Fornits
Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform => The Troubled Teen Industry => Topic started by: Eliscu2 on May 03, 2010, 09:39:49 PM
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Joyce's bills would curb shock treatments at Canton school
http://http://www.wickedlocal.com/stoughton/news/x43863018/Joyces-bills-would-curb-shock-treatments-at-Canton-school
By Candace Hall
Canton Journal
Posted Apr 20, 2010 @ 02:40 PM
Canton — State Sen. Brian Joyce hopes that two ongoing investigations will bring more scrutiny to the practice of aversive therapy at the Judge Rotenberg Center (JRC) in Canton, spurring legislators to pass his bills that will more strictly regulate the practice.
The JRC is a private, public-funded school for special education children with severe challenges, including those who are developmentally delayed, autistic and emotionally disturbed.
Both the state’s attorney general and the U. S. Department of Justice have been investigating the center after complaints about a 2007 incident at the center, as well as complaints from more than 30 disability groups.
“We’ve seen horrible abuses, and family members have been interviewed, and I’m hopeful,” Joyce said.
The senator has been trying to ban the practice, which gives electric shocks and other pain-inducing treatments to students who have severe behavior problems, for about 10 years. He said the JRC is the only school in the country that uses this type of therapy.
The practice that Joyce most strongly objects to is shock therapy using a remotely controlled shock devise that is attached to the student through a fanny or backpack. According to a report of the New York State Educational Department, the students wear the devises for the majority of their sleeping and walking hours, and some are required to wear them during shower/bath time.
hough JRC lawyers argue that aversive shock therapy is already heavily regulated, Joyce said it’s not enough. He said he has heard of children being shocked “hundreds, sometimes thousands for times,” with some children being burned through the shock treatment.
One of the most alarming cases, he said, was in 2007, when a person made a prank call to the school pretending to be a JRC staff member. Joyce said the caller ordered the staff to awaken two students who were shocked repeatedly while their arms and legs were bound. One of the students was burned 77 times over a period of three hours.
The incident led the state attorney’s office to investigative the incident, which is still ongoing. Since then, the JRC has cooperated with law and state officials in every way, and a number of changes have been made to prevent a similar occurrence, said Michael Flammia, a lawyer for the JRC.
Flammia also said students who undergo the process have to have parent permission, and approvals by a judge in a probate court, as well as a peer review committee and doctor before getting the treatment.
“It’s the most regulated form of therapy that exists,” he said.
But Joyce is not satisfied with current regulations, and he is pressing for more. His two bills aim to better control the aversive therapy, rather than ban it, which he thinks is a compromise that could sway house members to vote yes.
One bill would set up unified standards that specify the scope of techniques permissible under laws. The other bill would establish a commission to investigate electric shock therapy, as well as a peer review group, which would work with the states’ Department of Developmental Services to set up new standards. Joyce said even though a peer group is currently involved with the approval process, it consists mostly of people who are affiliated with the JRC and he does not feel they provide adequate oversight.
“I want a true objective look at this - not a review by interested parties,” Joyce said.
Even though he is still in favor of banning shock therapy, Joyce said that he moderated his stance because he’s faced strong opposition in previous bills, including Rep. Jeffrey Sanchez, D-Boston, who has a nephew who is a JRC student and receives shock therapy. He said that Sanchez has been an effective spokesperson for the aversive therapy, saying it’s the only method that can keep his nephew from harming, and even killing himself.
Joyce feels that legislators have voted repeatedly against the ban, through the urging of Sanchez, and JRC supporters. Now, he thinks these two bills could be the compromise that spurs both the house and senate to pass his bills.
“It’s a harder thing to argue against than the outright ban,” he said.
The new legislation has the support of many educators, including Alan Dewey, who oversees special education for the Canton School Department. He thinks there’s a need for the treatment because of severe cases that he’s seen, including a child who tried to take his own eyeball out with his thumb. But he also feels that there has to be stricter regulations enforced.
“It needs stronger oversight, so I think it’s a good bill,” he said.
The school has about 220 students from seven states, including Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Ohio, New Hampshire and Florida. About half those students receive aversive therapy.
Sen. Brian Joyce said that his legislation aims to limit aversive therapy to “just a few of the most extreme cases” performed with licensed clinicians, used only on self-abusive or dangerous kids.
But Flammia argued that there are some students who may not be dangerous to themselves or others, but are capable of disrupting classrooms, and are in need of the treatment.
“If students were smashing computer on the ground, or disrobing, or screaming at the top of their lungs, they could not be treated,” he said.
Adding that the JRC treats the most serious behavior problems imaginable, Flammia said students on aversive therapy have been exposed to every other treatment possible. He said the only other alternatives have been to place the children on powerful psychotropic drugs, which had led to them being barely conscious during the day and in some cases becoming obese. JRC parents prefer aversive therapy to their children being heavily drugged, he said.
Whether or not the legislation is passed, the JRC is bound to be under intensive scrutiny as long as it continues aversive shock therapy. The U. S. Department of Justice’s investigation, launched this February, was spurred by letters from 31 different disability groups. The September 30 letter states that “almost every national disability organization agrees that the use of painful procedures to change a person’s behavior is unnecessary, inhumane, and should be banned.”
The center has also been the target of complaints and investigations by a number of state and out-of state agencies. Since the school was founded in 1971, the states of California and Rhode Island have withdrawn their students and passed forms of legislation banning aversive therapy in their own states. New Jersey has suspended any new referrals to the school.
“My hope is that these investigations will shed light on what is happening behind the walls of the JRC,” Joyce said.
Candace Hall can be reached at cahall@cnc.com
Copyright 2010 Stoughton Journal. Some rights reserved
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Whilst I find it heartening that Mr. Joyce is at least attempting to do something, I find it incredibly dismaying that his efforts are directed at further entrenching the use of this sort of thing within the heart of the system. Passing new legislation that regulates it only validates it further.
Can't blame the guy for trying though, he is trying to do something for the kids, and from the sounds of it he's down to the wire.
I'd rather see him roll an M-1A2 onto the place and flatten it.
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Che said:"I'd rather see him roll an M-1A2 onto the place and flatten it."
:notworthy:
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If the shock therapy was found to be ineffective or cruel then I am sure Brian Joyce would be pushing to outlaw it altogether. The problems that I have read so far stem from the therapy not being controlled enough. So I think the pursuit of regulation is a good path to take at this point. I haven’t seen a convincing argument which shows shock therapy to be less humane than the restraints and heavy medication these children were being subjected to prior to reaching this point.
The information has pointed towards many of these children getting off the drugs and restraints altogether and having a chance at a decent life. To me, quality of life needs to also be considered in the equation.
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If the shock therapy was found to be ineffective or cruel then I am sure Brian Joyce would be pushing to outlaw it altogether.
He was pushing to outlaw it altogether. For years and years and years. From the above article (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=30444&p=362660#p362641):
The senator has been trying to ban the practice, which gives electric shocks and other pain-inducing treatments to students who have severe behavior problems, for about 10 years. He said the JRC is the only school in the country that uses this type of therapy.[/list]
Unfortunately, JRC has some strong local political support. It may only be a few folks, but they are in key positions. These latest bills are an attempt, a compromise, to at least get some better oversight in place. However, they are certainly not the be-all end-all goal for anti-JRC activists.
I haven't seen a convincing argument which shows shock therapy to be less humane than the restraints and heavy medication these children were being subjected to prior to reaching this point.
The information has pointed towards many of these children getting off the drugs and restraints altogether and having a chance at a decent life. To me, quality of life needs to also be considered in the equation.
Then you should read a little more about James Velez (http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=24717). He felt his stay at JRC was unlivable torture.
Matthew Israel himself has commented that JRC's more intelligent clients appeared to have more difficulty tolerating the regimen of aversive shock. That alone is pretty telling.
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I doubt whooty gets paid to read or comprehend anything....just sayin :feedtrolls:
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He was pushing to outlaw it altogether. For years and years and years. From the above article:
The senator has been trying to ban the practice, which gives electric shocks and other pain-inducing treatments to students who have severe behavior problems, for about 10 years. He said the JRC is the only school in the country that uses this type of therapy.
Unfortunately, JRC has some strong local political support. It may only be a few folks, but they are in key positions. These latest bills are an attempt, a compromise, to at least get some better oversight in place. However, they are certainly not the be-all end-all goal for anti-JRC activists.
Or maybe as he got his head more into it he saw the results of the therapy and kids lives that were changed for the better. If you read through the complaints the majority of the issues can be resolved thru stricter regulation and controls.
Then you should read a little more about James Velez. He felt his stay at JRC was unlivable torture.
Matthew Israel himself has commented that JRC's more intelligent clients appeared to have more difficulty tolerating the regimen of aversive shock. That alone is pretty telling.
Sure we can read about the kid who was damaged. If you read a story about a child who was helped would you change your mind and embrace the therapy? One or two stories should not be enough to form an opinion. One needs to step back and look at the entire impact this therapy has on childrens lives and those of their families. Look at the kids quality of life before they enter and then look at their lives after… how many are helped… how many are not… and then decide if this treatment is effective or worth saving.
We cant just look at a picture of a dead kid in an automobile and conclude the auto industry needs to be shut down. Do you see what I’m saying?
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I doubt whooty gets paid to read or comprehend anything....just sayin :feedtrolls:
Thanks, Eliscu2, I think many disagree with you here, though. It would be nice if I were getting paid for this.
