Aug 17, 2017, Durham (NC) Region: Back-to-school means planning and communication for Durham students with epilepsy Epilepsy Durham Region is 'inundated' with crisis calls every fall https://www.durhamregion.com/news-story/7503624-back-to-school-means-planning-and-communication-for-durham-students-with-epilepsy/ Melike Ceylan-Leamen doesn’t mince words when she talks about her son, Aydin Leamen, being diagnosed with epilepsy when he was in kindergarten. “It was a gut punch,” the local mom says. “Shock was the first piece, but then you realize multiple, lifelong changes are going to happen. That all kind of hits you at once.” When he was first diagnosed, Aydin — now nine and heading into Grade 4 — had up to 100 seizures a day. ... With a new school year just around the corner, experts say this is a key message to share with the community. “Every fall, we are inundated with phone calls the first few weeks of school, many of them are crisis calls,” says Dianne McKenzie, executive director at Epilepsy Durham Region, a nonprofit group that provides support, advocacy and public education. McKenzie is urging families of students with epilepsy — or any serious medical condition — to create a back-to-school plan that includes things such as: changes in medication or health care providers; emergency response protocols; and strategies for dealing with symptoms or medication side effects.
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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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