Who is considered as the "father" of special education?

Jean-Marc Gaspard Itard is known as the father of special education.

Special education (also known as special needs education) is the education of children who are socially, mentally, and emotionally different from other children. They require special treatment and modification of modern school practices.

Itard was a general French physician and was the founder of the oto-rhino-laryngology, also known as Otolaryngology. He handled the first case of Tourette’s syndrome in a systematic fashion. Itard also worked with deaf-mutes and mentally disabled children. However, his first attempt failed, but he taught the world how to teach these specially-abled children.

Special education, also called special needs education, is the education of children who differ socially, mentally, or physically from the average child to such an extent that they require modifications of usual school practices.

Special education serves emotional, behavioral, or cognitive impairments or with intellectual hearing, vision, speech, or learning disability and gifts. Jean-Marc Gaspard Itard, a French physician, is considered to be the father of special education.

Even though special education laws were not passed until 1975, with the introduction of Education of the Handicapped Act, Itard was attempting to educate children with mental disabilities in a systematic fashion as early as the late 1700s and early 1800s.