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though i am not opposed to regulation as a harm minimization tool, I cant see how you can regulate shock treatment. it is either OK to sting disabled kids like a bee or it is not. I would hope that in a civillized society it is not! So he should be moving to outlaw the practice all together.
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Oz Girl, I completely agree and I think he does as well. It is more a matter of compromise as every attempt of his to outlaw it has failed, sadly its a devil's compromise. Very unfortunate...
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Regulation isn’t one of my favorites either. But there has been no indication that the therapy is cruel or inhumane. To take an average person off the street and subject him/her to shock treatments would be considered cruel. The same would be true if you took someone off the street and removed their appendix for no reason.
But if you play out the same scenario with a person who had a very low quality of life and shock treatments allowed them to live a higher quality of life and if the other person was suffering from appendicitis then the appendectomy would not be so inhumane.
So what needs to be evaluated is what improvements are being made, what the alternatives are and examine the results of the treatment before we can judge the specific procedures.
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SHOCK TREATMENT HAS BEEN FOUND VERY EFFECTIVE IN MANY CASES. I SERIOUSLY DOUBT THE USAGE WAS DEVELOPED FOR THE BAD AS YOU ALL SEEM TO TRY TO CLAIM. WHERE IS THE PROOF THAT SHOCK TREATMENT IS BAD OR UNHEALTHY? ONE PERSON SCREAMS ITS BAD AND EVERYONE HAS TO FOLLOW? NO OTHERS HAVE BEEN HELPED THREW YEARS. LIKE EVERYWHERE IN THIS SICK ASS WORLD I AM SURE SOME DOCTORS MISDIGNOSTED THE TREATMENT TO BEGIN WITH. CORRUPT DOCTORS ARE EVERYWHERE. THAT IS THE PROBLEM NOT THE TREATMENT. OH AND FELICE YOU NEEDED THE TREATMENT BUT ONE CAN AGRUE IT WAS A BUST. THEY CONDUCTED IT WRONG ON YOU. CHE I DOUBT BRINGING A M 12 WHATEVER THE FUCK WILL MAKE A CHANGE EITHER. IT IS NOT ALWAYS FUN AND GAMES CHE. LIFE IS NOT BUILT ON SMART ASS COMMENTS. PEOPLE NEVER TAKE IT SERIOUSLY THEN.
ALSO JUST A LITTLE NOTE HERE IF YOU WANT THE WORLD TO HEAR YOU STOP CONDENSENDING ON THE READERS MOST DO NOT HAVE A CLUE IN THE TERMS YOU USE. DONT TALK DOCTOR SHITTY TALK..TALK HUMNA BEING. YOU WANT ATO MAKE DIFFERENCE THAN ACT LIKE IT. AND NO SMART ASS REMARKS ARE NEEDED IN REPLY. TALK AND EXPLAIN IS THAT SO FUCKING IMPOSSIBLE AROUND HERE.
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They're putting shock packs on the kids, 24 hours a day, and using them to keep the kids quiet. It's sick, no matter how you fucking slice it.
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They're putting shock packs on the kids, 24 hours a day, and using them to keep the kids quiet. It's sick, no matter how you fucking slice it.
No offense, Anne, but you should reading the full article. The shock packs are not used on everyone and are not used to keep the kids quiet. If you think backpacks are sick you should try sitting through an operation in a hospital where they cut people open. I would go with the backpacks any day over being cut open.
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No offense, Anne, but you should reading the full article. The shock packs are not used on everyone and are not used to keep the kids quiet. If you think backpacks are sick you should try sitting through an operation in a hospital where they cut people open. I would go with the backpacks any day over being cut open.
As I've said before....you'll defend the indefensible. This is a disgusting practice.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/us-school-f ... hocks.html (http://www.prisonplanet.com/us-school-for-disabled-forces-students-to-wear-packs-that-deliver-massive-electric-shocks.html)
US school for disabled forces students to wear packs that deliver massive electric shocks
Diana Sweet
Raw Story
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Mental Disability Rights International (MDRI) has filed a report and urgent appeal with the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture alleging that the Judge Rotenberg Center for the disabled, located in Massachusetts, violates the UN Convention against Torture.
The rights group submitted their report this week, titled “Torture not Treatment: Electric Shock and Long-Term Restraint in the United States on Children and Adults with Disabilities at the Judge Rotenberg Center,” after an in-depth investigation revealed use of restraint boards, isolation, food deprivation and electric shocks in efforts to control the behaviors of its disabled and emotionally troubled students.
Findings in the MDRI report include the center’s practice of subjecting children to electric shocks on the legs, arms, soles of feet and torso — in many cases for years — as well as some for more than a decade. Electronic shocks are administered by remote-controlled packs attached to a child’s back called a Graduated Electronic Decelerators (GEI).
The disabilities group notes that stun guns typically deliver three to four milliamps per shock. GEI packs, meanwhile, shock students with 45 milliamps — more than ten times the amperage of a typical stun gun.
A former employee of the center told an investigator, “When you start working there, they show you this video which says the shock is ‘like a bee sting’ and that it does not really hurt the kids. One kid, you could smell the flesh burning, he had so many shocks. These kids are under constant fear, 24/7. They sleep with them on, eat with them on. It made me sick and I could not sleep. I prayed to God someone would help these kids.”
Noting that it believes United States law fails to provide needed protections to children and adults with disabilities, MDRI calls for the immediate end to the use of electric shock and long-term restraints as a form of behavior modification or treatment and a ban on the infliction of severe pain for so-called therapeutic purposes.
“Torture as treatment should be banned and prosecuted under criminal law,” the report states.
The U.S. Department of Justice opened a “routine investigation” of the center in February of this year in response to a September 2009 letter signed by 31 disability organizations claiming that the center violated the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Judge Rotenberg CEO and founder Dr. Matthew L. Israel began his first program in California back in 1977. In 1981, a 14-year old boy died face down, tied to his bed, while living in the California center. Dr. Israel was not held responsible for the death. After an investigation by the State of California, Israel relocated to Rhode Island, and then to Massachusetts, where his facility still operates today.
Mother Jones magazine published an extensive investigative report on the Rotenberg Center in 2007 titled “School of Shock.” Reporter Jennifer Gonnerman asked, “How many times do you have to zap a child before it’s torture?”
Children at the Judge Rotenberg Center are often shackled, restrained and secluded for months at a time, the report says. Social isolation, and food deprivation as forms of punishment are common. Mock and threatened stabbings — to forcibly elicit unacceptable behaviors resulting in electric shock punishments (Labeled as Behavioral Research Lessons or BRLs, by the center) were reported to MDRI as well as state regulatory bodies.
A former student of the center reportedly tells MDRI, “The worst thing ever was the BRLs. They try and make you do a bad behavior and then they punish you. The first time I had a BRL, two guys came in the room and grabbed me – I had no idea what was going on. They held a knife to my throat and I started to scream and I got shocked. I had BRLs three times a week for stuff I didn’t even do. It went on for about six months or more. I was in a constant state of paranoia and fear. I never knew if a door opened if I would get one. It was more stress than I could ever imagine. Horror.”
Behaviors that the center deemed “aggressive,” as well as those considered “minor,” or “non-compliant” — such as raising one’s hand without permission — are all considered punishable by electric shocks, restraints, and other punishments to students.
“One girl who was blind, deaf and non-verbal was moaning and rocking,” a former teacher says in the report. “Her moaning was like a cry. The staff shocked her for moaning. Turned out she had broken a tooth. Another child had an accident in the bathroom and was shocked.”
The rights group investigation found that the Rotenberg center is the only known facility in the United States, “Or perhaps the world,” that employs the use of electricity, long-term restraints and other punishments to deliberately inflict pain upon its children and then refer to it as “treatment.” The electric shocks alone are cited as having possible long-term effects such as muscle stiffness, impotence, damage to teeth, scarring of the skin, hair loss, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), severe depression, chronic anxiety, memory loss and sleep disturbances.
The MDRI report states that more than any other source for its information, they relied upon information readily obtained from the Judge Rotenberg Center’s own website.
In response to MDRI’s report, the Judge Rotenberg Center said, “There is no credible evidence that for these most severe forms of behavior disorders, there is any pharmacological or psychological treatment that can effectively treat these students or even keep them safe. JRC is the only program willing to address the reality of these children’s disorders and endure the political firestorm in order to save these children and give them an education and a future.”
The complete rebuttal from the center can be read in full at JRC’s website.
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They're putting shock packs on the kids, 24 hours a day, and using them to keep the kids quiet. It's sick, no matter how you fucking slice it.
OK I CAN SEE IF THEY ARE USING IT FOR FORM OF MIND CONTROLLING STUNT. BUT WHAT ABOUT THE ONES THAT DID HEAL MENTALLY FROM IT. ARE THERE CASES IT DID HELP? I THINK CUZ NOONE REALLY SEEN IT THEY DO NOT NO WHAT IT IS LIKE. YOU SAY SHOCK PADS TO SOMEONE LIKE ME AND I CAN VISSION IT BUT WHAT HAPPENS TO THE BODY WITH THE ELECTRICAL PART. IS IT PAINFUL? IS IT TRAUMA? I HEAR IN 60'S THEY USED IT MORE. DO THEY STILL USE IT AS MUCH. IF SO THEN WHY THE HELL ARE SOME OF YOU ON THIS WEBSITE WHEN YOU SHOULD BE DOWN A HOSPITAL TELLING OFF DOCTORS AND GETTING LAWYERS FOR THESE KIDS. CALL NEWPAPERS PEOLE GOT TO CARE.
