Jan 5, 2019, Norwich (CT) Bulletin: Girl chronicles self injuries when left alone at school http://www.norwichbulletin.com/news/20190105/girl-chronicles-self-injuries-when-left-alone-at-school BROOKLYN — On the afternoon of Oct. 27, 2017, Emma McBride, then a 15-year-old student at The Learning Clinic in Brooklyn, broke the tip of a mechanical pencil and carved the words “Help me” into her left forearm while segregated inside an unused office on the campus grounds. Then she pressed the point of the pencil to her neck. … Emma, an Andover resident diagnosed with autism, attention deficit disorder and anxiety issues, said when she walked out of the room and showed her injuries to educational administrator Linda Baade, she was ignored and left unsupervised. Emma, now 16, and her mother, Bernadette Kasacek, said Tuesday in Danielson Superior Court they plan to speak out in opposition to Baade’s request to receive accelerated rehabilitation on charges of risk of injury to a child and second-degree reckless endangerment she faces in connection with the 2017 incident. “If she receives this program, it all gets swept under the rug,” Emma Kasacek said. “Her record will be erased and she’ll be able to go and work at any school without parents knowing what she did.”… In March 2017, Bernadette Kasacek enrolled Emma at The Learning Center, one of the institutions recommended by her RHAM home school district. Kasacek said the institution -- on paper -- seemed to offer the combination of educational and clinical programming her daughter needed to thrive. “There are so few schools that can meet the needs of a kid like Emma, students with anxiety and autism but who are also bright,” Bernadette Kasacek said. But mother and daughter said issues cropped up soon after school began. Emma, used to being able to call or text her mother when feeling anxious, said she had her phone taken away and was put in a single-student class. She said restraints were used at times to pin her arms and legs. … Kasacek said a social worker assigned to handle her daughter’s clinical issues left the school in June and was never replaced. “So there were no weekly sessions, no one overseeing the mental health issues that we sent her to the school for in the first place,” Kasacek said…. During the course of the investigation, Kasacek said she was contacted by several former clinic students who said they were put into solitary-style rooms and illegally restrained. During an October court appearance by Baade, several protesters identifying themselves as former Learning Clinic students met outside the Danielson court to show support for Emma. Two of the former students, Brooklyn resident Gabrielle Curboy and AJ Acuna, of Salem, said they both witnessed students being mistreated by staff. No other charges have been filed against school staff. …
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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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