June 19, 2018, Bend (OR) Bulletin: In Medford, teachers, parents report an increase in disruptive students https://www.bendbulletin.com/localstate/6322856-151/in-medford-teachers-parents-report-an-increase-in The academic year is done, but school districts have an ongoing assignment: figuring out how to address an increase in disruptive behaviors by students. Screaming at teachers, throwing objects ranging from musical instruments to chairs, and leaving class without permission but with loud outbursts are just a few of the behaviors parents and teachers say they and their students dealt with over the past school year.... To hear some parents and teachers tell it, including some who also attended that board meeting, the school district has been slow to respond to repeated disturbances in the classrooms. It’s a feeling shared both by parents whose kids are evacuated from class and parents of the kids causing the evacuations. Kelly Taylor said her kindergartner daughter was first suspended in the past year for behavior issues after she returned from Christmas break. She threw objects in class and had outbursts that sparked evacuations. Mental health specialists with the Medford School District and county assessed the child, eventually offering a diagnosis: disruptive mood disregulation disorder…. District officials, meanwhile, said that schools across the nation are dealing with an increase in behavioral problems in early elementary grades....
top of page
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
bottom of page