AND WHO IS DOING ANYTHING TO STOP IT? YOU NEED TO TELL PEOPLE WHO DO NOT LIKE THIS HOW TO STOP IT.
AND WHY DO THEY WANT THESE KIDS QUITE WHAT ARE THEY HIDING?
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No offense, Anne, but you should reading the full article. The shock packs are not used on everyone and are not used to keep the kids quiet. If you think backpacks are sick you should try sitting through an operation in a hospital where they cut people open. I would go with the backpacks any day over being cut open.
As I've said before....you'll defend the indefensible. This is a disgusting practice.
Why do you get so threatened when someone disagrees with you? Its just a discussion. If you have read my posts you would know that I have not formed an opinion on this therapy. I am keeping an open mind and gathering information. I am not defending this therapy, just looking at both points of view evenly.
The backpacks are not used on everyone and they dont shock kids to keep them quiet. You dont understand the therapy at all Anne. I dont think many people do.
Boston Globe Article (http://http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/03/09/shocking_truths/)
Yet somehow the arguments of the center’s detractors seem too pat. A recent five-hour visit to the school revealed nothing inhumane. Granted it’s a small window of time and the 214 students arrive each day from 32 scattered group homes. But the behaviors of many of the students, who range in age from 7 to 50, can be so unpredictable that it would be almost impossible to create a Potemkin village to dupe outsiders.
The Rotenberg Center is a highly structured behavior modification program that requires students to earn nearly every privilege - even a chance to relax with each other - by staying on task and not acting up. The road to its door is long. Parents, as a rule, don’t even consider placement until their children have been expelled from several other special needs schools.
On arrival, no one slaps electrodes on the students or fits them for the backpacks that contain the shock devices. Court-approved treatment plans require the school to use a positive rewards system, often for several months, before skin shocks can be administered via the transmitters that hang from the belts of some staffers. Supervisors in two video monitor rooms watch every classroom, group home, and common area through live camera feeds.
No shocks on this tour, it turns out, though there was one peck on the cheek exchanged by a student and a popular staffer.
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No offense, Anne, but you should reading the full article. The shock packs are not used on everyone and are not used to keep the kids quiet. If you think backpacks are sick you should try sitting through an operation in a hospital where they cut people open. I would go with the backpacks any day over being cut open.
As I've said before....you'll defend the indefensible. This is a disgusting practice.
Why do you get so threatened when someone disagrees with you?
Oh bite me asshole. You don't threaten me....you sicken me.
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:jerry: MY QUESTIONS STILL GO UNANSWERED :jerry:
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You don't threaten me.....
Yes I do, Anne, or you would not be afraid to discuss topics openly. You get threatened and tell people to bite you or call then an asshole or try to start a fight so that way you can avoid the topic or discussing the details of why you feel a certain way.
Its okay with me... just pointing it out and just say'n.
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:jerry: ANNIE :jerry: WHOOTER :jerry: MY QUESTIONS STILL GO UNANSWERED. FUCKING STUPID I AM GOING TO GO PLAY RUNESCAPE OR WORLD OF WARCRAFT MORE GETS ACCOMPISHED THEN.
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You don't threaten me.....
Yes I do, Anne, or you would not be afraid to discuss topics openly. You get threatened and tell people to bite you or call then an asshole or try to start a fight so that way you can avoid the topic or discussing the details of why you feel a certain way.
Its okay with me... just pointing it out and just say'n.
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Whatever you need to tell yourself dickhead.
It's because I've done the circle jerk with you for years now. I'm done. You are, IMO, a sick fuck who gets off on this shit. So.....have at it. I'm perfectly capable and willing to discuss differing opinions with reasonable people. You're not reasonable.
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Whatever you need to tell yourself dickhead.
It's because I've done the circle jerk with you for years now. I'm done. You are, IMO, a sick fuck who gets off on this shit. So.....have at it. I'm perfectly capable and willing to discuss differing opinions with reasonable people. You're not reasonable.
I have seen you with others too Anne. If they disagree with you you get pissed and start calling them dickheads and assholes because you take a stand on an issue and you don’t even know why. Maybe because it is popular here or you read a paragraph someplace that said it was evil. But your posts show that you do not think for yourself your part of a lynch mob who carries a torch and doesn’t know or care what the issue is.
Someone shows you a picture of a kid being cut open and says the child is being tortured then you jump on the bandwagon and are ready to condemn and hang the person cutting this girl open. You close your mind to everything else… is the girl being murdered? If someone told you the girl was fine and was just having her appendix removed and the person was a doctor you would get angry and call him a dickhead or say “bite me” and conclude he must be spinning because that would shake your world and you would have to rethink your position or god forbid explain to someone why you feel the girl was being tortured.
Sorry Anne… you M.O. is running away and calling people names when people disagree with you.
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Whatever you need to tell yourself dickhead.
It's because I've done the circle jerk with you for years now. I'm done. You are, IMO, a sick fuck who gets off on this shit. So.....have at it. I'm perfectly capable and willing to discuss differing opinions with reasonable people. You're not reasonable.
I have seen you with others too Anne. If they disagree with you you get pissed and start calling them dickheads and assholes because you take a stand on an issue and you don’t even know why. Maybe because it is popular here or you read a paragraph someplace that said it was evil. But your posts show that you do not think for yourself your part of a lynch mob who carries a torch and doesn’t know or care what the issue is.
Someone shows you a picture of a kid being cut open and says the child is being tortured then you jump on the bandwagon and are ready to condemn and hang the person cutting this girl open. You close your mind to everything else… is the girl being murdered? If someone told you the girl was fine and was just having her appendix removed and the person was a doctor you would get angry and call him a dickhead or say “bite me” and conclude he must be spinning because that would shake your world and you would have to rethink your position or god forbid explain to someone why you feel the girl was being tortured.
Sorry Anne… you M.O. is running away and calling people names when people disagree with you.
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Whatever you gotta tell yourself dickhead.
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POINT WHOOTER :jerry: POINT ANNE :jerry: POINT WHOOTER :jerry: POINT ANNIE :jerry:
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In light of the fact that people see value in this therapy and independent reviews and visits to the place found nothing to be inhumane I can see that placing further regulation would be a good direction at this point versus spending an effort to shut the place down.
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(http://http://www.gosport.gov.uk/files/fraud/pics/10.gif)
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...independent reviews and visits to the place found nothing to be inhumane...
<cough> . . . Source?
Independent reviews found plenty that was inhumane.
From what I've read, it has been the opinions of a select few parents — who are dependent on Matthew Israel for taking care of their "problem" — that have furnished "reviews" averring this method to be "life-saving."
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...independent reviews and visits to the place found nothing to be inhumane...
<cough> . . . Source?
Independent reviews found plenty that was inhumane.
From what I've read, it has been the opinions of a select few parents — who are dependent on Matthew Israel for taking charge of their "problem" — that have furnished "reviews" averring this method to be "life-saving."
There were several walk thrus in the past several years which found no evidence of abuse. I agree that the therapy is controversial but I dont see it as abusive or inhumane in light of what the quality of the childrens lives without the therapy and the reported quality of life the children have after therapy.
"Cutting someone open with a knife is inhumane unless the person has a growing cancer inside"
Here is a more recent article:
Boston Globe Article (http://http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/03/09/shocking_truths/)
Yet somehow the arguments of the center’s detractors seem too pat. A recent five-hour visit to the school revealed nothing inhumane. Granted it’s a small window of time and the 214 students arrive each day from 32 scattered group homes. But the behaviors of many of the students, who range in age from 7 to 50, can be so unpredictable that it would be almost impossible to create a Potemkin village to dupe outsiders.
The Rotenberg Center is a highly structured behavior modification program that requires students to earn nearly every privilege - even a chance to relax with each other - by staying on task and not acting up. The road to its door is long. Parents, as a rule, don’t even consider placement until their children have been expelled from several other special needs schools.
On arrival, no one slaps electrodes on the students or fits them for the backpacks that contain the shock devices. Court-approved treatment plans require the school to use a positive rewards system, often for several months, before skin shocks can be administered via the transmitters that hang from the belts of some staffers. Supervisors in two video monitor rooms watch every classroom, group home, and common area through live camera feeds.
No shocks on this tour, it turns out, though there was one peck on the cheek exchanged by a student and a popular staffer.
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Here is a more recent article:
Boston Globe Article (http://http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/03/09/shocking_truths/)
Yet somehow the arguments of the center’s detractors seem too pat. A recent five-hour visit to the school revealed nothing inhumane. Granted it’s a small window of time and the 214 students arrive each day from 32 scattered group homes. But the behaviors of many of the students, who range in age from 7 to 50, can be so unpredictable that it would be almost impossible to create a Potemkin village to dupe outsiders.
The Rotenberg Center is a highly structured behavior modification program that requires students to earn nearly every privilege - even a chance to relax with each other - by staying on task and not acting up. The road to its door is long. Parents, as a rule, don’t even consider placement until their children have been expelled from several other special needs schools.
On arrival, no one slaps electrodes on the students or fits them for the backpacks that contain the shock devices. Court-approved treatment plans require the school to use a positive rewards system, often for several months, before skin shocks can be administered via the transmitters that hang from the belts of some staffers. Supervisors in two video monitor rooms watch every classroom, group home, and common area through live camera feeds.
