May 10, 2019, Irish Times: Children on ‘reduced timetables’ being denied education https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/children-on-reduced-timetables-being-denied-education-1.3889623 Children, many of them disadvantaged or with special needs, are being denied their education by being placed on “reduced timetables” at school, an Oireachtas Committee will hear later this month. The Committee on Education will hold two days of hearings on the practice, described by groups representing Traveller and special needs children as a “growing crisis” and “illegal”. It involves schools reducing the hours a child may attend, sometimes to as a little as 30 minutes a day, and usually to “manage a behavioural issue”. Though a reduced timetable should “not be used” to manage behaviour, according to the Department of Education and should be used only with parents’ consent, groups like the Irish Traveller Movement (ITM), Inclusion Ireland and the autism advocacy organisation AsIam say it is being used widely to manage behaviour, and at times without parents’ consent. … Inclusion Ireland, which supports families of people with intellectual disabilities, says reduced timetables are being imposed disproportionately on children with special needs as a means of “behavioural management”. … “Additionally, as population and diagnosis rates increase, it is important to understand this issue as one which will only grow if we do not take decisive action now.”…
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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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