SOCIAL HISTORY OF DISABILITY
In Amy and the Orphans, Amy has Down syndrome, a condition that can cause a range of physical and intellectual disabilities. This timeline explores how humans have understood and responded to individuals with disabilities. Throughout much of history, Down syndrome was lumped together with all other differences, including epilepsy, cerebral palsy, autism, and cleft palates.
900-192 BC
In Sparta, a council of elders examined newborn babies and determined if they should survive. Visibly disabled children were killed by exposure to the elements. Parents were required to comply with the council. Ancient Romans also frequently killed babies with visible disabilities. Aristotle, one of the most influential philosophers in history, wrote, “Let there be a law that no deformed child shall live.”
900 BC - 323 BC Ancient Greeks used the term idiots to describe people with intellectual disabilities. The word comes from the word idios, which was originally used to describe a man who was not a public official, but it later came to be used to describe people who were uneducated. In Ancient Rome, individuals with disabilities were called monstra, a term that comes from the Latin words for “to show” or “to admonish.” Those who survived childhood were employed as beggars or as freak-show style entertainers. Children with disabilities from wealthy families sometimes received better treatment.
1848 AD - 1857 AD Dr. Samuel Howe established The Massachusetts School for Idiotic and Feeble-Minded Youth. This boarding school sought to prepare students with intellectual disabilities for participation in society, using a variety of educational approaches. During the next decade, similar training institutions were started in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York.
3000 BC - 500 AD Many ancient cultures believed that disabilities were caused by the gods. Either the child’s parents had angered the divine, or the child with disabilities was sent as a warning to the community. Some civilizations believed that children with disabilities were possessed.
500 AD - 1500 AD During the Middle Ages, the growing power and influence of the Catholic Church changed how people with disabilities were understood. They began to be seen as Holy Innocents, sent from God and endowed with special grace. Some people with disabilities were sheltered in asylums or monasteries run by the church. Others spent their days in “idiot cages.”
1350 AD - 1700 AD
Specialized institutions for treatment of the mentally ill were established in Europe. These facilities soon came to house all those considered abnormal, including the disabled. Patients were held in deplorable conditions and were often chained to walls. Bedlam, originally called St. Mary of Bethlehem, was established in London in 1247 and is the most notorious. The word "bedlam" eventually came to mean "chaos" as a result.
609 AD - 632 AD The Quran, the key religious text in Islam, includes the verse, "And give not unto those who are weak of understanding, the substance which God hath appointed you to preserve for them; but maintain them thereout, and clothe them, and speak kindly unto them."
1690 AD
John Locke, an English philosopher, published an influential essay in which he asserted that experiences and reflection allow the mind to develop. This idea inspired successful experiments in educating people with disabilities. He also differentiated between idiots and lunatics, or between those with intellectual disabilities and those with mental illness.
1866 AD
British physician John Langdon Down described the syndrome that now bears his name, Down syndrome. He used the term Mongolism, because he thought that the characteristic facial features of a person with Down syndrome looked like the features of those descended from the Mongols in Central Asia.
10 ROUNDABOUT THEATRE COMPANY
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