No shocks on this tour, it turns out, though there was one peck on the cheek exchanged by a student and a popular staffer.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/maia-szal ... 92351.html (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/maia-szalavitz/shocking-stupidity-boston_b_492351.html)
Shocking Stupidity: Boston Globe Ignores Research to Support Dangerous Autism Program
The Boston Globe ran an op-ed today that perfectly characterizes a key failure of American journalism: that is, it reports on a medical question that can be answered by scientific research, but fails to even mention that such data exists or should exist.
The piece, headlined "Shocking Truths," claims that the arguments of critics of the Judge Rotenberg Center -- who oppose its inhumane electric skin-shock treatment of people with developmental disabilities -- are "too pat." The Department of Justice is currently investigating the school for human rights violations, after complaints from disability rights advocates.
Those concerns are groundless, author Lawrence Harmon argues. His proof? A five hour visit he made to the school in which he saw "nothing inhumane." Sure, he concedes, abuses have been found in the past -- but that's no reason to pay attention to the opposition of no fewer than 31 major disability advocacy groups.
As shallow as this reasoning is, it hides an even more profound failure of critical thinking. Harmon accepts at face value the claims of the school and of parents of students who support it that skin shock treatment "works" and is superior to what he calls "stupefying" doses of medication sometimes used by other programs.
But this is an empirical question -- and in decades of advocating a treatment its victims compare to "an attack by a swarm of wasps" -- the Rotenberg Center has yet to produce a single randomized controlled trial showing that its approach is effective -- let alone superior to others.
Rhetorically, Harmon asks, "Why do no practitioners other than Israel [Rotenberg's director] adopt this approach? Do they view skin shocks as cruel or do they fear the outcry of disability advocates and inevitable probes? Is skin shock, in some cases, a more humane treatment than heavy drugs and mechanical restraints?" He has a psychiatrist answer that he "doesn't know."
The disability rights groups know, however: they know that there is research from randomized controlled trials that supports other, more humane approaches. They know that there is none to support Rotenberg -- and they also know that research increasingly shows that sensory oversensitivity is a huge part of the autistic spectrum disorders often treated at the center. Given this, use of painful stimuli could be even more harmful to autistic kids than to others.
Using science to make medical decisions is not making a pat or black and white argument -- it is the same method that the FDA uses to clear drugs for marketing. If they are not first proven safe and effective, medications aren't allowed to be sold to the public. That standard is good enough for medications -- why shouldn't we use it for other treatments that can potentially do harm?
Why should we have lower standards for a skin-shock treatment used on our most vulnerable children? Parents' anecdotes and those of clinicians who profit from skin shock treatment aren't enough: you can find plenty of these in support of harmful, quackish cancer treatments, too. The fact that Harmon thinks that these anecdotes prove anything just shows how low his standards of evidence really are.
The Justice Department is right to have answered the disability rights groups with an investigation. It should conclude that the Rotenberg Center is conducting an unauthorized and inhumane experiment -- and refuse to allow any further use of its approach until it can prove that it is more effective than more humane alternatives. Given that the center hasn't been able to do that in its decades of existence, the program should be shuttered.
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Here is a more recent article:
Boston Globe Article (http://http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/03/09/shocking_truths/)
Yet somehow the arguments of the center’s detractors seem too pat. A recent five-hour visit to the school revealed nothing inhumane. Granted it’s a small window of time and the 214 students arrive each day from 32 scattered group homes. But the behaviors of many of the students, who range in age from 7 to 50, can be so unpredictable that it would be almost impossible to create a Potemkin village to dupe outsiders.
The Rotenberg Center is a highly structured behavior modification program that requires students to earn nearly every privilege - even a chance to relax with each other - by staying on task and not acting up. The road to its door is long. Parents, as a rule, don’t even consider placement until their children have been expelled from several other special needs schools.
On arrival, no one slaps electrodes on the students or fits them for the backpacks that contain the shock devices. Court-approved treatment plans require the school to use a positive rewards system, often for several months, before skin shocks can be administered via the transmitters that hang from the belts of some staffers. Supervisors in two video monitor rooms watch every classroom, group home, and common area through live camera feeds.
No shocks on this tour, it turns out, though there was one peck on the cheek exchanged by a student and a popular staffer.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/maia-szal ... 92351.html (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/maia-szalavitz/shocking-stupidity-boston_b_492351.html)
Shocking Stupidity: Boston Globe Ignores Research to Support Dangerous Autism Program
The Boston Globe ran an op-ed today that perfectly characterizes a key failure of American journalism: that is, it reports on a medical question that can be answered by scientific research, but fails to even mention that such data exists or should exist.
The piece, headlined "Shocking Truths," claims that the arguments of critics of the Judge Rotenberg Center -- who oppose its inhumane electric skin-shock treatment of people with developmental disabilities -- are "too pat." The Department of Justice is currently investigating the school for human rights violations, after complaints from disability rights advocates.
Those concerns are groundless, author Lawrence Harmon argues. His proof? A five hour visit he made to the school in which he saw "nothing inhumane." Sure, he concedes, abuses have been found in the past -- but that's no reason to pay attention to the opposition of no fewer than 31 major disability advocacy groups.
As shallow as this reasoning is, it hides an even more profound failure of critical thinking. Harmon accepts at face value the claims of the school and of parents of students who support it that skin shock treatment "works" and is superior to what he calls "stupefying" doses of medication sometimes used by other programs.
But this is an empirical question -- and in decades of advocating a treatment its victims compare to "an attack by a swarm of wasps" -- the Rotenberg Center has yet to produce a single randomized controlled trial showing that its approach is effective -- let alone superior to others.
Rhetorically, Harmon asks, "Why do no practitioners other than Israel [Rotenberg's director] adopt this approach? Do they view skin shocks as cruel or do they fear the outcry of disability advocates and inevitable probes? Is skin shock, in some cases, a more humane treatment than heavy drugs and mechanical restraints?" He has a psychiatrist answer that he "doesn't know."
The disability rights groups know, however: they know that there is research from randomized controlled trials that supports other, more humane approaches. They know that there is none to support Rotenberg -- and they also know that research increasingly shows that sensory oversensitivity is a huge part of the autistic spectrum disorders often treated at the center. Given this, use of painful stimuli could be even more harmful to autistic kids than to others.
Using science to make medical decisions is not making a pat or black and white argument -- it is the same method that the FDA uses to clear drugs for marketing. If they are not first proven safe and effective, medications aren't allowed to be sold to the public. That standard is good enough for medications -- why shouldn't we use it for other treatments that can potentially do harm?
Why should we have lower standards for a skin-shock treatment used on our most vulnerable children? Parents' anecdotes and those of clinicians who profit from skin shock treatment aren't enough: you can find plenty of these in support of harmful, quackish cancer treatments, too. The fact that Harmon thinks that these anecdotes prove anything just shows how low his standards of evidence really are.
The Justice Department is right to have answered the disability rights groups with an investigation. It should conclude that the Rotenberg Center is conducting an unauthorized and inhumane experiment -- and refuse to allow any further use of its approach until it can prove that it is more effective than more humane alternatives. Given that the center hasn't been able to do that in its decades of existence, the program should be shuttered.
You left out that she never set foot inside the facility herself. She is commenting on the article she read in the paper. Anyone who reads it can have an opinion (just like you or I). But we have never been there and neither has Maia.
So we are seeing opinions on boths sides of the issue which is healthy and they are moving to place stricter regulation on the center. If it were abusive or inhumane they wouldnt spend time regulating it. So I think we will see this center in operation for many years to come. It will be interesting to hear from those who have been thru the therapy successfully.
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Here is a more recent article:
Boston Globe Article (http://http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/03/09/shocking_truths/)
"Article?" ... That is clearly defined as an op-ed piece:
Home / Globe / Opinion / Op-ed
Lawrence Harmon
The Boston Globe
Shocking truths (http://http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/03/09/shocking_truths/)
The Rotenberg Center's methods are undoubtedly unorthodox. But they work.[/list]
Funny how you refer to Maia's piece as "comments," and yet Harmon 's piece as an "article." Odd how those "subtle difference" work:
"She is commenting on the article she read in the paper."[/list]
Incidentally, that a "recent five-hour visit to the school revealed nothing inhuman" ... to one already clearly sold on Israel's aversive "therapy" is not surprising. But, seriously, do you honestly think that five hour walk-through could possibly be comprehensive enough?
You should read some of the (well over 200) blistering comments (http://http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/03/09/shocking_truths/?comments=all#readerComm) left for this Opinion piece. Here's one:
DerrickJeffries wrote: 3/9/2010 4:51 PM EST
Mr. Harmon, did you communicate with any former employees of BRI/JRC before sending this article to the editors? Did you read the Dr. Hurt article written by Ric Kahn (formerly with the Boston Phoenix, now a Globe journalist)? *I have a copy if you need it* Did you meet with any parents who removed a child from this "school"? Did you look at the overall history of BRI/JRC in Rhode Island, California, and Massachusetts? Did you research the deaths of Danny Aswad, Linda Cornelison, or Vincent Milletich? *I can send you some information* Was JRC allowed time to plan/prepare for your visit? Now after considering these valid questions, do you honestly believe your version of journalism regarding JRC is unbiased and accurate?
As a parent of a child diagnosed with Autism, I wonder how much you really know about truly effective treatments verses fear and pained based methods that would be considered torture if used on any other group of people.
We would not allow the government to use these methods on enemy combatants, but it is somehow okay to use them on innocent children who have committed no crimes other than being born with Autism or some other different way of being human.
I am one individual who hopes that you will gather some other perspectives next time prior to sitting down at your keyboard and typing out a lopsided article.
