Quatro décadas de Educação Especial no Estado de São Paulo

Special Education professionals’ training in Brazil is relatively recent. Initially, teachers for students with disabilities were trained in specialization courses at the end of Senior High School. This article analyzes the advances in the teachers’ and researchers’ training in Special Education in Sao Paulo State as well as changes in the conceptual and methodological aspects of the study of disabilities and assistance for people with disabilities in the last four decades. In the 1970s, two college events gave a new dimension to the formation of human resources in Special Education: the beginning of the Qualification in Special Education in Pedagogy course at the Sao Paulo State University (HEE/UNESP), in 1977, and the beginning of the Master Program in Special Education at the Federal University of Sao Carlos (PMEE/UFSCar), in 1978. The HEE/UNESP began to train Special Education teachers and the PMEE/UFSCar, to train researchers in Special Education. These facts were fundamental to the enormous growth that the area of Special Education had had in these four decades. The changes that are occurring in the conceptual questions regarding deficiencies and in the research design are highlighted.