Oct 11, 2018, ABC4, Salt Lake City: New high school for students with autism opens in North Salt Lake https://www.good4utah.com/news/local-news/new-high-school-for-students-with-autism-opens-in-north-salt-lake/1515265672 A new school specifically designed to meet the needs of students with autism opened in North Salt Lake Wednesday. … The new high school made it possible for the charter school to open up 400 more spots to students K-12. … The courses in the high school include academic core and elective classes, as well as social and transitional skills classes. The CREATE Center offers Career and Technical Education (CTE) pathway instruction and lab work in culinary arts and food services, entrepreneurship, information technology, business, and marketing, automotive and more. From soothing colors on the walls to natural light in every room and plenty of small break rooms adjacent to the classrooms, the new Spectrum Academy North Salt Lake High School is designed to accommodate its students' varying needs. "Kids with autism spectrum disorder are usually looked on as different and hard to be around," said Christina Guevara, Spectrum Academy's North Salt Lake High School principal. "This is a place they can come and be themselves." With one in every 47 Utah children diagnosed on the autism spectrum, Spectrum Academy charter school wanted to move beyond autism awareness and into action with its customized education approach. Spectrum Academy aims to give students with autism tools for life.
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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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