Bengt Nirje on Normalization

Woman: This summer I had the opportunity also to go up to Canada and take a look at some inclusive environments and settings, mostly in the eastern provinces. And what I thought was so amazing was that administrators, clinicians, and teachers sat around and discussed with Americans inclusion and the way they did things. But if you gave them a profile of a child or a young adult that might have a lot of disabling conditions, maybe, it didn't seem that barrier-free was a problem, but maybe somebody was profoundly retarded in a wheelchair that then had behavior disorders, their answer was home instruction. So that child, because they didn't have anything else, just never left the home. The teacher went into the home and taught. And I found that if you can't say you're an inclusive setting or an inclusive school system if you're leaving part of your population at home. So I don't know that Canada has the exact model that…

Bengt Nirje: Because that's not the normal regular day.

Woman: That's right.

Bengt Nirje: The normal day is getting out of bed and getting out to school, to work. And then you go home and relax and take your shoes off and it's in your home and then you might decide to go out again at leisure time. But it's not to be closed in. Then you're closed in and that's not inclusive.

Woman: And yet they say, they do go around saying that they're very inclusive of everybody.