The Subject: line is the question. When did the word “special” come to be used in place of the word “retarded?”
When I was in Michigan public high school, 1971-1975, “Special Ed.” was a common term for the classes that the “slow” kids were in. They had a “Special Ed. Bus”, also.
“Special” != retarded.
Special Education is more of a catch-all term to describe the specialized education necessary for any student who isn’t normal.
In my mother’s early childhood(3-5 yrs old) special ed. class, the students included 3 year old children who could read and write, but were in wheelchairs, children with autism, to children who had cerebral palsy, kids with severe emotional problems, and kids with staggering health problem.
Not all of them were plain old retarded- some were normal, but due to their particular afflictions, would have a very hard time in a normal classroom.
This is now of course called the “Short Bus” - 1990 era maybe?
Your question has completely no context, which renders it meaningless.
For example, does “Special Edition” of a book means it’s, em, retarded? What about Special Olympics?
Ah come on Urban Ranger, I think it’s pretty clear what the context is. Or would you like me to spell it out?
You know what’s better than winning a gold medal in the special olympics?
Not being in the special olympics…
His question is perfectly clear and makes sense. As for the answer, I’ve no idea but have heard the “special” used plenty of times for metally handicapped persons.
“Special” does not mean retarded. Rather, “special” refers to children that cannot learn in our usual academic settings. This category includes, but is not limited to, children with physical disabilities, children with emotional and psychological problems, children with behavior problems, children with learning disabilities, and children with mental illnesses. All of these children have a normal capacity to learn.
It is our bias that categorizes “special” children as “retarded.” Retarded children, just like deaf or blind children, are usually taught in separate, specialized environments outside of the regular school system.
Well, then when did the term “retarded” become politically incorrect (For politically correct people)?
So the Special Olympics are for kids who are slow learners or have emotional problems? What is the basis for the statement “Special” does not mean retarded ? Is this fact or your opinion?
This is moving off-topic, but I’d add - even leaving aside the problem that “retarded” has been a general purpose playground insult at least since the 1970s, “mentally retarded” is an inaccurate description, as is the most popular new(ish) euphemism, “developmentally delayed”. Both imply that the only thing that makes these folks different from the average is that they develop more slowly, and that just isn’t so, unfortunately. To a certain extent “special” avoids that problem - but it’s so clearly euphemistic and so treacly sweet that it is IMO unusable. “Mentally handicapped” or “developmentally handicapped” are about the best I can do.
The term “special education” was around in my elementary school days in the 1970s, but it specifically did not include mentally handicapped children. Children with serious learning disabilities, children with physical handicaps who could not be mainstreamed, and children with emotional/psychological problems went to the Special Ed rooms during class time but were with the other kids for lunch, recess, etc. Mentally handicapped children were in a separate program, and they were completely segregated from the rest of the school.
“children with learning disabilities … have a normal capacity to learn.”
Allright, I can’t keep quiet any more. Is there anybody who really believes this? Whom does it serve to pretend, to just plain lie about it?
‘It is our bias that categorizes “special” children as “retarded.”’
Come on. Learning ability has to be like a zillion other human traits. People have more or less, and no doubt with a zillion squared variations.
IIRC the words “fool”, “idiot”, “imbecile”, and “retarded” were all proper and appropriate terms in their day to refer to people with relatively big deficits of various kinds in mental ability. And, perhaps because most of us value mental ability, they all became derogatory, and new appropriate terms took their place.
In the late 70’s I had a friend in the field of “exceptional children”, meaning the field of educating and caring for children with mental deficits severe enough that they required specialists for their care. Someone who didn’t know that “exceptional” had become a new code word for a child with a severe mental deficit might badly misunderstand, which certainly makes our language itself a little weaker.
Is it so hard for people to agree that severe mental deficits per se are undesireable, even bad things? But that children with these deficits are humans deserving the same care all children deserve, and perhaps special considerations as well?
Whom does it really serve to play silly games with words to try to confuse the real issues???
What ** flodnak **, ** Cillasi ** and I were trying to say is that “special ed” isn’t strictly limited to retarded children. It’s more of a blanket term used on any students that can’t be mainstreamed.
Now as to why they don’t use “retarded”, “imbecile”, etc… well, I tend to think that it’s the same reason we don’t call black people niggers or colored anymore- it’s something derogatory and obviously hurtful to someone(in the retarded children’s case, the parents), so why not use some other term?
However, I agree that “special” and “exceptional” are misleading- in most other contexts those adjectives are used for something out of the ordinary, but in a good way. Just seeing the term “exceptional children”, I’d first thought that ** Napier’s** friend taught gifted and talented children, but it’s the opposite end of the spectrum. I’m not sure what the solution is- I think stuff like “special” or “exceptional” are maybe a bit saccharine, but then “droolin’ retard” is way, way too harsh too.
I lived near the Gatchel School for Cerebral Palsy (Dekalb County, GA) in the late 60s, and both ‘the short bus’ and ‘Special Ed’ were terms in use locally. “The short bus” was a neighbor term used with muxed mystification and wonder (we understood why it was used, but we’d never seen such a thing anywhere else). Special Education was a term that was supposed to cover all special needs, including gifted, but though I went to (what we felt was) the best school in Dekalb county, I never saw a single dollar spent on ‘gifted ed’.
[1] It’s a magnet school now I recently heard in the 90s that all the students at my old elementary school learn German and Russian, at minimum, and the school has a science lab that was at least equal to the former high school next door [now a community college]
I ended up learning German and Russian on my own two years later, but damn, I’m jealous of Kittredge students today!
The term was also used for physical disabilities. People with cerebral palsy [my example above] do not necessarily have any mental impediment. Amputees or victim of a motor neuron disease (say, Stephen Hawkins) rarely do. Yet they have ‘special needs’.
I’d say that most people with IQs over 160, and many people over 140 or even 130 would benefit just as dramatically from similarly tailored early edication. Few Nobel Prize winners have IQs over 165. Such people are hundreds of times more likely to commit suicide, develop drug or other problems or retreat from society in various ways. I have a manuscript on the subject that I don’t plan to submit anytime soon, because I don’t feel like fighting the uproar just now.
(Yes, IQ tests are flawed - a defect in the tests, not the underlying principle. Many people really are “up the bell curve without a paddle”, but rarely get any genuine help or sympathy, due to societal attitude, prejudices and insecurities)