Abstract
The influences which shaped society throughout the 20th century have directly or indirectly impacted on the lives of people with a learning disability. As marginalised groups and individuals experienced segregation, social role devaluation and ethnic cleansing, there was a move towards empathetic examination of the lives of people with learning disability. The relatively young profession of speech and language therapists evolved in tandem with the major social, economic and political movements of the century. The present paper looks at some of the clinical and professional developments in the area of learning disability from an historical perspective and posits some of the issue which may concern speech and language therapists and people with a learning disability in the future.