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You left out that she never set foot inside the facility herself. She is commenting on the article she read in the paper. Anyone who reads it can have an opinion (just like you or I). But we have never been there and neither has Maia.
And you tried to imply that an Op-Ed piece was an actual news article. Par for the course for you though.
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You left out that she never set foot inside the facility herself. She is commenting on the article she read in the paper. Anyone who reads it can have an opinion (just like you or I). But we have never been there and neither has Maia.
So we are seeing opinions on boths sides of the issue which is healthy and they are moving to place stricter regulation on the center. If it were abusive or inhumane they wouldnt spend time regulating it. So I think we will see this center in operation for many years to come. It will be interesting to hear from those who have been thru the therapy successfully.
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Ding ding ding, we have a winner! You guys should thank Whooter for posting here, one of the few posters who is not an extremist and can see both sides of an argument without being blinded by emotional bias. It's easy to condemn others but try walking a mile in the parents shoes for once! Normally maturity and time, when a kid grows from a kid into a adult and becomes their parent they grow up and see both sides of the argument. Fornits must be filed with peter pans or something, the children who never grew up???
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Lols. "A recent five-hour visit to the school revealed nothing inhuman" ... to one already clearly sold on Israel's aversive "therapy." Think that five hour walk-through could possibly comprehensive enough?
Granted it’s a small window of time and the 214 students arrive each day from 32 scattered group homes. But the behaviors of many of the students, who range in age from 7 to 50, can be so unpredictable that it would be almost impossible to create a Potemkin village to dupe outsiders.
Plus it is five hours more than Maia spent there.
Here are some probable responses that you left out:
Did you communicate with any former employees of BRI/JRC before sending this article to the editors?
Ans.: Yes I did. Before and after the article was submitted.
Did you read the Dr. Hurt article written by Ric Kahn (formerly with the Boston Phoenix, now a Globe journalist)?
Ans: Yes, I did thank you. A very detailed piece, I know Ric and his family well.
I have a copy if you need it
Ans: I have one in my hand here, thanks.
Did you meet with any parents who removed a child from this "school"?
Ans: Yes, Several. But I don’t want to go into detail at this time.
Did you look at the overall history of BRI/JRC in Rhode Island, California, and Massachusetts?
Ans: I always review the history prior to researching my articles. Don’t you?
Did you research the deaths of Danny Aswad, Linda Cornelison, or Vincent Milletich?
Ans: Yes, that was included in my studies.
I can send you some information?
Ans: Yes, I can always use more.
Was JRC allowed time to plan/prepare for your visit?
Ans: Yes, they were given some notice.
Now after considering these valid questions, do you honestly believe your version of journalism regarding JRC is unbiased and accurate?
Ans: Yes, I do. I wrote it and it was published under my name wasn’t it?
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Ding ding ding, we have a winner! You guys should thank Whooter for posting here, one of the few posters who is not an extremist and can see both sides of an argument without being blinded by emotional bias. It's easy to condemn others but try walking a mile in the parents shoes for once! Normally maturity and time, when a kid grows from a kid into a adult and becomes their parent they grow up and see both sides of the argument. Fornits must be filed with peter pans or something, the children who never grew up???
Ok, I find this post disturbing and will reply later.
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Here are some probable responses that you left out:
Let me get this straight... I post someone's actual comment, and you chastise me for leaving out some PROBABLE other comments?
:beat:
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Ding ding ding ... Fornits must be filed with peter pans or something, the children who never grew up???
Oh, I always put on my green tights before I put on my bear suit! No fashion gaffes fer me, Mistah Ding Dong! :D :twofinger: :D
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It's easy to condemn others but try walking a mile in the parents shoes for once! Normally maturity and time, when a kid grows from a kid into a adult and becomes their parent they grow up and see both sides of the argument.
What makes you think I haven't? I've got two grown kids.
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Here are some probable responses that you left out:
Probable responses??? So, they weren't actually there then. How could he leave out what wasn't there to begin with?
So, you post an Op-Ed piece, trying to pass it off as an article and we're supposed to take that as gospel. We post an Op-Ed piece clearly identified as such and you dismiss it.
Ursus posts actual comments that we're supposed to dismiss but your probable comments are to be taken seriously?
You are a joke.
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Here are some probable responses that you left out:
Probable responses??? So, they weren't actually there then. How could he leave out what wasn't there to begin with?
So, you post an Op-Ed piece, trying to pass it off as an article and we're supposed to take that as gospel. We post an Op-Ed piece clearly identified as such and you dismiss it.
Ursus posts actual comments that we're supposed to dismiss but your probable comments are to be taken seriously?
You are a joke.
Why would you want to dismiss the questions? I dont see where I did either. I just added probable answers. Its done here all the time... lets see someone asked why the two girls ran away from SUWS and you answered that with what you thought was a probable answer. Why the double standard? Does that mean you are a joke?
lol, see what I mean.
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Why would you want to dismiss the questions? I dont see where I did either. I just added probable answers. Its done here all the time... lets see someone asked why the two girls ran away from SUWS and you answered that with what you thought was a probable answer. Why the double standard? Does that mean you are a joke?
Big difference. You do it on the sly, hoping that people won't catch it. When I post something like that, it's openly stated that it's my opinion or belief or experience. You said that Ursus "left out" the probable answers. How could he "leave them out" if they were only in your head to begin with?
lol, see what I mean.
No. Not at all.
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Whooter tells his version of the truth, which is almost always lies. There is perhaps just enough truth mixed in to make what he says almost believable to the average reader (someone unaware of his wiles).
How long has this entity (formerly known as TheWho) been posting on Fornits?
Where is Ottawa5 these days?
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Joyce's bills would curb shock treatments at Canton school
http://http://www.wickedlocal.com/stoughton/news/x43863018/Joyces-bills-would-curb-shock-treatments-at-Canton-school
By Candace Hall
Canton Journal
Posted Apr 20, 2010 @ 02:40 PM
Canton — State Sen. Brian Joyce hopes that two ongoing investigations will bring more scrutiny to the practice of aversive therapy at the Judge Rotenberg Center (JRC) in Canton, spurring legislators to pass his bills that will more strictly regulate the practice.
The JRC is a private, public-funded school for special education children with severe challenges, including those who are developmentally delayed, autistic and emotionally disturbed.
Both the state’s attorney general and the U. S. Department of Justice have been investigating the center after complaints about a 2007 incident at the center, as well as complaints from more than 30 disability groups.
“We’ve seen horrible abuses, and family members have been interviewed, and I’m hopeful,” Joyce said.
The senator has been trying to ban the practice, which gives electric shocks and other pain-inducing treatments to students who have severe behavior problems, for about 10 years. He said the JRC is the only school in the country that uses this type of therapy.
The practice that Joyce most strongly objects to is shock therapy using a remotely controlled shock devise that is attached to the student through a fanny or backpack. According to a report of the New York State Educational Department, the students wear the devises for the majority of their sleeping and walking hours, and some are required to wear them during shower/bath time.
hough JRC lawyers argue that aversive shock therapy is already heavily regulated, Joyce said it’s not enough. He said he has heard of children being shocked “hundreds, sometimes thousands for times,” with some children being burned through the shock treatment.
One of the most alarming cases, he said, was in 2007, when a person made a prank call to the school pretending to be a JRC staff member. Joyce said the caller ordered the staff to awaken two students who were shocked repeatedly while their arms and legs were bound. One of the students was burned 77 times over a period of three hours.
The incident led the state attorney’s office to investigative the incident, which is still ongoing. Since then, the JRC has cooperated with law and state officials in every way, and a number of changes have been made to prevent a similar occurrence, said Michael Flammia, a lawyer for the JRC.
Flammia also said students who undergo the process have to have parent permission, and approvals by a judge in a probate court, as well as a peer review committee and doctor before getting the treatment.
“It’s the most regulated form of therapy that exists,” he said.
But Joyce is not satisfied with current regulations, and he is pressing for more. His two bills aim to better control the aversive therapy, rather than ban it, which he thinks is a compromise that could sway house members to vote yes.
One bill would set up unified standards that specify the scope of techniques permissible under laws. The other bill would establish a commission to investigate electric shock therapy, as well as a peer review group, which would work with the states’ Department of Developmental Services to set up new standards. Joyce said even though a peer group is currently involved with the approval process, it consists mostly of people who are affiliated with the JRC and he does not feel they provide adequate oversight.
“I want a true objective look at this - not a review by interested parties,” Joyce said.
Even though he is still in favor of banning shock therapy, Joyce said that he moderated his stance because he’s faced strong opposition in previous bills, including Rep. Jeffrey Sanchez, D-Boston, who has a nephew who is a JRC student and receives shock therapy. He said that Sanchez has been an effective spokesperson for the aversive therapy, saying it’s the only method that can keep his nephew from harming, and even killing himself.
Joyce feels that legislators have voted repeatedly against the ban, through the urging of Sanchez, and JRC supporters. Now, he thinks these two bills could be the compromise that spurs both the house and senate to pass his bills.
“It’s a harder thing to argue against than the outright ban,” he said.
The new legislation has the support of many educators, including Alan Dewey, who oversees special education for the Canton School Department. He thinks there’s a need for the treatment because of severe cases that he’s seen, including a child who tried to take his own eyeball out with his thumb. But he also feels that there has to be stricter regulations enforced.
“It needs stronger oversight, so I think it’s a good bill,” he said.
The school has about 220 students from seven states, including Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Ohio, New Hampshire and Florida. About half those students receive aversive therapy.
