Montgomery, AL – Alabama has come up with a low-cost way to educate teachers about how to help the rapidly growing number of autistic children in public schools.
The program will train teachers through the state's distance learning program that is used to teach courses in high schools around the state.
The leaders of the Alabama Autism Task Force, Lt. Gov. Jim Folsom Jr. and state Rep. Cam Ward, joined officials from the state Department of Education to announce that program Wednesday. They said Alabama will be the second state after Pennsylvania to use this approach.
Folsom said Alabama's public schools have about 1,000 students with autism-related disorders. That represents a 3,000 percent growth since 1990.
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