Every child deserves the same trust and confidence. Her father apparently gave this message to many of his students, says his daughter Angelika Speck-Hamdan. She received numerous letters from former students after his death. Otto Speck only knew a few who were not involved in special education. But with his work he left a big mark. It is to Otto Speck’s credit that children with mental disabilities do not have to eke out an existence in homes as they used to. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, he campaigned in the Bavarian state parliament for schools for mentally handicapped children.
He made key contributions to special and curative education and played a key role in the reorganization of special education in the post-war period. Speck has received numerous awards for his scientific work and his social commitment. Among other things, he is the bearer of the Bavarian Maximilian Order for Science and Art.
Born in 1926 in the Prussian district of Ratibor in Silesia, Speck first studied to be a teacher and worked as a teacher in a home school in Munich for children who were not admitted to the surrounding schools because they were considered “difficult to bring up”. In 1955 he did his doctorate on the subject “Children of working mothers” at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University (LMU). From 1972 until his retirement in 1991 he held the chair for special education that he founded.
Speck died on April 11 at the age of 97.