Sen. Brian Joyce said that his legislation aims to limit aversive therapy to “just a few of the most extreme cases” performed with licensed clinicians, used only on self-abusive or dangerous kids.
But Flammia argued that there are some students who may not be dangerous to themselves or others, but are capable of disrupting classrooms, and are in need of the treatment.
“If students were smashing computer on the ground, or disrobing, or screaming at the top of their lungs, they could not be treated,” he said.
Adding that the JRC treats the most serious behavior problems imaginable, Flammia said students on aversive therapy have been exposed to every other treatment possible. He said the only other alternatives have been to place the children on powerful psychotropic drugs, which had led to them being barely conscious during the day and in some cases becoming obese. JRC parents prefer aversive therapy to their children being heavily drugged, he said.
Whether or not the legislation is passed, the JRC is bound to be under intensive scrutiny as long as it continues aversive shock therapy. The U. S. Department of Justice’s investigation, launched this February, was spurred by letters from 31 different disability groups. The September 30 letter states that “almost every national disability organization agrees that the use of painful procedures to change a person’s behavior is unnecessary, inhumane, and should be banned.”
The center has also been the target of complaints and investigations by a number of state and out-of state agencies. Since the school was founded in 1971, the states of California and Rhode Island have withdrawn their students and passed forms of legislation banning aversive therapy in their own states. New Jersey has suspended any new referrals to the school.
“My hope is that these investigations will shed light on what is happening behind the walls of the JRC,” Joyce said.
Candace Hall can be reached at cahall@cnc.com
Copyright 2010 Stoughton Journal. Some rights reserved
/bump
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Here are some more ACTUAL comments (http://http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/03/09/shocking_truths/?comments=all#readerComm) on that Boston Globe Op-Ed Puddinpiece, from a former staff member, no less:
bostonluva wrote: 3/9/2010 4:28 PM EST
Interesting that Mr. Harmon glossed over the reason why JRC is being investigated for inhumane practices, that is, the minor and benign behaviors for which children are shocked. Whispering, rolling eyes, standing up, moaning, being involuntarily incontinent,stopping work for a brief period of time, to name a few. The list is long. Yes, Mr. Harmon that does need to be investigated. Be wary of people who look at this as a matter of black and white, you said so yourself. Well, there's the gray. And it needs to be addressed. The shocks ARE painful, and to an impaired individual, they can be terrifying. I've heard the shrieks, the screams and cries. To minimize the suffering serves no one's purpose but your own. There are LEGITIMATE concerns, and how dare you or anyone try to deny it. Sickening.
bostonluva wrote: 3/10/2010 3:10 PM EST
Despite what some might insist upon, JRC will not just be "left alone". Society cannot continue to turn a blind eye to the sick things that are going on in this hellhole forever. Parents obey the methods of Dr. Israel with cult-like loyalty. It's the purest form of desperation, and it has blinded parents to the reality of what is happening. The reality is, you can't expect to electrocute children for behaviors which pose no threat or danger to anyone and continue to get away with it forever. If a child has a shirt untucked, or an untidy appearance, or politely asks for a tissue, or vocalizes because he can't speak, or can't control bodily functions due to a disability, and on and on, the are electrocuted. If you see nothing wrong with this, that says more about your own state of mind than anyone else's. You don't own your children. They have rights whether you choose to acknowledge them or not.
finallythetruth wrote: 3/11/2010 1:04 PM EST
All the cynical people that are posting negative comments on this board need to sit back and realize that these parents are making the best decision for their child’s individual needs; not you, not me. They alone have to make these extremely difficult decisions. You can sit here and say what they should do, or what you think is best, but you are not the one struggling with a child that self mutilates or will harm your other children; or that is so aggressive you are scared to be alone with them. You will never know the difficulties they are faced with, or what they are going through. Yet you continue to make your personal assessment of what’s best for their children. You continue making your one sided judgments based on propaganda provided by people with a polarized agenda, or nonfactual articles that are biased and written by reporters that are told to spin the story to create a larger audience. This treatment is approved by the parents, a judge and is written in their Individual Education Plan. You keep commenting on an investigation that is being conducted, what are you going to do when the Federal government does not find any wrong doings. Will you move on, or will you continue to berate and belittle the parents and program that have done so much to improve the lives of these children and adults. What will happen, will you begin harassing some other group of parents, maybe a small business for something you felt was wrong, or against your own personal code of ethics. Until you have walked in their shoes, you should keep your comments to yourself. Being a parent is hard enough, adding negative comments or having people try to make you feel shameful for your parental decisions is down right disgusting.
I commend Larry Harmon and the Boston Globe for finally telling the truth. And I admire and praise all of the parents that are struggling with an autistic child that has behaviors severe enough to warrant this type of treatment. You are all wonderful parents that are doing what is best for your children; do not let any of these critics make you think otherwise.
bostonluva wrote: 3/11/2010 3:55 PM EST
"finally the truth" I am not basing my opinions on hearsay or articles I've read. I worked there! And I am involved with mentally ill people on a very personal level as well. Don't presume to know the first thting about me or my motivations. I took the job because I believed in doing anything possible to help these people stop injuring themselves, even if it meant physical aversives. I still belive in that. Whateve rit takes to keep these people as SAFE as possible, I am 110% FOR! If a person is hurting themselves or others and nothing else has worked, by all means, intervene in any way possible. But if you honestly think shocking a child for benign behaviors which pose no threat to anyone is keeping them safe, you're delusional. Period. ELECTRORCUTION FOR WHISPERING? Are you kidding me??!!! Get real! If you think this is going to be allowed to go on forever, you're dead wrong. It may not be this battle, or the next, but eventually this state will evolve and stop the MADNESS! Because that's exactly what it is.
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Thanks Ursus, they are a little more balanced than the ones from Maia who is getting paid for her opinion. (People on fornits dislike that). I think the discussions gains a little bit more credibility this way.
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And some more (http://http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/03/09/shocking_truths/?comments=all#readerComm) ...
Nancy21212 wrote: 3/10/2010 6:52 PM EST
PART ONE: The Judge Rotenberg Center likes to make the point that there are no other options for people with severe, dangerous behaviors, however not only are there people just like the people at the Judge Rotenberg Center who are being supported humanely and effectively all over the United States; there are people who were at the Judge Rotenberg Center who are doing wonderfully with positive behavior supports in community settings across the country. These are people who JRC warned would never make it outside of their center, people they said would need to be hooked to the shock devices for life, people who were moved in spite of the Judge Rotenberg Center's dire warnings that they would be violent and dangerous. As I said to Mr. Harmon in a lengthy conversation prior to his writing his column, logic tells us that the 193 people at JRC can't be the only people in the country with behaviors this severe. I'm sorry he didn't take me up on the contacts I provided him so he could learn how people with behaviors just as severe are supported successfully without resorting to painful methods.
The Judge Rotenberg Center would like visitors to believe that painful electric shocks are used only infrequently and only for the kinds of extreme behaviors Harmon lists in his article: eye gouging, head banging and the like – but a New York State report found students as young as nine years old subjected to sudden, painful, repeated electric shocks for such harmless behaviors as "refusing to follow staff directions", "failing to maintain a neat appearance", "stopping work for more than ten seconds", "getting out of seat". "interrupting others", "nagging", "swearing", "whispering" and "slouching in chair", and "moving conversation away from staff.." The Boston Globe itself reported on the testimony of former employees who spoke about a student who received as many as 350 shocks in one day, a figure the Globe reported was confirmed by the school. That Globe article reported a former employee to testify, “the shock is more painful than described by school officials. I got hit accidentally on my thumb and I had a tingling up to my elbow, on the inner part of my arm, I would say for four hours. I was saying I can't believe these kids can do this. My hand was shaking. I wanted to go home, that's how bad it was.”
The director of the Judge Rotenberg Center testified at a Massachusetts legislative hearing that one student received 5,300 electric shocks in one day. In his testimony, he stated that over a 24-hour period, this student, a teenager who weighed only 52 pounds, was strapped to a board and subjected to an average of one shock every 16 seconds. A 2007 New York Times article notes, "a former teacher from the school ...said he had seen children scream and writhe on the floor from the shock."
Nancy21212 wrote: 3/10/2010 6:52 PM EST
PART TWO: The Times article also speaks to how painful the shocks are, "Technically, the lowest shock given by Rotenberg is roughly twice what pain researchers have said is tolerable for most humans, said James Eason, a professor of biomedical engineering at Washington and Lee University". And, even more frightening, all of the statements above were made before JRC came out with its newest shock device – the GED-4 which, according to a 2006 Boston Globe article, "deliver(s) 45 milliampere shocks -- 4 1/2 times stronger than the standard shocks" According to that article, "Greg Miller, a former teacher's assistant for more than three years, said one boy with autism was shocked by the higher-powered device so often that he had 'burn scabs all over his torso, legs, and arms,' forcing nurses to remove the electrodes for weeks so that his skin could heal"
Just a bee sting, used only occasionally in the most extreme circumstances? Harmon may have bought this but the facts don't support it.
Harmon seems to think that these practices are OK because they are approved by parents and a probate judge. Let's be clear that the Judge Rotenberg Center is a lucrative business. On their 2008 IRS forms (the most recently ones publicly available) JRC reported $390,301 in compensation for their Director. The Center was so beholding to the Judge who approved all the aversive procedures for their students that when he died, they re-named their facility in his honor. The facility used to be called the Behavior Research Institute but advocates would ask, "where's the research?" Yes, the courts approve these practices, but one wonders how much they know about humane, effective alternatives.
