70's kids diagnosed Educationally Handicapped.

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I'm interested in some stuff I read about someone diagnosed with autism as an adult in the US, who as a young child in the 70's was given routine EEG's, brain imaging (skull x-ray's), aptitude tests and put into a segregated classroom for "Educationally Handicapped" students.

Has anyone one reading this experienced this or similar or know anything about it?

If that or institutionalization happened most families would do everything to hide that fact as there was such a stigma against it. No smart phones or cameras all over the place so it was easier to hide. Screaming and fights could be heard by neighboors but there was a stigma against what was considered "butting into somebody's personal business". There was a reverence to the right of privacy which is long gone.

They really were "grasping for straws" in those days.

Many of those who had "minimal brain dysfunction" in the 1960s and 70s would be Aspergian or ASD Level One today, I would say. They exhibited "clumsiness" and maybe some more neurological symptoms, which were minor. They were speculating that there was something "microscopically" wrong with the brains of these kids. Their symptoms did not warrant a diagnosis of autism in those days, though they might very well be autistic via today's definition of it.

Then there was another category, known as "emotional disturbance." This was found in kids who didn't exhibit apparent neurological symptoms at all. Only behavioral symptoms.

I was just variously described in primary/secondary school correspondence I now have as "Not very well coordinated", "Not a games player" , "bad at drawing and writing" ,"disorganised", "messy", "the sort of boy who invites this sort of treatment"(in reference to being bullied).
Nowadays such would warrant help and support, back then(60s and 70s) it didn't.

I was one of these kids. I started school at four years old, and knew no English. My kindergarten teacher thought something was wrong with me. In those days, I was labeled "hyperactive," because I had no intellectual deficit, and was put on Ritalin. Awful stuff.

I knew I was different throughout my life, even though I wasn't stupid. I got good grades and was always studying something. Today, I would probably have Asperger's. "Minimal brain dysfunction" was the wastebasket diagnosis of the 1970s. I was in a special class in first grade, but asked successfully to be taken out of it when I discovered my classmates were all older and very few could read like I could. I liked the teacher, but didn't want to be separated from regular children all my life. It turned out I was actually doing more advanced work in that class than I did in the mainstream class. I always remember studying and reading about subjects I liked to supplement what I was learning in school.

I always thought of myself as something of a klutz and completely inept at sports and games. I was genuinely surprised that I was able to learn to play tennis.

I'm interested in this because it seems like a possibility that a lot of these kids in the segregated special education classroom were aspies. They seemed to have problems with learning and behavior. Most were considered hyperactive and put on Ritalin. They were put into a portable classroom at the other side of the school, had different lunch and recess periods and rode in a miniature school bus. It's even though the psychologists and board of education or whoever didn't recognize Aspergers, they at least recognized something and separated these kids. It actually seemed like a fairly good system were these kids were taken out of the mainstream and put together and given special attention. The classroom consisted of about only 15 students and had a special ed teacher and a teacher's aid.

Special Ed was only first becoming common in the 1970's. As a result of lobbying by parent organizations the Education for All Handicapped Children Act became became law in 1975. Prior to that 1 in 5 disabled students had access to education. Laws in various states banned students labled "emotionally disturbed"/"mentally ret*d" and certain physical disabilities from public schools. The law required any schools recieving federal money to provide equal education access for physicaly and mentally disabled students. The beginnings of what would become IEP plans were part of this law. The law did not mention Autism, that would be codified later.

I went to a special school for kids with all kinds of problems starting in 1968.

I was lucky they saw academic potential in me, so I was placed in an academic track and did well, though not behaviorally.

The school had no grades.

It still exists. It's known as the Summit School. It is in Queens, NY.

There were no IEPs then.

Yep.... they did start in 1975.

By that time, I was in a special high school that had their own type of "educational plan."

I didn't learn about them until I took education courses in college.

The guy I'm talking about was placed special ed called EH (educationally handicapped) in 1970. He lived in Los Angeles CA.

I know they separated special students from the normal students until the law passed in 1973 saying those kids had every right to an education and be there with the other kids. But we still had those self contained classrooms where kids were still separated from normal kids. Any kid with a disability got put in there and were segregated from normal kids. It happened to my husband and it happened to me too in the early 90's but then there was another law that passed about inclusion so at age 7 I would go to music and library and PE with a normal class. But that wasn't enough so my mom had to fight to get me out of that class and put me in regular ed full time. We still have self contained classes but we also have inclusion because not all special ed kids can function in a normal class. Some can still function in there with an aid. My mom always made sure to keep me out of that class because I would have acted like the other kids like I did before. I have always copied people.

I was born in 1987. But I was in such a crappy school in a crappy town it didn't make much difference. I did okay until about third grade when the bullying started to get bad and the teacher basically encouraged it. I was only put in special ed in 4th grade and by 5th grade my parents pulled me out of the traditional school system to home-school me.