This week, NCSA recognized National Special Education Day and International Day of Persons with Disabilities! What better way to close out this week than by understanding the legal rights and protections that these events have historically helped bring to our community. Let’s get into it.
In 1975, President Gerald Ford signed the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (EHA) into law. EHA, which was later reauthorized as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), serves as the core legal framework securing the rights of special-needs children, teenagers, and young adults in schools.
Prior to the passage of EHA, children with disabilities, especially the severely intellectually disabled, were largely excluded from public education. Due to the lack of statutory protections for special educational rights, states and public-school districts could deem a child “ineducable” and turn them away. This practice not only denied disabled individuals the chance to progress socially, emotionally, and intellectually, but often left them out of meaningful public life altogether. Disability and “mental retardation” policy centered not around dignity, inclusion or therapeutic intervention, but around the segregation and warehousing of such individuals in institutions.
Following the social upheaval of the 1960’s, however, the 1970’s brought a more humane, inclusive and socially progressive approach to disability justice. In Wyatt v. Stickney (1971), the U.S. District Court in Alabama held that people confined in state institutions had a constitutional “right to treatment” under the Fourteenth Amendment and were entitled to meaningful health and habilitative services while in custodial care.
That same year, the ruling in Pennsylvania Association for Retarded Children (PARC) v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania further expanded the legal rights of the disabled. Once again relying on the Fourteenth Amendment and the Due Process Clause, the U.S. District Court in Pennsylvania declared that education is a right that cannot be denied on the basis of disability. PARC directly rejected the notion of “ineducability” and required the state to provide a free public education to children with intellectual disabilities that included individualized programs and due process protections for families.
This momentum accelerated sharply in 1972 upon public outcry from the Willowbrook exposé, where investigative journalist Geraldo Rivera brought cameras inside Willowbrook State School, a large institution on Staten Island for children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. His photographs, aired on February 2, 1972 on WABC-TV in New York City, revealed the appalling conditions at Willowbrook, showing residents left naked, neglected, and living in filth. The footage horrified the nation and shifted attitudes away from eugenics-era segregation and toward demands for dignity, oversight, and community-based supports.
The Mills v. Board of Education of the District of Columbia (1972) decision further paved the way for EHA. Here, courts expanded the logic of the PARC decision to a broader range of disabilities (i.e. intellectual, emotional, behavioral, and learning differences), maintaining that public schools could not use financial hardship as an excuse not to serve students with disabilities. Special education was a right, however expensive, and districts were required to provide it to those who needed it.
In 1975, EHA became the first law passed by Congress to guarantee educational rights to children with disabilities. The backbone of the future IDEA, EHA consolidated and codified these protections. Its core provisions were: the Right to a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE), Child Find / Identification and Evaluation, Individualized Education Program (IEP), Least Restrictive Environment (LRE), Procedural Safeguards and Due Process Rights, Parental Participation & Consent, Nondiscriminatory Assessment, and Federal–State Funding Framework & Compliance.
IDEA, the 1990 reauthorization of EHA, was signed under President George H.W. Bush and has been revised as recently as 2004. It expands the provisions of EHA to include six pillars of modern priorities in special education spelled out in statute across four parts. Part A designates IDEA’s main provisions and the definitions used throughout the statute, Part B outlines formula grants to assist states in providing FAPE through LRE, Part C explicitly outlines provisions for early intervention services for infants and toddlers through the age of two, and Part D delineates discretionary grants in support of state personnel development, technology, and training centers.
So what should you, as a parent, loved one, or caring neighbor of a person with severe autism know about your entitlements in special education? Here are the core tenets of IDEA as they stand after the 2004 reauthorization, paraphrased from 20 USC CHAPTER 33, SUBCHAPTER II (Part B) §1412 on State Eligibility, 20 USC CHAPTER 33, SUBCHAPTER III (Part C) §1432 on Infants and Toddlers, and IDEA Regulations Part 300:
1) Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE)
Every eligible child with a disability, now from age of birth to 21, including children with disabilities who have been suspended or expelled from school, has a right to special education and related services at no cost, regardless of severity of disability. The word “appropriate” is tied to results, as services must confer meaningful educational benefit and support measurable progress goals on a timeline (this concept referred to as “Full Educational Opportunity Goal”). FAPE also includes provisions for residential placement, Extended School Year services (ESY), assistive technology, physical education and more.
2) Eligibility Categories & Child Find
IDEA defines 13 categories of disability categories (e.g., autism, intellectual disability, emotional disturbance, specific learning disability, etc.) and requires states/districts to identify, locate, and evaluate all children who may need special education. Evaluations must be nondiscriminatory, use multiple measures, and be conducted within clear timelines. This obligation applies regardless of the severity of disability, and to children residing with the State, those who are homeless, and those who are attending private schools. Children do not need to be classed by their disability, so long as they are eligible for services by way of their disability.
