combined result of litigation, legislation, and social values, group homes became the dominant form of residential support in 1991, with approximately 95,000 individuals living in group homes.

(15-Feb-1993) Wade Blank, one of the founders of ADAPT, dies trying to save his son from drowning.

The election of Maria Rantho early in 1995 to the government of Nelson Mandela in South Africa, and of Ronah Moyo in April to the Robert Mugabe government of Zimbabwe marked the beginning of an epoch in the history of people with disabilities.

After pressure from disability rights activists, administrators there reverse their decision, and in January 1996, Jensen becomes the first person with Down Syndrome to receive a heart-lung transplant.

· 2004 The first ever Disability Pride Parade was held in Chicago and other communities around the country.

Ÿ 2006 The first bill requiring that students in a K-12 public school system be taught the history of the disability rights movement is passed, largely due to the efforts of 20 young people with disabilities from the state of West Virginia

Robert L. Schalock, Sharon A. Borthwick-Duffy, Valerie J. Bradley, Wil H.E. Buntinx, David L. Coulter, Ellis M. Craig et al., “Intellectual Disability: Definition, Classification, and System of Supports.” American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (2010).

The ADA Legacy Project: A Magna Carta and the Ides of March to the ADA, 2015 Disability History.

In the 2020 elections, 15 of the Presidential candidates felt the need to appeal to disabled voters by offering detailed disability policy platforms — an unprecedented recognition of the disability community’s growing power and self-awareness.