A Historical Study Of The U.S.Federal Policy On Disabled Children’s Preschool Education(1965-2012)

Disability is an unavoidable objective existence accompanied by the development of humanity, social status of the disabled gradually improving reflects the advance of human civilization. Currently, the level of providing special education for disabled children become one of important criteria of educational advance for a country. Preschool education for disabled children will benefit not noly to train up personal virtues of the disabled children, but also to compensate their defective, which provide the advange for disabled children to interact with the community. Therefore preschool education for disabled children has been unprecedentedly emphasized round the world, became the important issue of many countries’ educational development.Preschool education for disabled children in the United States started later than Europe, but it developed so quickly that ranked in the former list of the world. From the perspective of its developmental history, the improvement of preschool education for disabled children in the United States benefit not only from federal legislation but also from the special education extended to low age. This dissertation mainly researches the history of the U.S. federal policy on preschool education for disabled children since 1960 s. This dissertation followed the educational objective of preschool education for disabled children in every different historical period on the background of politics, economic and ideological theory in the United States, put forward historic development stages of the U.S. federal gorvenment policy on preschool education for disabled children. On these basis this dissertation summarized experiences and deficiencies of the U.S. federal gorvenment policy on preschool education for disabled children, which will be helpful for developing Chinese preschool education for disabled children as references.The main contents are as follows:Chapter One, disregard and outside: Preschool education for disabled children in the U.S. before 1965. This chapter introduced the origination of preschool education institution for disabled children, appealing to education for disabled children from parents and associations, and different policy on preschool education for disabled children of states after compulsory education carrying out among all states in the U.S.. The U.S. federal gorvenment had not forcused on the preschool education for disabled children up to 1960 s, evey state had right to decide admission age and categories of disabled children.Chapter Two, exploring and action: the beginning of U.S. federal government policy on preschool education for disabled children(1965-1974). This chapter analyzed the social, political and theoretical background of the formation of federal government policy on preschool education for disabled children, traced the legislative source of federal government policy, presented how the federal government looking for preschool education mode for disabled children by legislation in this period. In conclusion, this chapter showed that the U.S. federal government kept up with the development of the times to try to put preschool education for disabled children into legal system and carry out.Chapter Three, fairness and rights: integrated U.S. federal government policy on the preschool education for disabled children(1975-1989). This chapter illustrated what policy the federal government made an effort to formulate in order to implement integrated education for all disabled children. ‘Education for All Handicapped Children Act’ put forward the important principle of education for disabled children, ‘Education of the Handicapped Act Amendments of 1983’ confirmed the important role of early intervention, ‘Education of the Handicapped Act Amendments of 1986’ formally established the fundamental position of preschool education for 0-5 year-old disabled children in the whole education for the disabled, which eventually formed the framework of integrated education for all disabled children.Chapter Four, quality and responsibility: inclusive U.S. federal government policy on the preschool education for disabled children(1990-2014). The federal government turned to focus on improving quality of preschool education for disabled children from1990 s after dealing with the equality of educational opportunity. The preschool education for disabled children has been given a inclusive meaning by ‘Individuals with Disabilities Education Act’, ‘Individuals with Disabilities Education Act Amendments of 1997’ and ‘Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act’. The federal government also put greater demands on education environment, teachers quality and parents collaboration by these three legislations.Based on above four chapters, the conclusion part summarized the development course of the U.S. federal government policy on preschool education for disabled children, concluded the policy characteristics of each historical stage, and then obtained some enlightenment to Chinese preschool education for disabled children.