Down Syndrome - Society and Culture

Society and Culture

In most developed countries, since the early 20th century many people with Down syndrome were housed in institutions or colonies and excluded from society. However, since the early 1960s parents and their organizations, educators and other professionals have generally advocated a policy of inclusion, bringing people with any form of mental or physical disability into general society as much as possible. Such organizations included the National Association for Down Syndrome, the first known organization advocating for Down syndrome individuals in the United States founded by Kathryn McGee in 1960; MENCAP advocating for all with mental disabilities, which was founded in the UK in 1946 by Judy Fryd; and the National Down Syndrome Congress, the first truly national organization in the U.S. advocating for Down syndrome families, founded in 1973 by Kathryn McGee and others.