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Included assignments 2, 3 and 4.
Future uploads to include assignments 5 and 6 and the final test paper 7.
Q1, The timeline showing main events in education history that informed our modern definition of
moderate learning disabilities and provide brief explanation.
The opinions and solutions around educating and supporting children with MLD has always been
changing or improving over time. The first changes and laws of people regarding MLD date back to
1880s which have informed our modern definition of moderate learning difficulties.
1880s - The Cross and Egerton Commissions
The Cross Commission, also known as the Royal Commission on the Elementary Education Acts
passed the area of working with the ‘feeble-minded’ to the Egerton Commission. Although the
Egerton Commission 1886, was initially set up to look at the educational provision of children who
were ‘blind, deaf or dumb’, by 1888 it had widened its remit to include what it called ‘other cases as
from special circumstances would seem to require exceptional methods of education’.
This commission recognised that children with learning difficulties would require special approaches
to learning than the form of education that other children without MLD received. In their 1898
report the Egerton Commission recommended that there should be a line drawn between ‘feeble-
minded children’ and ‘educable imbeciles’ and that the former should be educated in mainstream
schools but in special education classes, while the latter should be educated in special institutions.
And this type of model of educating is one that is still followed today, although there have been
many updates, improvements, better research and knowledge, children with special needs can be
educated in mainstream or special schools depending on their needs.
1889 - Departmental Committee on Defective and Epileptic Children
The recommendation of the 1898 Egerton Commission report led to special schools being set up. But
the report did not offer clarity on the different types of special needs. In 1898, the Departmental
Committee on Defective and Epileptic Children recognised that the lack of defining criteria caused
difficulties in the area of special education, so they named a new criteria referred to as ‘the ability to
earn a living’. This meant that children who were considered ‘feeble-minded’ were seen as able to
earn a living, possibly more independent, while those who were thought to be imbeciles or idiots,
were not.
1913 - Chief Medical Officer
Due to more detailed distinctions made to identify intellectual disabilities, the Board of Education’s
Chief Medical Officer, grouped children into four categories; ‘the mentally normal child, the dull or
backward child, the feeble-minded child and the imbecile child; idiot’. The Borad of Education was
becoming aware of the variation in the way children were being identified as being slow or backward
and of the lack a nationally recognised standard.
1921 - Burt
A British psychologist, Cyril Burt, who specialised in the development of mental tests, noted that the
use of the term ‘mental-deficiency’ was an administrative category (not a psychological term), based
on the need for a cut-ff line that allowed teachers to identify children in need of special education.
Burt suggested that the terms ‘low intelligence’ as a psychological term and ‘mental deficiency’ were
not the same thing but the arbitrary boundaries had to be placed somewhere for the need of a cut-
off point.
, 1929 - The Wood Committee
In 1924 the Wood Committee was set up to look at ‘mental deficiency among children of school age’
which would take the pressure off the Board of Education for the continued problems in definition,
identification and provision of children with special needs.
The Wood Committee, which Burt joined, agreed the system that was already running, where Local
Education Authorities (LEAs) were compelled to make provision only for children who were
considered ‘capable of deriving benefit from education in the ordinary acceptation of the term’. This
approval allowed LEAs to identify children who could not attend day school, or who struggled and
did not make ‘substantial progress in scholastic and manual work’ and could remove those children
from the school system and place them under the umbrella of Mental Deficiency Authorities, as
these children were considered uneducable. This set-up meant that the lower limits of ‘mental
deficiency’ were identified with the lower limits considered to be an IQ of around 50 or less.
The Committee made a distinction between ‘educable defectives’ and uneducable defectives’
placing the categories of ‘feeble-minded’ and ‘dull or backward’ into one; ‘retarded’.
1937 - Her Majesty’s Inspectorate pamphlet
During the 1920s the school age had been increased which had implications for children who were
considered to be ‘retarted’. Her Majesty’s Inspectorate (now Ofsted) produced a pamphlet in 1937,
making reference to the Chief Medical Officer’s report from the year before which mentioned how
LEAs were taking into account the needs of the ‘retarded’ as they reorganised. IQ testing was now
prevalent, and another important factor was the definition of ‘educable defective’ got closer to
standardisation through the interpretation of these tests and procedures being produced by school
medical officers.
1944 - The Education Act
The Education Act changed terminology and words like ‘defect’ became ‘handicapped’ and mentally
defective’ became ‘educationally subnormal’ (ESN). The Act required that educational provision
should be included in the way in which primary and secondary education were formulated. The
following way, the Act and its Regulations, also included in the category of ‘educationally sub-
normal’ those children who lived with adverse family and home circumstances as well as those of
‘limited ability’.
Special school provision was now split into residential and day school with children being eligible for
those of an IQ between 50 – 70 and if their parental support was poor or not forthcoming. Some
pupils with IQs of over 70 were still considered if it was believed that home circumstances were not
conducive to the provision of parental support. But some children with IQs of under 70 were still
educated in mainstream schools if their parents were supportive and interested. As a result of the
new Act, there was a growth in numbers of children who were defined as having ESN between 1950-
1970.
1978 - The Warnock Report
The Warnock Committee was formed in 1974, with Mary Warnock, and made helpful
recommendations including the completion of a Form SE4, which would allow a more detailed
profile of the child’s needs and recommendation for provision of special help. This would then
provide a basis of judgement by LEAs as to whether the child would be registered as requiring
special educational provision. The Warnock Report seemed to lay the foundations of the
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