Housing for the person with intellectual handicap

Abstract

In Sweden, as in most countries in Western Europe, it was during the second half of the nineteenth century that organized provision was made specifically for people dependent on help and support from others. Increased industrialization and urbanization put new demands on the citizen. In Sweden, one such demand, significant and consequential for people with intellectual handicap, was the introduction of compulsory schooling. In pace with the establishment of the ordinary school system, special school institutions were started for those who could not cope with the demands of the ordinary schools. These became the first forms of state support for this group of handicapped people. When demands on achievement increased in these schools, two additional institutional forms were developed, asylums for those with extensive needs and occupational-homes for those who left school on reaching adulthood. The ‘educable’ were provided with education at the school institutions, and work was provided at the occupational-home. The ‘ineducable’ were referred to a life at an asylum, living in simple conditions, irrespective of whether they were children, adolescents, adults or elderly. Through this process the Swedish institutional tradition was established. It was further reinforced by legislation, which in the mid-1950s closely regulated how society was to provide support for this group. But as their roots were in the pedagogical tradition, Swedish institutions remained comparatively small (Söder, 1978).