3) Individualized Education Program (IEP)
Every eligible student is entitled to an IEP that states present levels of academic/functional performance, sets measurable annual goals (and, when needed, short-term objectives), lists special education, related services, accommodations, and supports, and explains how progress will be measured and reported. IEP teams must include parents, at least one general ed teacher, a special ed teacher, and a district representative. The student must be invited when transition is discussed (by age 16 under federal law, but often earlier by state law). The initial evaluation may be requested by either a parent of a child, or a State educational agency, other State agency, or local educational agency to determine whether the child has a disability.
4) Least Restrictive Environment (LRE)
Students with disabilities must be educated with non-disabled peers to the maximum extent appropriate. Removal from the general education classroom is allowed only when education cannot be satisfactorily achieved in that setting, even with supplementary aids and services. This is the statutory foundation for inclusion, but LRE does not mean mainstream. For severe form of autism, the mainstream classroom can sometimes be the most restrictive, least empowering educational setting for the child.
5) Procedural Safeguards & Due Process
A robust set of parent/child rights is codified, including: the right to prior written notice of proposed/refused actions, right to access educational records, informed consent for initial evaluation and services, right to independent educational evaluation (IEE) (under certain conditions), options for mediation, due process hearings, and civil action when disputes arise. Additionally, “Procedures to ensure that testing and evaluation materials and procedures utilized for the purposes of evaluation and placement of children with disabilities for services under this chapter will be selected and administered so as not to be racially or culturally discriminatory. Such materials or procedures shall be provided and administered in the child's native language or mode of communication, unless it clearly is not feasible to do so, and no single procedure shall be the sole criterion for determining an appropriate educational program for a child.”
6) Parental Participation
Parents are full members of the IEP team and must be meaningfully involved in decisions about identification, evaluation, placement, and services. Schools must make a genuine effort to include parents, and “each local educational agency or State educational agency shall ensure that the parents of each child with a disability are members of any group that makes decisions on the educational placement of their child.”
7) Transition Services & Post-School Outcomes
By age 16 (or earlier if the state requires), IEPs must include appropriate transition services aimed at supporting movement from school to postsecondary education, employment, and independent/community living depending on the student’s abilities and needs. If transition services fail to be provided, the IEP team must reconvene.
8) Early Intervention
IDEA extends beyond school-aged children. Infants and toddlers ages birth to three with developmental delays or diagnosed conditions receive an Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSP) in lieu of an IEP. It focuses on early interventional services for the child’s development, often delivered at home. These include, among other things, speech-language pathology and audiology services, and sign language and cued language services, done by qualified professionals.
9) Discipline
When suspension/expulsion exceeds a cumulative total of 10 days, a manifestation determination will determine whether the behavior is a result of the disability. Educational services continue even when students are removed from their regular placement for behavior. If the behavior is deemed a function of the disability, the child will receive, as appropriate, a functional behavioral assessment and behavioral intervention services and modifications that are designed to address and modify supports to fix the problem at hand.
Thus, nearly half a century after EHA’s passage, IDEA remains the cornerstone of special education law. This week, we celebrate the progress these laws represent, as well as the special place our loved ones hold in society. Most importantly, we remain committed to the work still needed to make these laws play out on the ground and to make appropriate, special education a lived reality for all – especially for those with severe autism.
References:
U.S. Department of Education. (2025, December 2). IDEA statute and regulations. Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. https://sites.ed.gov/idea/statuteregulations
U.S. Government Publishing Office. (2025, December 2). Electronic Code of Federal Regulations: 34 C.F.R. Part 300 – Assistance to states for the education of children with disabilities. https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-34/subtitle-B/chapter-III/part-300
Davies, G. (2007). Transforming special education: The genesis of the Education for All Handicapped Children Act. In See government grow: Education politics from Johnson to Reagan (pp. 159–186). University Press of Kansas.
Trent, J. W. (1995). The remaking of mental retardation. In Inventing the feeble mind: A history of mental retardation in America (pp. 255–289). University of California Press.
Author’s Note:
Cristina Gaudio is the Legal Policy and Advocacy Fellow at the National Council on Severe Autism. A J.D./M.P.P. candidate at Vanderbilt University and a proud autism sibling, Cristina is dedicated to advancing evidence-based policies that support individuals with severe and profound autism. Her work focuses on Medicaid reform, housing access, and meaningful services for profoundly affected individuals. She also serves as a U.S. Air Force Reserve Officer.