And, in terms of parents approving the electric shock? Just ask parents like Evelyn Nicholson. In 2006, The Boston Globe reported that, "Evelyn Nicholson initially approved the shocks, but said she changed her mind as her son became more desperate, complaining that the shocks knocked him to the floor. Previously, she said, 'I was advised that the shock . . . felt like a small pinch,' and that the devices were rarely used." Nicholson, like numbers of parents, when they found out what was being done to their sons and daughters, told JRC that they did not have their permission to use painful procedures on their kids and were told that if permission for the shock was not given they could come and take their son or daughter home. Parents giving permission? Not with any element of the free will that the term 'permission' usually implies.
Harmon speaks of other schools – schools he was told kids like these might be at if not for the Judge Rotenberg Center; schools where these kinds of students would instead be subjected to mechanical restraints. That might make a reader think that the Judge Rotenberg Center doesn't use these restrictive techniques.
Nancy21212 wrote: 3/10/2010 6:53 PM EST
PART THREE: The New York State investigational report on JRC states, "With mechanical movement limitation the student is strapped into/onto some form of physical apparatus. For example, a four-point platform board designed specifically for this purpose; or a helmet with thick padding and narrow facial grid that reduces sensory stimuli to the ears and eyes. Another form of mechanical restraint occurs when the student is in a five-point restraint in a chair. Students may be restrained for extensive periods of time (e.g., hours or intermittently for days) when restraint is used as a punishing consequence. Many students are required to carry their own "restraint bag" in which the restraint straps are contained." The same report notes, "Some of these students were observed to be fully restrained in restraint chairs and wearing movement limiting helmets. One student left the school building in full restraint (hands and feet restrained with Velcro straps in a restraint chair), clearly agitated and upset, and returned the following morning carried to the conference room fully restrained in what appeared to be the same chair."
When I spoke to Mr. Harmon he seemed particularly swayed by the video called "Before and After" that almost every visitor sees. A 2007 Mother Jones article described the "before" footage shot in 1977, "An 11-year-old girl named Caroline arrives at the school strapped down onto a stretcher, her head encased in a helmet. In the next shot, free from restraints, she crouches down and tries to smash her helmeted head against the floor." The Mother Jones reporter goes on to say, "Considering how compelling the "After" footage is, I am surprised to learn that five of the six children featured in it are still here. 'This is Caroline,' one of my escorts says an hour or two later as we walk down a corridor. Without an introduction, I would not have known. Caroline, 39, slumps forward in a wheelchair, her fists balled up, head covered by a red helmet. 'Blow me a kiss, Caroline,' Israel says. She doesn't respond."
And here we have perhaps the most important point that Mr. Harmon missed. If these methods worked – if their inhumanity was justified by their success, you wouldn't have students still there after 33 years. You wouldn't need to continually develop devices that deliver a stronger and stronger shock or methods to spread the electrodes so the electrical current passes through more flesh for the purpose of assuring greater and greater amounts of pain. Positive behavioral approaches are proven to have more staying power; they give people tools that they can use for life and they help them to change dangerous behaviors in ways that value, enhance, and include people rather than through the use of methods that are coercive, controlling, and inhumane.
Nancy21212 wrote: 3/10/2010 6:55 PM EST
FINAL PART: While the "after" portion of the tape Mr. Harmon watched might have seemed compelling, did he ask why, if these methods worked, people are still there 33 years later, still hooked up to the devices that are touted as being so effective?
I'm sorry Harmon was taken in, as so many casual visitors before him have been. It's easy to spend a few hours and accept what you're being told at face value. It's easy when you're under deadline to buy into the belief that no alternatives exist. Mr. Harmon said he feels that the concerns of the 31 disability organizations that signed the letter that motivated the Department of Justice investigation seem "too pat." I hope it is clear that these organizations did not take lightly the decision to sign this letter. These groups represent the major, mainstream developmental disability organizations in the country including the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, The Arc of the United States, Easter Seals, United Cerebral Palsy and 27 others which together represent the most respected researchers in the country.
No one should be deluded into thinking that Mr. Harmon's visit to the Judge Rotenberg Center told the whole story. The Judge Rotenberg Center has a business to run; they are not going to tell a reporter that humane options exist, but the several hundred thousand professionals and advocates represented by the 31 disability organizations that called for the Department of Justice investigation, know full well that they do. And because they do, this treatment of our most vulnerable citizens should not be tolerated by a society that believes in the ethical treatment of all people.
Nancy Weiss
March, 2010
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Nancy Weiss:
No one should be deluded into thinking that Mr. Harmon's visit to the Judge Rotenberg Center told the whole story. The Judge Rotenberg Center has a business to run; they are not going to tell a reporter that humane options exist, but the several hundred thousand professionals and advocates represented by the 31 disability organizations that called for the Department of Justice investigation, know full well that they do. And because they do, this treatment of our most vulnerable citizens should not be tolerated by a society that believes in the ethical treatment of all people.
Well it is a business and should be open to any investigation if they stand behind what they do. I think the Department of Justice should complete an investigation and then decide. But I know too well that many people here on fornits make up their mind and it doesn’t matter what the outcome of the investigation is they will still be against kids getting help.
It’s a catch 22… parents are responsible for the kids until a certain age and if they ignore the fact that their kids need help then they could be liable and go to jail. If they decide to get their kids help then there are fringe groups like fornits which say the kids should be able to decide and be able to refuse help. But if the kids hurt someone or themselves then parents get sued…. Go figure.
Its like the no spank people who want you to raise “free range kids” but as soon as they grow up and start acting up then nospank people are nowhere to be found and then if they need the help of a program they say it’s due to bad parenting lol.
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Well it is a business and should be open to any investigation if they stand behind what they do. I think the Department of Justice should complete an investigation and then decide. But I know too well that many people here on fornits make up their mind and it doesn’t matter what the outcome of the investigation is they will still be against kids getting help.
I guess that's where I fundamentally disagree with not only you, but many others in that I don't think that any health care should be a "business", or at least one that depends on profit. And yes, I can accept that some of my views on "drug treatment" may not conform to what unfortunately has become mainstream (forced or coerced....it doesn't work anyway and is soooo likely to be abused and do damage while trying), but this.......this is simply horrifying. I think that's why I'm able to dismiss much of what you say. You've consistently present defenses for things that are simply indefensible. You, wayyy back, even said that what happened to kids in Straight was wrong and abusive, yet you're completely comfortable in dismissing things we (specifically Straight survivors) say or report as either anecdotal and (as long as it's not your anecdote) is dismissable in its entirety. You're completely comfortable in accepting these same practices that you have previously condemned as the "extreme examples" and "things we should learn from" as support for the end that justifies the means (with no proof of the "end"..no proof of efficacy allthwhile demanding from us proof of INefficacy...he still doesn't understand the concept of the onus of the burden of proof being on the one proclaiming success, not the negative).
To most, the practices that this place is using are barbaric. There is no excuse for what these people have done to these kids. Every time I think it can't get any worse, something new and repulsive comes along and somewhere, someone will argue for it. Which, again, brings us back to you and brings to mind the Lewis quote....
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." - Copy to Clipboard
-- C.S. Lewis
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Well it is a business and should be open to any investigation if they stand behind what they do. I think the Department of Justice should complete an investigation and then decide. But I know too well that many people here on fornits make up their mind and it doesn’t matter what the outcome of the investigation is they will still be against kids getting help.
I guess that's where I fundamentally disagree with not only you, but many others in that I don't think that any health care should be a "business", or at least one that depends on profit. And yes, I can accept that some of my views on "drug treatment" may not conform to what unfortunately has become mainstream (forced or coerced....it doesn't work anyway and is soooo likely to be abused and do damage while trying), but this.......this is simply horrifying. I think that's why I'm able to dismiss much of what you say. You've consistently present defenses for things that are simply indefensible. You, wayyy back, even said that what happened to kids in Straight was wrong and abusive, yet you're completely comfortable in dismissing things we (specifically Straight survivors) say or report as either anecdotal and (as long as it's not your anecdote) is dismissable in its entirety. You're completely comfortable in accepting these same practices that you have previously condemned as the "extreme examples" and "things we should learn from" as support for the end that justifies the means (with no proof of the "end"..no proof of efficacy allthwhile demanding from us proof of INefficacy...he still doesn't understand the concept of the onus of the burden of proof being on the one proclaiming success, not the negative).
To most, the practices that this place is using are barbaric. There is no excuse for what these people have done to these kids. Every time I think it can't get any worse, something new and repulsive comes along and somewhere, someone will argue for it. Which, again, brings us back to you and brings to mind the Lewis quote....
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." - Copy to Clipboard
-- C.S. Lewis
:shamrock: :shamrock:
Like I've always said when the messenger arrives it does not matter "who" if the message is true. This is a true message from someone who has been there and witnessed thereafter.
Whooter you have to at some point, see the horrific practices they are performing. It reminds me a lot of Arthur the lobotomy "king" who ran around the country years back, now they have condensed it in one place. Scary!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Danny
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:shamrock: :shamrock:
Like I've always said when the messenger arrives it does not matter "who" if the message is true. This is a true message from someone who has been there and witnessed thereafter.
Whooter you have to at some point, see the horrific practices they are performing. It reminds me a lot of Arthur the lobotomy "king" who ran around the country years back, now they have condensed it in one place. Scary!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Danny
If you paint a bad picture for the public to believe then yes it would seem scary and inhumane. My sister is terrified of shocks and feels the same way. Myself they are not so much a big deal. I got shocked all the time working on cars and such growing up.
