The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 273

14-r'n ij m-iii i. r--r--y i u'T i i I m-m. THE BOSTON SUNDAY GLOBE NOV, 19H6 B57' Pediatricians, educators team up at BCH Special-needs funds allotted for children birth-2 By Elizabeth New Weld Globe Staff By Helen Leavitt Special to the Globe arry zuckerman is a man In a hurry. He wants poor, I young children who need III early special education to get it fast before they fall "ASHINGTON More of the commonwealth's handicapped children, including, for the first time, babies from birth iunner Denina. tf A "When you're 2, then from 2 to 2'2 is one quar-II I ter of your life," he says.

Zuckerman, a pediatri-cian, is director of the 1 II 1 't r-r AIM Globe photosJan Housewerth Jean Nigro of Wheelock College (left), an early childhood specialist, screens a hospitalized 3-year-old child at Boston City Hospital for possible learning problems while his mother watches. to age 2, will soon be served as a result of new federal special education legislation. The legislative package that provides a record $1.7 billion over 3 years contained $50 million for 1986-87 for: new services to help handicapped infants. Special-needs children traditionally served by federal legislation have had to be ages 5-17, and Massachusetts; has served children ages 3-21. Because of that, Massachusetts previously has received a smaller proportion of federal funding.

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Rep. Silvio Conte (D-Mass.) included an amendment in the bill that ensured Massachusetts a full share of funding. The new bill also provides $180 million to be divided between those states capable of serving all 3- to 5-year-old handicapped children in 1987. The' remaining states have five years in which to establish such a program.

Approximately 240,000 three- to 5-year-olds nationwide who should be receiving special education are being deprived of those services because the laws of some states do not now require such early intervention, according to Sen. Lowell Weicker (R-Conn.) chairman of the Senate Labor and Human Resources subcommittee on the handicapped. Weicker faced strong opposition from the White House because of the cost of the new program. William Bennett, secretary of education, criticized the price tag for the early intervention state grant program, calling it "clearly excessive." Bennett also claimed that compelling participating states to provide public education to children ages 3 to 5 is a serious encroachment on the long-standing right of state and local communities control of education. Defending the provision, Weicker said evidence shows that early intervention reduces the need for special education once a child reaches school age.

Weicker also noted that a Department of Education report states: "If intervention began at birth, education costs, to age 18 were projected to be $30,272.. If however, intervention was delayed to age 6, the cost was projected to be $53,350." "Even the fiscally prudent can see that a savings of $16,000 per handicapped child makes good economic sense and is clearly cost-effective in the long run," the senator said. Current state-mandated education services for handicapped children! in Massachusetts were praised by Samuel SPECIAL EDUCATION, Page B58 Child Development Unit at Boston City Hospital, which serves a multi-ethnic, low-income population. In that capacity, he sees children who have what he calls two high-risk characteristics: They are sick, and they are poor. They are likely to have mild to moderate developmental problems, which, if undetected and untreated, can lead to repeated school failure and a cycle that ends in dropping out, he says.

Zuckerman's hurry has resulted in a rare collaboration of physicians and educators that began officially in January when the Child Development Center opened at Boston City Hospital. Lead paint poisoning, asthma, prematurity, poverty, depression and failure to thrive "can adversely affect the child's ability to learn," Zuckerman says. "By not addressing the problems, we are not doing right by the child." Zuckerman's goal is to identify children with problems and intervene with treatment and education as early as possible. The Child Development Center was-born when Zuckerman realized that he needed the help of educators to assess the development of his young patients. He approached Wheelock College, the first college in the country to train child life professionals people who provide developmental play and therapy to hospitalized and chronically ill children.

Margot Kaplan-Sanoff, assistant professor of education at Wheelock, working with Zuckerman, designed a program in which the educators function in the hospital and in outreach settings in collaboration with developmental pediatricians. The Boston School Department cooperates in finding and providing services. The program is funded under a three- year grant from The Boston Foundation and the Jessie B. Cox Charitable Trust. Jean Nigro, an early childhood education specialist at Wheelock College, and others, such as the three Wheelock interns in the project, also screen children in the Lead Clinic, the Neurology Clinic, the Teen and Tot Clinic for adolescent mothers, the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and hospital inpatient wards.

