The latest issue of Brookings and Princeton’s “The Future of Children”
adds to the growing number of studies documenting that childhood
disability rates are not only unexplainably increasing, but also that
the way disabilities manifest is significantly changing. Where the
poster child of disability in the 1960s was on crutches, the new face is
a child with autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or other
problems that affect the developing brain.
Growing rates and shifting patterns of childhood disability challenge
notions that U.S. children are generally healthy and suggest
substantial changes in the risks children encounter. While disabilities
are more common in children from lower-income households, a lack of
family resources, education or other forms of social deprivation don’t
explain all of what’s going on.
Some risk-hunting epidemiologists are considering whether any of the thousands of new chemicals in our environment are to blame, while others
are examining the role that toxic stresses may play in jolting
developing nervous systems onto an aberrant path.
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