3 ms·

The headline alone doesn't give a clear picture of what's being discussed here: === “One client of ours is a woman who hit her head against the wall so many t

by Natsu 5y ago

The headline alone doesn't give a clear picture of what's being discussed here: === “One client of ours is a woman who hit her head against the wall so many times that her retinas were detached,” said Attorney Max Stern, who represents the parents and guardians of Judge Rotenberg Center. “It was not until she went to multiple various other institutions, not until she got to JRC and got this treatment that she was able to get this behaviour under control so she could have surgery to make it possible for her to see again,” Stern told Massachusetts News.

treeman79 5y ago
Wife taught a class mostly functional autistic kids for a year. It was beyond brutal for her. The kids were hard enough but other staff enjoyed setting them off. She often 1-2 in her regular classes. Desks go flying most days. They run out of the classroom if not the school fairly often. She’s been stabbed quite a few times with pencils and other sharp objects. These are the high functioning ones.
- Crosseye_Jack 5y ago
  As the kid who sent desks flying plenty of times (and had a couple of incidents with pens/pencils), and having the benefit of being able to look back, the trouble for me was the ones who enjoyed setting me off. I wanted to learn, I wanted to be in class and do the work, and if you just left me the fuck alone that’s what I did. But yeah that’s not going to happen, kids are kids, they pick on each other, it happens, nothing is going to prevent it 100%. The teachers on the other hand, they should know better… Once I was away from those triggering events I was a fine upstanding student who enjoyed the work. But it can also be a snake eating it’s own tail at times. I didn’t want to be in class because I knew the teacher / other students would trigger me, with made me more anxious to be in class, which made me easier to trigger. Edit: Just to add, I went to a "normal" school. I am intelligent and high functioning enough to have masked most of my symptoms to the good teachers (Kept their classes from picking on other kids and kept what they taught interesting, so I got on with the work, to them I was just the quiet nerdy kid who loved computers far too much but did the work assigned so I basically flew under their radar), the (imo) shit teachers didn't give a fuck anyway. It was only the "special needs" teacher (Who I meet accidentally durin secondary school) who picked up on some of my traits and suspected anything (I guess other teachers had a idea, but they never raised it with me). I was never formally diagnosed whilst I was at school, I refused to be tested (I was offered testing after a couple of imformal sessions with the special needs teacher) because the "special" kids got picked on for being labeled that so I didn't want the label. > They run out of the classroom if not the school fairly often Over stimulation, at atleast that was one of the causes for me. Now I went to a "normal" school with a low population of "special" kids so it was easier to deal with then it would have been with for example a whole class of "me's" at once. For me, I just needed to get out of there before I lost my shit and started flipping tables. After a few informal sessions with the schools special needs teacher I was allowed to leave the class when I got that way, I could make my way down to her teaching space where the space before her teaching space was kept dimly lit and the curtains to the windows closed (at the time, I just presumed as that space also linked to other teachers offices and the photocoping room, they just wanted to stop kids from being nosy looking though the windows, on reflection, I'm pretty sure they kept it dimly lit for kids like me), clam down, relax, get on with some self study if I felt up to it, and then rejoin "gen pop" whenn I was ready. She would call which ever teacher I just walked out on to make sure a) they knew the kid was safe b) make sure they wasn't pissed at me c) I could grab anything I needed to catch up with the lesson I just walked out on. Now the above coping mech I used probally wouldn't work with a class full of ME's, it only worked for me because the space I could escape to was quiet and had very few people around the space. I'm just trying to explain why I personally would walk out of class when I needed to. I would try and say "I have a migrain, I need to go" before leaving but that was nto always possible for me to do (The migrain "trick" was caught to me by the special need teacher as something the teachers could relate to then trying to explain what was going on in my head at that moment in time - looking back it was prob just a codeword teachers knew to just let the kid leave). It was rarely anything personal towards the teacher of the class. I can't speak for the kids she taught during that time, But as someone who fits the description tell her that atleast some of the kids who behaved like that do feel bad for their actions during school now we have had the chance to grow up.
RattleyCooper 5y ago
I feel like it's a good discussion; to what lengths are we willing to go to keep someone safe? We could put people into boxes, keep them drugged/knocked out and force-fed via tubes. Technically they'd be perfectly safe, so is it acceptable (they kind of mention this in the article as well)? When I was younger my dad told me a story about a kid with a mental disorder who would hit himself repeatedly in the head. They realized he wouldn't hit himself when he was holding a glass of water bc he would spill the water on himself and didn't like that. They kept giving him smaller and smaller glasses of water to hold until they got him to the point where he only had to have a thimble in his pocket(without any water), and that was enough to prevent him from hitting himself. While shocking people with electricity seems like an acceptable solution, when compared to the self harm, I wonder if some of these people could be helped without shocking them or drugging them. I'm also curious to know how strong the shocks are.
lozenge 5y ago
And just one paragraph further... However, a 2006 report by the New York State Education Department found that the device was regularly used for minor disobedience and “behaviours that are not aggressive, health dangerous or destructive, such as nagging, swearing and failing to maintain a neat appearance”. The report also found no evidence that the school “considers the potential negative effects, such as depression or anxiety, that may result from the use of aversive behavioural strategies with certain individual students”. --- This is not some misunderstood school with a radical method. It's been investigated and condemned by the state authorities, the federal authorities (FDA) and internationally (by the UN as tantamount to torture). You'd be foolish to trust the school for claims like that.
- Natsu 5y ago
  I didn't quote that because people already know that shocks are not great things, but I'd say it's not that simple given that the judge here doesn't agree with the department's assessment.
  - lozenge 5y ago
    The legal question was over FDA jurisdiction , not whether the treatment was effective. https://www.raps.org/news-and-articles/news-articles/2021/7/appeals-court-overturns-fdas-ban-of-electric-shock https://www.raps.org/news-and-articles/news-articles/2021/7/...

by Natsu 5y ago

treeman79 5y ago

Wife taught a class mostly functional autistic kids for a year. It was beyond brutal for her. The kids were hard enough but other staff enjoyed setting them off. She often 1-2 in her regular classes. Desks go flying most days. They run out of the classroom if not the school fairly often. She’s been stabbed quite a few times with pencils and other sharp objects. These are the high functioning ones.

