Philip M. Ferguson

Communicating Adulthood: The Meanings of Independent Living for People with Significant Cognitive Disabilities and Their Families.

The status of adulthood has many more dimensions to it than simply reaching the age of majority. The dimensions of adulthood are discussed in terms of various definitions or “meanings.” The article gives particular‘ attention to how the definitions apply to adults with significant cognitive disabilities and language disorders and draws on a combination of both personal experience and professional research. The personal support agent - strategy is presented as one way to help families and adults with significant disabilities negotiate these various definitions and fulfill the promises of adulthood and independent living.

The Doubting Dance: Contributions to a History of Parent/Professional Interactions in Early 20th Century America

The relationship of professionals with families of children and adults with intellectual disabilities is a key component in the planning and delivery of effective and enduring support services. Yet, the history of such relationships is not well understood. After briefly describing the context for these relationships in the early 20th century, a thematic analysis is presented of correspondence between parents and professionals at one institution for people with intellectual disabilities during the early 1900s. The study concludes with a brief discussion of what we can learn from this troubled history to improve family/professional relationships.

Creating the continuum: J.E. Wallace Wallin and the role of clinical psychology in the emergence of public school special education in America

This paper reviews the history of the continuum of services in intellectual disability programmes. The emergence of public school special education in the USA in the first two decades of the twentieth century is used as a case study of this history by focusing on events and personalities connected to the St Louis Public Schools. Using Annual Reports from the era along with the abundant publications and personal papers of J.E. Wallace Wallin, the author explores how the growing class of specialists in clinical psychology and psychometrics gained a foothold in the schools as educational gatekeepers for student placements along an increasingly elaborate ‘continuum of care’. The paper interprets this quest for professional legitimacy as a three-sided conversation with Wallin (and his colleagues) in the middle between the medical officers of institutions for the feeble-minded on the one hand, and the educators of urban school systems on the other. Implications for the current discussions of inclusive approaches to education are discussed.

Family Portraits: Past and Present Representations of Parents in Special Education Text Books

This paper analyses the descriptions of families of children with disabilities as contained in introductory special education texts over the last 50 years. These text books are typically used in pre-service teacher education courses as surveys of the education of ‘exceptional children’. The textbooks reflect the mainstream professional assumptions of the era about topics such as disability, special education, inclusion, and family/school linkages. However, they also shape the assumptions of the next generation of educators about these same topics. The paper summarises the results of a qualitative document analysis of a sample of these textbooks from two different eras. The paper compares and contrasts how the representations of families by leading scholars in special education have changed over time.

Debating Inclusion in Synecdoche, New York: A Response to Gresham and MacMillan

Gresham and MacMillan review what the research says about the comparative development of socialization skills in children with disabilities placed in inclusive or noninclusive educational programs. Our article responds by arguing that a comprehensive review of the inclusion debate needs to cast a bigger net than the one used by Gresham and MacMillan. We briefly refer to some of the additional research and interpretive perspectives that seem relevant to considerations of inclusion and diversity in America’s schools.