gave last year’s Gulliford Lecture at the University.pdf

THE GULLIFORD LECTURE Autistic spectrum disorders: a challenge and a model for inclusion in education Rita Jordan I first encountered autism in my attempt to do something for Rita Jordan, Professor in Autism Studies at the the children who were then excluded from education in the School of Education, University of Birmingham, UK and who, without education (and without even health gave last year’s Gulliford Lecture at the University provision until they were seven years old), were ending up in of Birmingham on 4 October 2007. This article is the back wards of what were then called ‘subnormality hos- based upon that lecture. In it, Professor Jordan dis- pitals’. Anyone who has read Oswin’s (1971) account of the cusses the role of education in the lives of people ‘empty hours’ characteristic of the lives spent in such hos- with autistic spectrum disorders. She traces the growth in our knowledge about autistic spectrum pitals will have some idea of what that was like, although I disorders and the development of a variety of ways think one needed to see it to fully comprehend its barbarity. of responding to autism, from the highly special- Jack Tizard (personal communication) once said that it was ised, and frequently strictly segregated, to the not the encouraging statistics showing improvements in explicitly inclusive. She uses her analysis to draw social and adaptive functioning that brought about change, dis