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The Orlando Sentinel, https://www.newspapers.com/image/229313538/?terms=Carlton%2BPalms%2C%2BFlorida
Jan 13, 1987
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January 13, 1987 - The Sentinel marked the opening of Carlton Palms with little fanfare. The former Carlton Palms Retirement Center had been modified to a residential school for children with autism. Within the first week, six students were relocated from "other facilities" owned by the same company. The Palms opened in phases with the first cohort of kids cared for by live-in caregivers. After three months, owner Ken Mazik, planned to morph the care model to one more similar to a nursing home where students would be cared for and educated by a staff working rotating eight hour shifts. Mazik planned to add two children per month to the mix. He intended to rollout an intensive "language development program," aka speech therapy.
Presumably, those first students came from Au Clair, in Delaware. They were accompanied by their existing caregivers. It was an example of best practices in the slowly emerging treatment field of autism, its care and the education of children affected. These caregivers, already known to the children, would help to reduce the trauma of relocation. This stellar moment begs the question, was it lack of will or lack of care that would plague Carlton Palms in the years to come? Regardless, Mazik was on the cusp, in the right place, at the right time. Soon his services would be in great demand.
Within 30 years, the world would be thrust into an autism pandemic. Approximately 1% of the world's population would be diagnosed with Autism by 2014 (CDC/Autism Society.) This is how it breaks down: In the United States more than 3.5 million Americans are challenged by this disorder in 2014. The CDC would report that 1 in 68 births resulted in a child living with diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder. Four of five children diagnosed with autism would be boys, a statistic that has been steady since Autism was first widely recognized. In 2017, the cause for this disorder is still a mystery. With the rise of diagnosis came the advent of new treatment models, the most successful and recognized of which is ABA, Applied Behavior Analysis.
In 2017, Carlton Palms, under a different owner, offers a full battery of interventions and living environments even at the facility itself faces imminent closure.
It's unknown to the public what model or models Carlton Palms first employed. However, as early as 1975 Mazik claimed he was utilizing operant conditioning when interviewed by the Philadelphia Inquire for a Feb. 16, 1975 story about Autism.(https://www.newspapers.com/image/173237319. Feb. 16, 1975. Regardless, the model adopted at the original Au Clair is arguably cruelty. But, in 1987, no one in Florida knows the truth behind each of the first six children to travel to Carlton Palms in its opening week.
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