The photo-documentary project, “A Special Education: Portraits of Children With Disabilities” is photographer George Byron Griffiths’ personal account of three children with disabilities who live with their families and attend the public schools in Crosby-Ironton, a small community in North-Central Minnesota. Griffiths began photographing these children in 1995 while working with them as a para-professional in the elementary school. He has continued to photograph them ever since. These black-and-white images celebrate the ordinary moments of the children’s lives — moments with family, teachers, friends, and moments by themselves — as a realization of what it means to live with, work with, and be a child with a disability. 

Click on photo to see individual gallery for each child.

Each born with a different physical and/or mental disability, Eric, Courtney, and Jon are unable to communicate, go to the bathroom, eat, or navigate public spaces in ways other children and most adults take for granted. Completely independent living is something these children may never imagine, much less achieve. But they love unconditionally. In their families and their communities, these kids are not feared, pitied, or ridiculed; they are embraced, challenged, and included.