The recorded history of disability is long yet, apart from the past 50 years, sparse. There is anthropological evidence that early man may on occasion have cared and protected persons with disabilities. For example Hadingham (1979) cites evidence of formal burial, around 45 thousand BC, of an individual (40 years plus) with long standing physical disabilities, but in later records there is also evidence of exploitation. In more recent times the records of the American Mental Deficiency Society - A Century of Concern (Sloan and Stevens, 1976) - indicate that a variety of both benign and restrictive approaches have been tried. The ideas of normalization, vocational employment, sterilization, incarceration were all proposed though sometimes not under these headings.

Developments during the past 50 years have been rapid and have been directed to scientific, practical and, more recently, societal approaches to disability. Yet, as I have indicated, these changes had their roots in earlier developments in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Itard and Seguin developed learning strategies which forecast modern learning and behavioural management techniques. Binet’s (1916) concern with disadvantaged students paved the way for intelligence testing, but also added fuel to the development of the nature-nurture controversy which was influenced by the views of Galton and Darwin.