Jan 28, 2019, New Haven (CT) Shoreline Times: Sensory walkway helps Madison elementary school students refocus http://www.shorelinetimes.com/news/sensory-walkway-helps-madison-elementary-school-students-refocus/article_3a77162a-68df-5799-a87a-a51fa4dd01d7.html At Island Avenue Elementary School, an interactive sensory movement walkway gives students the chance to “get their wiggles out” and better focus on their work, said Principal Rebecca Frost. Teachers already are seeing positive effects on education. Inspired by a similar initiative at a Canadian school, the walkway works a bit like an obstacle course: tape creates various unique paths on the ground, and instructions on the walls tell students how to use it…. The segments come together in a loop, so that if a student has trouble focusing, the teacher can suggest they go into the hallway and do two laps on the walkway. … The project started when Island Avenue kindergarten teacher Maria Barnikow observed that many kids in the school need movement breaks during the day. Though the students get 45 minutes of recess every day, Frost said, teachers wanted something quick and accessible that would allow kids who were having trouble focusing to work off energy….
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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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