NEW JERSEY

CDC: How schools can help kids with lead poisoning

Todd B. Bates
@ToddBBatesAPP

Educators, parents and others can take steps that may help lead-poisoned children do better in school, according to a new federal report in the works since 2008.

The report, by experts within and outside the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, follows a Press investigation that found that New Jersey’s lead poisoning rules have big loopholes. The state does not require that schools be notified if high lead levels are found in their students, who may need special education or other services.

Schools unaware of lead-poisoned kids

The new report — Educational Interventions for Children Affected by Lead — is “great and long overdue because it’s been a very gray area about what to do for a lead-poisoned child,” said Elyse Pivnick, environmental health director and senior adviser at Isles Inc., a Trenton-based nonprofit community development and environmental organization.

“Often you hear educators say, ‘Well, there’s nothing to do so why should I even care about this condition?’ when in fact there are programs that children can be referred to for monitoring and help if needed, even in the preschool years,” she said.

$50M taken from NJ child protection fund

Impaired function

High lead levels in the blood of young children can impair intellectual functioning and cause behavioral problems that last a lifetime, according to the new report. Preventing high lead levels remains a national priority. It’s the only effective way to prevent neurodevelopmental and behavioral problems linked with lead exposure.

“Unfortunately, hundreds of thousands of children already have experienced blood lead levels known to impair academic performance,” the report says.

Earlier this year, the Press learned that New Jersey has diverted more than $50 million from its Lead Hazard Control Assistance Fund to pay its bills since 2004. That’s in spite of the thousands of children found to have elevated lead levels every year. The drained fund was designed to reduce lead hazards in housing, move lead-poisoned children out of hazardous housing and other public health efforts. The state also failed to fulfill a 2008 law aimed at ensuring lead-safe conditions in one- and two-family rentals, the Press found.

To ensure that children with high lead levels get services that may help improve academic and other outcomes, the CDC Advisory Committee on Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention convened a group of experts in 2008. Their report says no studies have looked at the impact of early childhood educational interventions for kids exposed to lead.

But there are studies of educational interventions that improve developmental outcomes for children with conditions other than lead, the report says. The report’s research shows that children with developmental delays or at high risk for delays benefit most from interventions that begin at an early age.

Ways to help

Ways that early care and educational systems can support better outcomes for lead-exposed children include:

•Streamlined access to developmental assessment, intervention and special education services, and neuropsychological and developmental assessments to identify problems in lead-exposed children with high lead levels.

•Consistent interpretation of provisions in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The provisions require assessment and educational interventions, including ways to make sure children with high lead levels get the services they’re entitled to.

•Advice on the implications of lead and educational results for educators, state and local governments, parents, pediatric health care providers, lead poisoning prevention programs and others who work with young children.

•Early childhood education programs, including high quality preschool and Head Start, benefit children who are developing typically and children with disabilities. They also benefit the parents of enrolled children.

Kids’ lead poisoning called ‘institutional racism’

Pivnick, of Isles, said one of the problems in New Jersey and other places is that if a child is diagnosed as lead-poisoned, “we’re obligated to take care of the house and make (it) lead-safe but we don’t have much protocol for what to do with children.”

“Furthermore, you have this crazy system where there’s not even an obligation to submit a child lead test when they start school” and no one knows if the child has lead poisoning, she said.

“We are very pleased to have this report out and I think it will be a great set of guidelines that parents and other child advocates can use to help lead-poisoned children when previously people said there’s nothing you can do for these children and here’s a whole set of recommendations,” she said.

NJ child lead poisoning prevention bill gets boost

Todd B. Bates: 732-643-4237; tbates@gannettnj.com

LEAD POISONING’S TOLL

Children’s exposure to lead, even at current levels in the United States, remains a critical public health issue. Here are some other facts:

•It’s estimated that tens of millions of U.S. children have been adversely affected by lead over the last 20 years and the effects can be lifelong.

•Children are exposed to lead in their homes from deteriorating lead paint and the contaminated dust and soil it generates, lead in water from lead water pipes or plumbing and lead from other sources.

•Recent estimates indicate that more than $50 billion in a single year is lost because of reduced cognitive potential and lost productivity.

Source: Educational Interventions for Children Affected by Lead