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The Public Papers of the Presidents contain most of the President's public messages, statements, speeches, and news conference remarks. Documents such as Proclamations, Executive Orders, and similar documents that are published in the Federal Register and the Code of Federal Regulations, as required by law, are usually not included for the presidencies of Herbert Hoover through Gerald Ford (1929-1977), but are included beginning with the administration of Jimmy Carter (1977). The documents within the Public Papers are arranged in chronological order. The President delivered the remarks or addresses from Washington, D. C., unless otherwise indicated. The White House in Washington issued statements, messages, and letters unless noted otherwise. (Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States. Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, various dates.

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The Messages and Papers of the Presidents	1789-1913
Herbert Hoover	1929-1933
Franklin D. Roosevelt	1933-1945
Harry S. Truman	1945-1953
Dwight D. Eisenhower	1953-1961
John F. Kennedy	1961-1963
Lyndon B. Johnson	1963-1969
Richard Nixon	1969-1974
Gerald R. Ford	1974-1977
Jimmy Carter	1977-1981
Ronald Reagan	1981-1989
George Bush	1989-1993
William J. Clinton	1993-2001
George W. Bush	2001-present

Lyndon B. Johnson: 1963-69

Statement by the President Announcing the Establishment of a Special Task Force on Handicapped Children and Child Development.

July 4th, 1966

HEALTH SURVEYS indicate that many children in our Nation have serious physical handicaps. Over 400,000 children have epilepsy, over 500,000 have a hearing loss, nearly 3 million have speech defects, and 10 million have eye conditions requiring specialist care.

Other children will join the ranks of the 1 million school dropouts each year or become juvenile delinquents. Many other children have special health, education, and welfare needs.

There are more than 50 different programs in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare which relate to the needs and problems of handicapped youth.

In order to better develop more comprehensive health and education programs for children, I have directed the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare to establish a special task force on handicapped children and child development. This group will review all existing programs and recommend to the Secretary, for my consideration, legislation for the next Congress.

There has been very little attempt to detect and correct problems that might cause children to fail in later life. If the resources of the school and the community can be brought to bear on these problems before they become damaging, the child and the Nation will be greatly benefited. We must expand our national resources to help the handicapped and to prevent "failures" among our children.

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