John Bald: What has caused the explosion in the number of children diagnosed with autism?

John Bald: What has caused the explosion in the number of children diagnosed with autism?

John Bald is a former Ofsted inspector. He is Vice-President of the Conservative Education Society. In 20 years of teaching and advisory work in a large education authority, I met two cases of autism. The first, in the East End, was a pupil who could not help unpredictable and unprovoked blurting out in class, in a way that made it impossible for me to teach. This was almost certainly Tourette’s syndrome, and it nearly broke me. The second was t…