From Idiocy to Mental Deficiency: Historical Perspectives on People with Learning Disabilities / Edition 1

by Anne Digby, David Wright

Overview

From Idiocy to Mental Deficiency is the first book devoted to the social history of people with learning disabilities in Britain. Approaches to learning disabilities have changed dramatically in recent years. The implementation of 'Care in the Community', the campaign for disabled rights and the debate over the education of children with special needs have combined to make this one of the most controversial areas in social policy today.
The nine original research essays collected here cover the social history of learning disability from the Middle Ages through the establishment of the National Health Service. They will not only contribute to a neglected field of social and medical history but also illuminate and inform current debates.
The information presented here will have a profound impact on how professionals in mental health, psychiatric nursing, social work and disabled rights understand learning disability and society's responses to it over the course of history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415112154
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	10/10/1996
Series:	Routledge Studies in the Social History of Medicine
Pages:	252
Product dimensions:	5.44(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)
Lexile:	1660L (what's this?)

About the Author

David Wright is Wellcome Lecturer in the History of Medicine at the University of Nottingham.,
Anne Digby is Professor of Social History at Oxford Brookes University.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Contexts and Perspectives, Anne Digby; Chapter 2 Mental Handicap in Medieval and Early Modern England, Richard Neugebauer; Chapter 3 Idiocy, the Family and the Community in Early Modern North-East England, Peter Rushton; Chapter 4 Identifying and Providing for the Mentally Disabled in Early Modern london, Jonathan Andrews; Chapter 5 The Psychopolitics of Learning and Disability in Seventeenth-Century Thought, C.F. Goodey; Chapter 6 ‘Childlike in his Innocence’, David Wright; Chapter 7 The Changing Dynamic of Institutional Care, David Gladstone; Chapter 8 Institutional Provision for the Feeble-Minded in Edwardian England, Mark Jachon; Chapter 9 Girls, Deficiency and Delinquency, Pamela Cox; Chapter 10 Family, Community, and State, Mathew Thomson;

Editorial Reviews

'This book helps to fill an enormous gap in social history.' - University of Salford

'A good resource for students. It brings together an overview of changing perceptions, terminology, attitudes and provisions over centuries.' - Dorothy Atkinson, The Open University

'This book is an excellent resource for anyone involved in supporting people with learning disabilities.' - Nursing Times

'Some fascinating and also very moving descriptions.' - Community Care

From the Publisher