Honor the Past. Then Get Over It.
The IDD field has old wins to celebrate, but it still needs one national game plan to make future gains stick.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Swenson (2015) is the written version of a keynote speech.
It looks back at 50 years of progress for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
The author tells the field to honor those wins, then set one clear national plan for research, policy, and daily practice.
What they found
The paper gives no new data.
It simply argues that scattered efforts are no longer enough.
One shared agenda, Sue says, would move services forward faster.
How this fits with other research
Wolf-Branigin (2007) and Wolfensberger (2011) said the same "honor the past" thing first.
They traced earlier policy wins; Sue adds the "now move on" step.
Butterworth et al. (2024) show the need is real: after decades of work, most adults with IDD still lack real jobs.
That gap proves Sue's call for a single national plan is still unfinished.
Patton et al. (2020) and Bradley (2020) push the same idea after COVID-19.
They say the crisis is a chance to redesign services—exactly the forward move Sue urged.
Why it matters
Your clinic, school, or day program is part of the scattered system Sue describes.
Use staff meetings to pick one shared goal—like integrated jobs or telehealth—and track it together.
A common target keeps teams, funders, and families rowing in the same direction.
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Join Free →Post Sue's three questions on the staff board—What did we achieve? What's in our way? What's our next shared target?—and answer them in the next team huddle.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
This speech was presented at a conference, the National Goals in Research, Policy, and Practice, held in Washington, DC, on August 6-7, 2015. The conference was a working meeting to summarize the current state of knowledge and identify a platform of national goals in research, practice, and policy in intellectual and developmental disabilities. The meeting was jointly organized by the Research and Training Center on Community Living, Institute on Community Integration, University of Minnesota; Rehabilitation Research and Training Center on Developmental Disabilities and Health, Institute on Disability and Human Development, University of Illinois Chicago; Rehabilitation Research and Training Center on Advancing Employment for Individuals with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, Institute for Community Inclusion, University of Massachusetts Boston; The Arc of the United States; Association of University Centers on Disabilities (AUCD); and American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (AAIDD), with the support of National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR).
Intellectual and developmental disabilities, 2015 · doi:10.1352/1934-9556-53.6.409