There is an urgent need to organize educational institutions for paralyzed children" (an episode from the history of a special school in the USSR)

Based on the documentary material introduced into the scientific use for the first time (from the collections of the Scientific Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences), as well as rare specialized studies, the article reconstructs an important stage in the development of the education and rehabilitation system for children with disorders of the musculoskeletal system (NODA). We mean the initiative of the Institute of Defectology of the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of the RSFSR to organize institutions for paralyzed children (1949). The main achievements in the medical and educational support of children with NODA by the end of the 30s of the XX century and in the first post-II WW years in Leningrad and Moscow are shown. The main results of scientific and practical research of the Institute's staff (Maxim I. Ryabtsev and others) on the restoration of movement in paralysis, the formation of motor skills of abnormal children, the correctional and educational role of manual labor are presented. The main systematized provisions of the project of the Institute of Defectology are proposed, containing requirements for the organization of institutions for children with paralysis and deformities of the limbs.