Jan 29, 2018, North Arkansas Democrat Gazette: NWA school adds sensory room http://www.nwaonline.com/news/2018/jan/29/nwa-school-adds-sensory-room/ Northside Elementary School installed a sensory room over the December break to give students a place to take a break. The room is often used with special needs students who have autism or other sensory processing disorders, but it can also benefit students who are anxious or have experienced trauma, according to Principal Michelle Paden. The room has 15 features that can be used to soothe students. Students can swing, jump on miniature trampolines or play with the sand table. They can lay down and cuddle in an inflatable pea-pod bed or under a weighted blanket, watch the bubble wall or crawl through a deep pressure roller. The room is calming with low lights, soft music and a scent diffuser. Some students can become overstimulated by loud and busy situations, such as the lunchroom, a fire drill or an assembly. … “That’s a whole lot of sensory input for them that they can’t handle,” Paden said. … “Some may not need to jump, some may need the roller, some may need the weighted blanket,” she said. Children gravitate most of the time toward the activity they need to calm their brain, Sarratt said. …
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Childhood Lost
Children today are noticeably different from previous generations, and the proof is in the news coverage we see every day. This site shows you what’s happening in schools around the world. Children are increasingly disabled and chronically ill, and the education system has to accommodate them. Things we've long associated with autism, like sensory issues, repetitive behaviors, anxiety and lack of social skills, are now problems affecting mainstream students. Blame is predictably placed on bad parenting (otherwise known as trauma from home).
Addressing mental health needs is as important as academics for modern educators. This is an unrecognized disaster. The stories here are about children who can’t learn or behave like children have always been expected to. What childhood has become is a chilling portent for the future of mankind.
Anne Dachel, Media editor, Age of Autism
http://www.ageofautism.com/media/
(John Dachel, Tech. assist.)
What will happen in another 4 years? How can we go on like this? This is a national (and international) problem of monumental proportions. We have an entire new class of children who cannot be accommodated by the system: many are manifestly neurologically impaired. Meanwhile, the government and the medical profession sleep on regardless.
John Stone,
UK media editor, Age of Autism
The generation of American children born after 1990 are arguably the sickest generation in the history of our country.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
It seemed to me that with rising autism prevalence, you’d also see rising autism costs to society, and it turns out, the costs are catastrophic.
They calculated that in 2015 autism cost the United States $268 billion and they projected that if autism continues at its current rate, we’re looking at one trillion dollars a year in autism costs by 2025, so within five years.
Toby Rogers, PhD, Political economist
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