Autism Vox

About Northvale, NJ, and Autism

by Kristina Chew, PhD on June 24th, 2007

Northvale is a town in New Jersey’s highly populated Bergen County; Northvale is just over the border from New York state (see map). Northvale is where St. Anthony’s is located; St. Anthony’s is a Catholic school that has been closed for some time (theproperty is owned by the Archdiocese of Newark and leased to the school district). St. Anthony’s houses the public PIE program and also the Valley program (the latter is for autistic children); children with “varying degrees of autism” have been educated at the school for thirty years.

Last week, on June 19th, Northvale’s environmental engineer made recommendations for environmental testing to be done at the school; 14 out of 39 children born since 1997 to teachers at St. Anthony’s have “disabilities ranging from autism to muscular degeneration,” the June 21st Bergen Record reports. As noted in the June 20th Bergen Record about 100 special education students attend the school, which is administered by the Northern Valley Regional High School District. As a result of the concerns about the school site and “a link to physical and learning disabilities,” school official have decided to move summer programs (including one for autistic children) to another site.

The Bergen Record further notes:

The figures emerged in an informal poll, based in part upon teacher recollections, taken by the school after teachers from Room 5 noticed the prevalence. [my emphasis]

Of the 14 children, about 12 were born to Room 5 teachers, estimated PTO President Jodi Yuhl. She said that about nine were male — and all had a disability. [my emphasis]

The air quality of Room 5 was tested in October 2006 after teachers complained of sinus and respiratory problems. The tests, Northvale officials said at a public meeting on Tuesday, were negative. Regular, twice-yearly asbestos tests have also turned up negative, officials said.

The building’s water comes from the United Water Co., said Northvale Mayor John Hogan. In addition, the drinking water provided at the school is bottled.

Three of the fourteen “learning disabled” children have autism; the other eleven have speech and language difficulties. (It is not clear whether these children have a medical diagnosis of autism, or if they are classified as autistic according to the federal criteria for autism special education; the criteria for these differ.) In a September 27, 2006, Bergen Record article on public schools and autism education, statistics are provided for the number of students with autism in towns in Bergen County: Northvale has 4 students out of a total of 577 students. (The figures are from the New Jersey Department of Education; as Paul Shattuck and Maureen Durkin noted in their June 11th New York Times op-ed, it was only in 1991 that federal guidelines required school districts to “break out counts of children on the spectrum.”)

David Kirby in his rather misleadingly titled post, Autism in Room 5, wonders about “known neurotoxins lurking just outside the school, and especially mercury” and I would not be surprised if there is a follow-up post about industrial sites located near St. Anthony’s. Another correlation that might be of interest is that Bergen County, where Northvale is located, is where some of the private autism schools with waiting lists containing the names of hundreds of autistic children are located. A family does not have to live in Bergen County to have their child’s name on a waiting list (and Charlie’s name has been on many). Notes the September 27th Bergen Record:

New Jersey overall — and especially Bergen County — has a strong reputation as an excellent place for public education in general — and autism education in particular.

“People call me from all over the world that want to move here,” said [Kimberly] Edwards, of [outreach coordinator for] COSAC. “People move here from all over the country and all over the world. That creates too much demand.”

Gary Lahm, who coordinates a Bergen County parents support group, is a common first phone call for families interested in moving to New Jersey. This month alone, he has heard from families in Alabama and South Carolina.

“I have a list of 100 parents — I’m sure 50 moved here,” he said. “Everybody’s heard that Bergen County has exceptional services in the state, and the state is better than all other states, especially for services after age 3.”

That’s what brought Carol Rieske and her three autistic sons to Elmwood Park from Orem, Utah, six years ago. She was so desperate for services that she quit her government job after 18 years, packed up her children and drove to New Jersey after hearing about Bergen County from a special-education attorney she met on the Internet.

It will certainly be interesting to see what results from the environmental testing at St. Anthony’s. The Combating Autism Act (CAA), was just passed by the full Senate and is to move to the U.S. House of Representatives for approval: It if it signed into law, $45 million out of the $920 million in appropriations for autism research and services is to be used to establish Centers of Excellence in Environmental Health and Autism: Will more towns seek testing as Northvale has?

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POSTED IN: Education, Environment, New Jersey