It was called special aid, but the reason I can't come up with a defining term is because it was a class with all the trouble kids across age spans from 6 to 14 years old gathered together. Then when the government mandated that schools had to help dyslexic children, they threw them into the mix. I'm not sure how anyone thought that was a good idea. It's no wonder that parents at the time would actively fight any sort of diagnosis because their children would be send into those "special" classes.
Anyway. It used to be that dyslexic children didn't go very far in the education system, and today they do. In part because they can get extra time during tests. I imagine there are similar stories for ADHD and whatever else you have these days.