July 9, 2018, Buzz Feed News: 1 In 4 Teenage Girls Self-Harm, According To A New Survey Of US High School Students https://www.buzzfeed.com/carolinekee/self-harm-teenage-girls-risk-factors?utm_term=.wdy3q9Y1Qn#.bq1j0z29NR Nonsuicidal self-injury is a relatively common behavior among adolescents in the US, but rates are higher for certain groups, according to a new study. Nearly 18% of teens in the US reported harming themselves at least once during the previous year, according to a new study from researchers at the University of Portland in Oregon, published in the American Journal of Public Health. The rates of self-harm are as high as 31% for teenage girls in some parts of the country…. Researchers used data from the 2015 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System to estimate the prevalence of nonsuicidal self-injury among adolescents ages 14–18. They looked at responses from 64,671 public high school students from 11 states…. Self-injury is associated with negative health outcomes, including suicide. "The prevalence of self-harm behaviors is shocking, quite frankly, and it seems to me that it rises to the level of a public health problem that requires a set of public health solutions," McRee 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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