Special Education as Developmental Capital Revisited
The paper describes the social, political, and professional climate that prevailed in the 1950-70 period, which the 1970 Deno article reflects. The dramatic social-political and economic shifts that have occurred since that era are examined in terms of what the field of special education needs to do now and in the future to attain and maintain the kind of cost- and quality-effective interface with regular education and other social support systems that is needed as the lines between public education, therapy, and social intervention on behalf of the common good thin increasingly in even the most socially and economically advantaged local school districts.