Nigro was working with a 3-year-old Vietnamese child on the inpatient ward who was being treated for asthma, the most common childhood illness. "It's harder when they're sick," she said. "We like to give them a chance to feel better before we assess them." Steven Parker, co-director of the Child Development OJicA Center, and Zuckerman watched Nigro point to a book. "Where's the head?" she asked. The child, his eyes shining, pointed shyly to the head of the man in the book.

He knew both the right name for the body part and some English. Nigro smiled. The child's mother smiled. The doctors both grinned, their faces proud. "These are good children," Parker said.

His face grew sad. "You should see the ones who have troubles." Parker tells about a 3-year-old who first visited the Lead Clinic when he was 2. "Lead can damage the brain," Parker said, and since the level of lead in the child's blood was high enough, he was hospitalized to bring down the lead level with medication. "The child had almost no language he had medical needs and complicated social problems at home," Parker says. "He had no good idea how to make toys work a 2-year-old should have an idea of cause and effect.

And he lacked fine motor skills. He sort of had no grace these were not major-league symptoms, but the adverse effect of his health and his disorganized home environment put him at some risk. "The trouble was finding him a program," Parker says. "There are long waiting lists; it took five months. Now he's in speech therapy and is working on HOSPITAL, Page B58 Above: Dr.

Barry Zuckerman, di mm rector and originator of the Child Development Center. Right: Dr. Steven Parker (right), co-director of the Child Development Center, works with Christine Williams, 3, a visitor to the primary care Speaking out about alcohol, drugs Globe staff photoBill Greene Students at the New England Institute take a biology exam. By Phyllis Coons Globe Staff VERETT Bob Patterson celebrated his 17th birthday by drinking beer, whis- rkey and cough medicine with codeine. Taken togeth iA-i 1 -J lJ v.

Yfft-' At New England Institute, a focus on death and life er, they caused him to go into a coma. Five years later, he is able only to say a few words at a time and to use one arm. Stanley Boyd overdosed on cocaine and other drugs and is now a paraplegic, unable to speak. Michael Burns played guitar and sang with a band, but he crashed his car while he was on drugs. Now he is paralyzed.

All three rolled into the auditorium on wheelchairs at Our Lady of Grace School to talk with seventh and eighth graders about the dangers of misusing drugs and alcohol. "Recovering abusers get a chance to regain a sense of worth and feel part of the community again by telling their stories. They also reinforce their own needs for sobriety," says Susan Griffin, founder of Operation Street Smarts, a nonprofit group in Lynn that educates students about drug abuse. "They tell kids, 'We don't want what happened to us to happen to Other recovering addicts who work with the three disabled youths in Street Smarts serve as their Interpreters. Griffin began the program at Our Lady of Grace School by passing around a picture of Patterson and his girlfriend, dressed up for his birthday party.

Later that night, he was found comatose in the basement at his grandmother's house, Griffin said. An emergency tracheotomy forced air into his lungs, but brain damage from lack of oxygen caused the irreversible paralysis. Students were shocked Into silence when Griffin called for questions, but they applauded the disabled guests as they listened to their life stories. Burns used a lap board alphabet to spell out the answer to questions asked by Jimmy Lawson, a fellow member of Street Smarts. Burns was a solar technician SPEAKING OUT, Page B60 emphasizes handling grieving families as well as learning to run a small business.

New England Institute's changing focus reflects a growing demand of funeral schools nationwide. According to Gordon Bigelow, director of the American Board of Funeral Service Education, "The educational part of it has evolved very rapidly in the last few decades. It has added the dimension of interpersonal relationships skills counseling, empathetic understanding." Bigelow says these are termed "front-room skills" in the industry, NEW ENGLAND INSTITUTE. Page B58 By Tom Ehrenfeld Special to the Globe Death is on the minds of students at the New England Institute, but, "Our concern is with the living," says the institute's president, Victor F. Scalise Jr.

The institute, which trains its students for a career in the funeral service profession, teaches not only how to prepare a dead body for a final viewing, but also the proper way to console those left behind. The institute, founded in 1893, has always prepared students for the technical demands of the job, but it now offers a general curriculum that Globe staff photoDavid L. Ryan Bob Patterson (left) talks with students at Our Lady of Grace School in Everett about his experience with drug and alcohol abuse. He works with Operation Street Smarts in Lynn..