Aug 20, 2018, Willingboro, NJ, Burlington County Times: Burlington County schools adopting positive behavior initiative http://www.burlingtoncountytimes.com/news/20180820/burlington-county-schools-adopting-positive-behavior-initiative Burlington Township is the latest Burlington County school district to implement a character education program through the New Jersey Positive Behavior Support in Schools training team…. The township is now the sixth county school districts to begin using the New Jersey Positive Behavior Support in Schools training team at one or more schools to reinforce students’ positive behavior and prevent the negative, according to professor Sharon Lohrmann, PBSIS director at Rutgers University’s Boggs Center for Developmental Disabilities. The national program, Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports, is designed to help general students and those in special education, Lohrmann said. The goal of the program is to reduce bullying, discipline issues and special education referrals while helping students with disabilities or behavioral challenges in general education settings, according to the Boggs Center. It uses a three-tiered system to create a positive school environment by setting school-wide expectations and reinforcing good behavior, while addressing problems at the root of students’ misbehavior. Lohrmann said three-tiered approach aims to create a positive climate throughout the entire school, while meeting the behavioral, emotional and support needs of students who are acting out and need behavioral interventions. The state Department of Education Offices of Special Education Programs partnered with the Boggs Center to promote NJ PBSIS, and Lohrmann and her colleagues train school staff in the system’s methods….
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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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