{{Short description|British educationist}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} '''Sybil Elgar''' (10 June 1914 – 8 January 2007) was the first special-education teacher for those with autism in the United Kingdom.<ref name=guard>{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/2007/jan/24/guardianobituaries.obituaries2|title=Sybil Elgar: Pioneer in teaching and care of autistic people|last1=Wing|first1=Lorna|date=24 January 2007|website=The Guardian|access-date=20 December 2017}}</ref>
In 1962, she began a school for autistic children in the basement of her London home.<ref name=oxbio>{{cite book|title=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography 2005-2008 |page=344 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nbGcAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA344 |access-date=1 July 2018 |isbn=978-0-19-967154-0 |year=2013 |editor-last=Goldman |editor-first=Lawrence |publisher=Oxford University Press}}</ref> She helped to found the National Autistic Society, whose first school for pupils with autism was later named the Sibyl Elgar School in her honour.<ref>{{cite web|title=Our Story So Far|url=http://www.tiki-toki.com/timeline/entry/21729/Our-story-so-far/#vars!date=1951-09-02_06:02:12!|publisher=National Autistic Society|access-date=20 December 2017}}</ref> In 1974, Elgar and the parents of some of her students founded the first residential community for adults with autism, Somerset Court in Brent Knoll, Somerset.<ref name=guard /><ref name=scat>{{cite web|url=http://www.scat-trust.org.uk/TheSCATstory |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180701193752/http://www.scat-trust.org.uk/TheSCATstory |archive-date=2018-07-01 |title=The SCAT Story |website=Somerset Court Autistic Trust |access-date=1 July 2018}}</ref> She was appointed MBE in 1975, and in 1984 she retired.<ref name=oxbio /> Elgar died on 8 January 2007 at the age of 92.
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== * [https://web.archive.org/web/20070715020843/http://www.nas.org.uk/sybilelgar Sybil Elgar school (www.nas.org.uk)] * [https://www.autism.org.uk/our-schools/sybil-elgar Sybil Elgar school (www.autism.org.uk)]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Elgar, Sybil}} Category:2007 deaths Category:British educational theorists Category:Members of the Order of the British Empire Category:1914 births
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