The education of the wild boy of Aveyron and contemporary proposal for school students with autism spectrum disorder: reading possibilities

Abstract

In this article, we have to analyze the educational experience of Jean Itard with the wild boy, reflecting on the presence of the ideas of this medical pedagogue in contemporary proposal for school students with autism spectrum disorder. Itard, unlike other physicians, bet on Victor educability, assuming that their difficulties were arising from long experienced abandonment. The proposed Itard was eminently educational nature, with the guiding assumptions that knowledge and ideas stem from feelings and that each sense should be encouraged in isolation. Based on the analysis undertaken on this learning experience, we reflect on the presence of this ideology in students with autism education. Therefore, we propose the discussion from a central point: the primacy of teaching method in the pedagogical proposal of Itard. In contemporary times, the school inclusion of students with autism spectrum disorder compels teachers to demand a teaching method that guarantees results in the learning of school knowledge. We alert to the possibility that demand repeat the core of the proposed Itard, who was the method. Taking this as a central focus, natural events can be deleted or taken as an obstacle to be overcome in the education of these subjects.