TY  - BOOK
AU  - Ferguson,Philip M.
TI  - Abandoned to their fate: social policy and practice toward severely retarded people in America, 1820-1920 
T2  - Health, society, and policy
SN  - 1566391547
PY  - 1994///
CY  - Philadelphia, PA
PB  - Temple University Press
KW  - Rome State Custodial Asylum (N.Y.)
KW  - History
KW  - INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY
KW  - SEVERE PROFOUND AND MULTIPLE DISABILITIES
KW  - HISTORY
KW  - GOVERNMENT POLICY
KW  - INSTITUTIONAL CARE
KW  - UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
KW  - ASYLUMS
KW  - ALMSHOUSES
KW  - fast
N1  - Includes bibliographical references (pages 187-206) and index; Ch. 1. Abandonment and Chronicity -- Ch. 2. The Legacy of the Almshouse -- Ch. 3. The Rise of the Idiot Asylums, 1850-1890 -- Ch. 4. Policy and Productivity in Rome's Early Years -- Ch. 5. Institutional Innovation and the Uses of Failure -- Ch. 6. Profiles of Chronicity -- Ch. 7. The History of Severe Retardation and the Future of Chronicity -- Appendix: Admission Forms to the Rome and Syracuse Asylums
N2  - Covering a 100-year period in the history of the social policy and practice toward people with severe mental retardation, Abandoned to Their Fate looks at the lives of people once labeled "idiots," "hopeless," or "unteachable." Ferguson examines the problem of what he terms "chronicity," the definition of some of the disabled population as beyond successful treatment or training that would make them suitable for reentry into daily life. He argues that the construction of this hopeless population was necessary in order to demonstrate the success of new approaches to treatment; The government, physicians, and families faced the quandary of what to do with people categorized as "feebleminded." Those who failed to respond to education or treatment were institutionalized, kept isolated except for contact with others like themselves, and simply left to a fate of neglect and exclusion. This book centers on a typical facility in New York. The Rome State Custodial Asylum for Unteachable Idiots (later the Rome Developmental Center) adopted a system of "custodialism" that is representative of the pattern of care provided by most American institutions in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Many of the treatments lauded in the supposed "golden age" of progressive reform are challenged by Ferguson as popular myths; Even with the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the federal policy of deinstitutionalization, Ferguson contends that the lives of many disabled people, particularly those with severe or multiple disabilities, have not significantly improved. Concluding that for most people in the United States reform has yet to arrive, he draws clear connections between the policy and reform initiatives of the past and those of the present
ER  -