By Alan Judd in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

The suicide of 13-year-old Jonathan King highlights concerns about a lack of regulation of what are called “psychoeducational” schools for children with  behavioral problems.

Authorities say the schools offer a cost-effective way for allow such children to be educated in their communities. Some parents and advocates question their disciplinary tactics, especially physical restraint and seclusion.

Jonathan hanged himself in a stark 8-by-8 concrete-block “time out” room in his Georgia school, using a belt provided by a teacher. The boy, who had ADHD, had been repeatedly locked up there for misbehaving. Georgia educates about 5,600 students with disabilities at 24 “psychoeducational” schools. The state does not regulate restraint or seclusion of students.

Earlier posts here.

Related posts here.

(Photo from Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

From the [Memphis, TN] Commercial Appeal:

Colleges are increasingly welcoming students with disabilities. A national survey of college freshmen last year by UCLA found that 3.3 percent reported having a disability, up from about half a percent in 1983.

New technology, federal laws and increased awareness are helping colleges support students with such conditions as autism, Asperger’s, attention deficit disorder, hearing deficits and other learning and behavioral disabilities.

… Professors are slowly altering long-held teaching methods to ensure that class lectures and assignments are accessible. These adjustments may be as simple as printing handouts on light blue paper, because some autistic students with visual sensitivities find black text on white paper jarring.

Maxine Ford, the recently retired director of disability services at Southwest Tennessee Community College, said the college has seen a “tremendous increase” in the number of students with disabilities such as attention deficit disorder (ADD), hearing impairments, and autism.

Students with disabilities typically require more tutoring and take longer to earn their degrees, according to the University of California, Los Angeles, which tracks college trends nationwide. Its national freshmen survey found that last year 3.3 percent of college freshmen reported having a disability. In 1983, only a half percent of freshmen reported having a disability.

From the New York Times, Associated Press:

The recent in vitro birth of octuplets to a woman who already had six children born through in vitro procedures has spurred new questions about the lack of regulation of the fertility industry.

Nearly a third of in vitro births involve twins or more. The government, along with professional associations, have been pushing fertility doctors to reduce that number, citing the disastrous health consequences that sometimes come with multiple births – infant mortality, low birth weights, long-term disabilities and thousands of dollars’ worth of medical care.

… [Nadya] Suleman, whose six older children range in age from 2 to 7, said three of them receive disability payments. She told NBC one is autistic, another has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, known as ADHD, and a third experienced a mild speech delay with “tiny characteristics of autism.” She refused to say how much they get in payments.

In California, a low-income family can receive Social Security payments of up to $793 a month for each disabled child. Three children would amount to $2,379.

From the Wisconsin State Journal:

Students with disabilities are a common sight at the University of Wisconsin’s Whitewater campus, thanks to a commitment by U-W to provide supportive programs and services for students with disabilities there.

UW-Whitewater is one of roughly five universities nationwide where working with students with complex physical disabilities is a priority; it received that mission from the state over 30 years ago. The Whitewater campus also serves students with autism, Asperger’s and ADD, among other conditions, and recently broke ground on a new dorm that will far exceed legal mandates for disability access.

The number of students with disabilities at UW-Whitewater continues to increase, and about 4% of the 12,500 student population currently use services at the UW-Whitewater Center for Students with Disabilities compared to 2-2.5% at other UW campuses.

Claudia Meininger Gold, writing in the Boston Globe, offers an alternative to psychotropic drugs for children. She says parents need help accepting and understanding their children with attention and behavior problems. If parents can manage their own frustration with their children, she says, they can better help children manage their behavior.

Too often, she says, children are put on medications for reasons having to do with pharmaceutical marketing, time constraints on primary care doctors, and “our society’s expectation of a quick fix.”

Studies have shown that a parent’s capacity to think about and understand a child’s experience from the child’s perspective is associated with a child’s increased cognitive resourcefulness, greater social skills, and better capacity to regulate emotions. Healthcare policy, and the education of pediatricians and mental health professionals, must move toward giving our full support to parents of young children in this way. Only then can we hope to improve the mental health of the next generation.

Claudia Meininger Gold is a pediatrician in Great Barrington, MA

Seattle Times columnist Kate Riley says she is disturbed by the story of Alex Barton, the Florida kindergartner who was kicked out of his class on a vote of his classmates.

Inclusion is important, not only for Alex and other special-needs kids. Classmates need to see children with disabilities – if a little quirky or needing extra help – are part of our society. These kids like jokes, baseball, princesses, computers, video games and Hannah Montana, too.

.. What do [teacher Wendy] Portillo’s actions say to the other children in class? That it is OK to isolate kids who are different and struggling, to ridicule, to exclude, to reject them. Sounds like a primer for bullies in training – rather than a teachable moment grounded in compassion. District officials are remiss if they do not ensure Portillo’s other students receive bully-prevention training.

(more…)

From the Chicago Tribune:

Adolescents who were adopted as infants are significantly more likely to have a psychiatric disorder as those who were not adopted, a study released Monday has found.

While emphasizing that most of the adoptees in the study were psychologically healthy and faring well, the researchers said that as a group they faced a greater risk for two psychiatric conditions: attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder and oppositional defiant disorder.

… [Lead study author Margaret Keyes of the University of Minnesota] stressed that the study should not alarm adoptive parents. Being born male-adopted or not-also is a risk factor for disruptive behavior disorders, she noted, “but no one is overly concerned when they give birth to a son.”

The study was published in the May issue of the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.