this reform in education caused problems because the country was so unique with its history, politics, and culture. China did not have schools for individuals with disabilities until the American and European missionaries established institutions for the blind and deaf. This started in Beijing and Shandong Province in the nineteenth century. In 1949, the People's Republic of China (PRC) was founded and had a population of over 450 million. There were only 42 special schools with around 2,000 students attending. The students attending these special schools had hearing or vision impairments. Thirty-four of the schools were private and were managed by religious or charitable organizations. These facilities represented more of a residential home environment. During the 1950s education became the challenge of focus and during the next twenty-five years the specials schools increased as well as the student population attending a special school. In 1965, 266 special schools were available, and 22,850 students attended these schools. During the next ten years, which was during the Cultural Revolution, education was a standstill and only three more schools were established. At this time, these schools were restricted to those with hearing and visual impairments, but with the influence of communism, things started to change in these special schools and the idea of special education. The new focus of special education was to align it with the national educational goal and that was to nurture individuals to succeed as laborers and socialists. Medicine was taking a leap with a new perspective about remedial education and deficit compensation and focused on the rehabilitation of students' psychological and physiological deficits. With all the new changes, in 1979 China began to recognize that intellectually disabled children should attend these special schools. In 1987, a national survey was done and acknowledged that about 51 million people as well as 8.17 million school aged children had disabilities. China had expanded the ideas of what disabilities need special schooling and resulted in six categories: hearing and speech impaired, visual impairments, physical disabilities, intellectual disabilities, psychiatric disabilities, and multiple disabilities. In the later part of the 80s, Deng Xiaoping led the nation and demanded that the focus be economic development. The result of this growth of economics was more resources for education and in return, the education serves the community. Science and technology were how the education system was driven to success. The reform suggested that greater autonomy needed to