Crosseye_Jack 5y ago
As the kid who sent desks flying plenty of times (and had a couple of incidents with pens/pencils), and having the benefit of being able to look back, the trouble for me was the ones who enjoyed setting me off. I wanted to learn, I wanted to be in class and do the work, and if you just left me the fuck alone that’s what I did. But yeah that’s not going to happen, kids are kids, they pick on each other, it happens, nothing is going to prevent it 100%. The teachers on the other hand, they should know better… Once I was away from those triggering events I was a fine upstanding student who enjoyed the work. But it can also be a snake eating it’s own tail at times. I didn’t want to be in class because I knew the teacher / other students would trigger me, with made me more anxious to be in class, which made me easier to trigger. Edit: Just to add, I went to a "normal" school. I am intelligent and high functioning enough to have masked most of my symptoms to the good teachers (Kept their classes from picking on other kids and kept what they taught interesting, so I got on with the work, to them I was just the quiet nerdy kid who loved computers far too much but did the work assigned so I basically flew under their radar), the (imo) shit teachers didn't give a fuck anyway. It was only the "special needs" teacher (Who I meet accidentally durin secondary school) who picked up on some of my traits and suspected anything (I guess other teachers had a idea, but they never raised it with me). I was never formally diagnosed whilst I was at school, I refused to be tested (I was offered testing after a couple of imformal sessions with the special needs teacher) because the "special" kids got picked on for being labeled that so I didn't want the label. > They run out of the classroom if not the school fairly often Over stimulation, at atleast that was one of the causes for me. Now I went to a "normal" school with a low population of "special" kids so it was easier to deal with then it would have been with for example a whole class of "me's" at once. For me, I just needed to get out of there before I lost my shit and started flipping tables. After a few informal sessions with the schools special needs teacher I was allowed to leave the class when I got that way, I could make my way down to her teaching space where the space before her teaching space was kept dimly lit and the curtains to the windows closed (at the time, I just presumed as that space also linked to other teachers offices and the photocoping room, they just wanted to stop kids from being nosy looking though the windows, on reflection, I'm pretty sure they kept it dimly lit for kids like me), clam down, relax, get on with some self study if I felt up to it, and then rejoin "gen pop" whenn I was ready. She would call which ever teacher I just walked out on to make sure a) they knew the kid was safe b) make sure they wasn't pissed at me c) I could grab anything I needed to catch up with the lesson I just walked out on. Now the above coping mech I used probally wouldn't work with a class full of ME's, it only worked for me because the space I could escape to was quiet and had very few people around the space. I'm just trying to explain why I personally would walk out of class when I needed to. I would try and say "I have a migrain, I need to go" before leaving but that was nto always possible for me to do (The migrain "trick" was caught to me by the special need teacher as something the teachers could relate to then trying to explain what was going on in my head at that moment in time - looking back it was prob just a codeword teachers knew to just let the kid leave). It was rarely anything personal towards the teacher of the class. I can't speak for the kids she taught during that time, But as someone who fits the description tell her that atleast some of the kids who behaved like that do feel bad for their actions during school now we have had the chance to grow up.

RattleyCooper 5y ago

I feel like it's a good discussion; to what lengths are we willing to go to keep someone safe? We could put people into boxes, keep them drugged/knocked out and force-fed via tubes. Technically they'd be perfectly safe, so is it acceptable (they kind of mention this in the article as well)? When I was younger my dad told me a story about a kid with a mental disorder who would hit himself repeatedly in the head. They realized he wouldn't hit himself when he was holding a glass of water bc he would spill the water on himself and didn't like that. They kept giving him smaller and smaller glasses of water to hold until they got him to the point where he only had to have a thimble in his pocket(without any water), and that was enough to prevent him from hitting himself. While shocking people with electricity seems like an acceptable solution, when compared to the self harm, I wonder if some of these people could be helped without shocking them or drugging them. I'm also curious to know how strong the shocks are.

lozenge 5y ago

And just one paragraph further... However, a 2006 report by the New York State Education Department found that the device was regularly used for minor disobedience and “behaviours that are not aggressive, health dangerous or destructive, such as nagging, swearing and failing to maintain a neat appearance”. The report also found no evidence that the school “considers the potential negative effects, such as depression or anxiety, that may result from the use of aversive behavioural strategies with certain individual students”. --- This is not some misunderstood school with a radical method. It's been investigated and condemned by the state authorities, the federal authorities (FDA) and internationally (by the UN as tantamount to torture). You'd be foolish to trust the school for claims like that.

Natsu 5y ago
I didn't quote that because people already know that shocks are not great things, but I'd say it's not that simple given that the judge here doesn't agree with the department's assessment.
- lozenge 5y ago
  The legal question was over FDA jurisdiction , not whether the treatment was effective. https://www.raps.org/news-and-articles/news-articles/2021/7/appeals-court-overturns-fdas-ban-of-electric-shock https://www.raps.org/news-and-articles/news-articles/2021/7/...