On October 31, 1963, President John F. Kennedy signed legislation to construct a national network of Mental Retardation Research Centers. The Vanderbilt Kennedy Center for Research on Education and Human Development was founded at George Peabody College for Teachers in 1965 as one of these twelve original centers funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD).

The construction on the Peabody campus of the Human Development Laboratory (now the Hobbs Building) and the Mental Retardation Laboratory Building, dedicated in 1968, was made possible through funds provided by NICHD, a grant from the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation, and matching funds from Peabody College. Peabody College's John F. Kennedy Center was a model in its emphasis on research on education, both to improve practice and to determine the effectiveness of educational interventions.

The merger of Peabody College with Vanderbilt University in 1979 was the culmination of years of collaboration that linked behavior with biology but on a limited scale. In 2001, the Kennedy Center became a university-wide center for excellence on developmental disabilities with faculty from Vanderbilt’s Schools of Medicine and Nursing, Peabody College, and College of Arts and Science. Now, Vanderbilt University Medical Center geneticists, neurobiologists, and pediatricians work hand in hand with psychologists and educators to prevent or ameliorate development problems. Today, the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center is poised on the threshold of a new era in preventing and solving problems of human development.

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