Alternatives to Special Class Placement for Educable Mentally Retarded Children

Public schools first provided day school programs for educable mentally retarded ( EMR) children in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1896.These initial attempts to provide special education services to retarded pupils assumed the form of special classes.Originally started as an effort to provide instruction for children who were typically excluded from the public schools, these special classes were felt to embody a more flexible approach to education than institutional placement, since they enabled slow learners to enjoy normal social intercourse with children in regular classroom programs.Considered controversial even in 1896, the opening of the first special class for retarded children was announced by a Providence columnist in a sarcastic article entitled "The Fool Class" ( Kanner, 1964).None other than Binet and Simon, inventors of the first widely used general intelligence scale, stated that "to be a member of a special class can never be a mark of distinction, and such as do not merit it, must be spared the record ( Binet & Simon, 1905, p. 82).Even though early authorities recognized the limitations of such placements, special classes continued to develop as the primary means of providing special education assistance to retarded chlidren.Stimulated largely by support from parents' groups and professional organizations, special education provisions for retarded pupils have expanded dramatically in the past seventy-five years, particularly in the past twenty years.By 1966, more than 540,000 children were enrolled in programs for the mentally retarded ( Mackie, 1969).Statistics indicate that by 1963 approximately 90 percent of the retarded children in special education programs were receiving instruction in self-contained special classes ( Mackie, 1969 )•.While the number of retarded children served by other organizational arrangements has undoubtedly increased since 1963, the self-contained classroom has continued to be the predominant pattern in special education for serving EMR children.In recent years, disenchantment with practices in special education has been evidenced in the activities of a wide spectrum of individuals and agencies.A number of authors, for example, have discussed the inappropriateness of special class placement for educating many children classified as mentally retarded ( cf.Christophos &