Autistic children from Montgomery County who attend special public education programs outside the school district now have the chance to remain closer to home.
The nationally known Baltimore-based Kennedy Krieger Institute, which studies, treats and educates children with neurological disorders, will hold a grand opening of its Montgomery County campus today in the former Montrose Education Center, at 12301 Academy Way in Rockville.
The school, which opened Aug. 27, enrolls 11 county children ages 11 to 14 in full-day class settings, said Linda Brandenburg, director for school autism services for the institute. The Montgomery campus is expected within about three years to serve 45 students between the ages of 10 and 21, Brandenburg added.
The school is the first of its kind in the county, officials said, and it comes as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says national rates are on the rise for autism, a neurological disorder that can affect interpersonal communication and cognitive skills. Asmany as 1 in 150 children suffer from some form of autism, the CDC, said.
“It’s nice to be able to get them [autistic students] closer to their home communities…,” Brandenburg said.
At least 1,059 of Montgomery County’s 137,000 public school children were listed as autistic in 2006, said Paula Howland, supervisor of Montgomery County Public Schools’ placement and assessment services unit. Of those, 139 autistic children were in private schools at the county’s expense.
Those numbers reflect a 12 percent jump from the previous year, when 943 children were listed as autistic.
William Eaton, a professor at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University, said much is unknown about the disorder’s causes, and researchers debate whether autism’s prevalence is indeed rising or whether health professionals are diagnosing it with more frequency.
“I wouldn’t pay too much attention to that fluctuation for one year,” Eaton said. “If it kept that way for five or 10 years, we might look to something that could be causing it.”
