Special Education in Contemporary Society: An Introduction to Exceptionality

2015 Recipient of the Textbook Excellence Award from the Text and Academic Authors Association (TAA)

The Fifth Edition of Richard Gargiulo’s well-respected Special Education in Contemporary Society: An Introduction to Exceptionality offers a comprehensive, engaging, and easy-to-read introduction to special education. Grounded in research and updated to reflect the most current thinking and standards of the field, the book provides students with the skills and knowledge to become successful teachers. Gargiulo’s text encourages a deep awareness and understanding of the human side of special education. The book provides students a rare glimpse into the lives of exceptional students and their families, as well as the teachers that work with exceptional persons throughout their lives.

The New Edition of Gargiulo’s groundbreaking text maintains the broad context and research focus for which it is known, while expanding on current trends and contemporary issues to better serve both pre-service and in-service teachers of exceptional individuals. The text is organized into two distinct parts to offer students a truly comprehensive and humane understanding of exceptionality. In Part I, readers are provided strong foundational perspective on broad topics that affect all individuals with an exceptionality. In Part II, Gargiulo engages students with thorough examinations of individual exceptionalities, and discusses historical, personal, and educational details of each exceptionality as it affects a person across the lifespan.

I have always desired to be an educator. I guess I am a rarity in that I never changed my undergraduate major or left the field of education. My undergraduate education began at Hiram Scott College in Scottsbluff, Nebraska. Three years later, I was teaching fourth graders in the Milwaukee public schools while working toward my master’s degree in intellectual disability at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. At the conclusion of my first year of teaching, I was asked to teach a class of young children with intellectual disability. I jumped at the opportunity and for the next three years essentially became an early childhood special educator. It was at this point in my career that I decided to earn my doctorate. I resigned my teaching position and moved to Madison, where I pursued a PhD in the areas of human learning, child development, and behavioral disabilities. Upon receiving my degree, I accepted a faculty position in the Department of Special Education at Bowling Green State University (Ohio), where for the next eight years I was a teacher educator. In 1982, I moved to Birmingham, Alabama, and joined the faculty of the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), where, until my retirement, I served as a professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction. In November 2014, I was awarded professor emeritus status by the board of trustees of the University of Alabama system.

I have enjoyed a rich and rewarding professional career spanning more than four decades. During the course of this journey, I have had the privilege of twice serving as president of the Alabama Federation, Council for Exceptional Children (CEC); serving as president of the Division of International Special Education and Services (DISES), CEC; and serving as president of the Division on Autism and Developmental Disabilities (DADD), CEC. I mostly served as the Southeast representative to the board of directors of DADD. I have lectured abroad extensively and was a Fulbright Scholar to the Czech Republic in 1991. In 2007, I was invited to serve as a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic.

Teaching has always been my passion. In 1999, I was fortunate to receive UAB’s President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. In 2007, I received the Jasper Harvey Award from the Alabama Federation of CEC in recognition of being named the outstanding special education teacher educator in the state.

With a background in both educational psychology and special education, my research has appeared in a wide variety of professional journals including Child Development, Journal of Educational Research, Journal of Learning Disabilities, American Journal of Mental Deficiency, Childhood Education, Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness, British Journal of Developmental Psychology, Journal of Special Education, Early Childhood Education Journal, International Journal of Clinical Neuropsychology, and International Journal of Special Education, among a host of others.

In addition to the present text, I have authored or coauthored more than ten books, several enjoying multiple editions, ranging in topics from counseling parents of children with disabilities to child abuse, early childhood education, teaching in inclusive classrooms, and, most recently, instructional strategies for students with intellectual disability.