Mary MacCracken, Who Wrote About Disabilities, Dies at 88

Mary MacCracken, whose memoirs about her intensely individualized approach to teaching children with emotional and cognitive disabilities were made into television movies, died on July 23 in Hanover, N.H. She was 88.

The cause was complications of melanoma, her daughter Susan L. Thistle said.

Mrs. MacCracken entered the special education field in the late 1960s as a once-a-week volunteer at a private school in New Jersey. There, she wrote, she became enthralled with children whose extreme behaviors included hiding in closets and obscenity-laced tirades that tended to scare off many volunteers on sight.