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Professional school counselors have been in the public schools since the early 1900s. Fueled by the industrial revolution, the vocational guidance movement spawned the creation of high school guidance counseling programs. In 1907, Jesse B. Davis created one of the first vocational guidance programs at Central High School in Detroit, Michigan (Schmidt, 2014). In 1908, Frank Parsons, the father of vocational guidance, founded the Vocations Bureau that eventually became part of the Division of Education at Harvard University. These early efforts helped students develop vocationally, morally, and intellectually, and it would take nearly 70 years for children with exceptionalities to be similarly served in the public schools.

The purpose of this chapter is to explain the role of counselors in assisting students with exceptionalities. This will be examined by better understanding the counseling history, defining the terms of exceptionalities and transdisciplinary collaboration, and showcasing the many benefits of individual, group, and brain-based interventions.