I just see a child being helped.
Consider for a moment a child being held down and then restrained to a table and given high levels of radiation which is painful and frightening to the point of having to sedate the child. Then they lace a chemotherapy cocktail with sugar to trick the childs defense system into thinking it is good for the child so the little girl drinks it happily with a smile. Then shortly after her hair starts falling out we see this child becoming sad and vomiting. She is extremely ill and the cocktail is slowly killing all her healthy cells in her body. Her commonsense tells her not to drink the cocktail but she continues to do so because she trusts her parents and the doctor. She pleads with her parents to take her home and not subject her to this any more. The radiation was so strong that it actually triggered another cancer in her body. But her parents and doctor insist on continuing this path.
Does this sound humane to you? Why would they randomly take a child into a hospital and treat them this way? How could loving parents sit idle and watch and even become involved in this destruction and torture of their own child? Were these parents brainwashed? They must have felt some compassion for their child at some point in the little girls life, what changed?
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:shamrock: :shamrock:
Like I've always said when the messenger arrives it does not matter "who" if the message is true. This is a true message from someone who has been there and witnessed thereafter.
Whooter you have to at some point, see the horrific practices they are performing. It reminds me a lot of Arthur the lobotomy "king" who ran around the country years back, now they have condensed it in one place. Scary!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Danny
If you paint a bad picture for the public to believe then yes it would seem scary and inhumane. My sister is terrified of shocks and feels the same way. Myself they are not so much a big deal. I got shocked all the time working on cars and such growing up.
I just see a child being helped.
Consider for a moment a child being held down and then restrained to a table and given high levels of radiation which is painful and frightening to the point of having to sedate the child. Then they lace a chemotherapy cocktail with sugar to trick the childs defense system into thinking it is good for the child so the little girl drinks it happily with a smile. Then shortly after her hair starts falling out we see this child becoming sad and vomiting. She is extremely ill and the cocktail is slowly killing all her healthy cells in her body. Her commonsense tells her not to drink the cocktail but she continues to do so because she trusts her parents and the doctor. She pleads with her parents to take her home and not subject her to this any more. The radiation was so strong that it actually triggered another cancer in her body. But her parents and doctor insist on continuing this path.
Does this sound humane to you? Why would they randomly take a child into a hospital and treat them this way? How could loving parents sit idle and watch and even become involved in this destruction and torture of their own child? Were these parents brainwashed? They must have felt some compassion for their child at some point in the little girls life, what changed?
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:notworthy: :trophy:
today's twisted analogy award goes to Whooter
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:shamrock: :shamrock:
Like I've always said when the messenger arrives it does not matter "who" if the message is true. This is a true message from someone who has been there and witnessed thereafter.
Whooter you have to at some point, see the horrific practices they are performing. It reminds me a lot of Arthur the lobotomy "king" who ran around the country years back, now they have condensed it in one place. Scary!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Danny
If you paint a bad picture for the public to believe then yes it would seem scary and inhumane. My sister is terrified of shocks and feels the same way. Myself they are not so much a big deal. I got shocked all the time working on cars and such growing up.
I just see a child being helped.
Consider for a moment a child being held down and then restrained to a table and given high levels of radiation which is painful and frightening to the point of having to sedate the child. Then they lace a chemotherapy cocktail with sugar to trick the childs defense system into thinking it is good for the child so the little girl drinks it happily with a smile. Then shortly after her hair starts falling out we see this child becoming sad and vomiting. She is extremely ill and the cocktail is slowly killing all her healthy cells in her body. Her commonsense tells her not to drink the cocktail but she continues to do so because she trusts her parents and the doctor. She pleads with her parents to take her home and not subject her to this any more. The radiation was so strong that it actually triggered another cancer in her body. But her parents and doctor insist on continuing this path.
Does this sound humane to you? Why would they randomly take a child into a hospital and treat them this way? How could loving parents sit idle and watch and even become involved in this destruction and torture of their own child? Were these parents brainwashed? They must have felt some compassion for their child at some point in the little girls life, what changed?
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:shamrock: :shamrock:
I understand there are children with conditions that you wonder why would god even bring them into this world. I have seen them, lived with them and were medicated with them at one time in my life, Bi-Polar, Schizophrenia, Autism, psychotic people who had raped, molested, killed, violence so inhuman I still have scars. I don't profess to be educated in any of this except through life experience. I chose to let it go a long time ago, it was driving me crazy.
I found this site and I''ll tell you the nightmares have returned and my level of hyper-tension is off the charts at times but I am not going anywhere this time, I will see this through.
Whooter what we are talking about here are abuses not humane treatment. Not all the staff are professional compassionate caregivers, for so many reasons. Overworked, uneducated, lack of patience, lack of empathy, mental and emotional problems themselves and the biggest underpaid and all the problems that brings. Big Pharma and Ins. Corps using the entity as a "proving ground" for medication and practices of treatment, please don't say this doesn't happen.
Whooter, I am talking about abuse. Not treatment that is unbearable to watch like most operations which entail cutting ones body open, yes like a autopsy.....no I am talking about abuse, when someone loses sight of there objective to help another human and because of various reasons chooses to harm them. Whether they or others know it.
Danny
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:shamrock: :shamrock:
I understand there are children with conditions that you wonder why would god even bring them into this world. I have seen them, lived with them and were medicated with them at one time in my life, Bi-Polar, Schizophrenia, Autism, psychotic people who had raped, molested, killed, violence so inhuman I still have scars. I don't profess to be educated in any of this except through life experience. I chose to let it go a long time ago, it was driving me crazy.
I found this site and I''ll tell you the nightmares have returned and my level of hyper-tension is off the charts at times but I am not going anywhere this time, I will see this through.
Whooter what we are talking about here are abuses not humane treatment. Not all the staff are professional compassionate caregivers, for so many reasons. Overworked, uneducated, lack of patience, lack of empathy, mental and emotional problems themselves and the biggest underpaid and all the problems that brings. Big Pharma and Ins. Corps using the entity as a "proving ground" for medication and practices of treatment, please don't say this doesn't happen.
Whooter, I am talking about abuse. Not treatment that is unbearable to watch like most operations which entail cutting ones body open, yes like a autopsy.....no I am not talking about abuse, when someone loses sight of there objective to help another human and because of various reasons chooses to harm them. Whether they or others know it.
Danny
I am right with you, Danny, on this. If one of these people ever harmed a child and shocked them for fun then I would be the first one to drag the guy out into the street and taser him until he drooled and started speaking Latin.
But I don't I agree with you that people here are concerned solely about the abuses. They are against the therapy itself, not just the people performing it. That’s why I made the analogy I did because many here on fornits don’t consider the whole picture when forming an opinion rather they focus on a snap shot in time… like a child being strapped down and given Chemo and radiation and then watching their hair fall out and vomit everywhere. This would infuriate them if they didn’t know that the chemo-therapy will eventually help the child. They don’t consider the bigger picture. All they see is a child being shocked… nothing else.
At this point they take it to another level and determine that the people giving the shock therapy are also evil lol. They must be evil if the therapy is evil… do you see what I mean? So all these caring people are considered monsters by some fringe groups who keep themselves isolated from information which would allow them to make a more informed opinion.
I am not totally sold on this shock treatment but I am able to see a larger picture than most. I know that the people who work there care for these kids and I know that these kids have an extremely low quality of life as they enter this place and their parents have given up their own lives practically to helping their children attain more than they have today. There is no evil there that I can see.
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I am right with you, Danny, on this. If one of these people ever harmed a child and shocked them for fun then I would be the first one to drag the guy out into the street and taser him until he drooled and started speaking Latin.
Ooooo, such big talk from such a small man.
They are against the therapy itself, not just the people performing it.
Wrong, now stop putting words in other peoples mouths. You do it constantly and it's extremely disingenuous. We're against unproven, quack "therapy" provided by pseudo-counselors. We're against forced "therapy" because you can't really have any meaningful help or therapy without trust and forced therapy breeds complete distrust.
That’s why I made the analogy I did because many here on fornits don’t consider the whole picture when forming an opinion rather they focus on a snap shot in time… like a child being strapped down and given Chemo and radiation and then watching their hair fall out and vomit everywhere. This would infuriate them if they didn’t know that the chemo-therapy will eventually help the child. They don’t consider the bigger picture. All they see is a child being shocked… nothing else.
Big difference. The treatment that the cancer afflicted child receives is not in any way depended on their behavior, which would be a subjective call at best.
At this point they take it to another level and determine that the people giving the shock therapy are also evil lol. They must be evil if the therapy is evil… do you see what I mean? So all these caring people are considered monsters by some fringe groups who keep themselves isolated from information which would allow them to make a more informed opinion.
When the kids are wearing shock packs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and it's used as behavior or thought control it IS evil.
I am not totally sold on this shock treatment but I am able to see a larger picture than most. I know that the people who work there care for these kids
How do you know this??
and I know that these kids have an extremely low quality of life as they enter this place and their parents have given up their own lives practically to helping their children attain more than they have today. There is no evil there that I can see.
Why am I not surprised.
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Big difference. The treatment that the cancer afflicted child receives is not in any way depended on their behavior, which would be a subjective call at best.
? Hmmm.. still therapy whether their behavior is good or not.. still forced... shouldn't the child have a say whether or not she needs therapy?
Wrong, now stop putting words in other peoples mouths. You do it constantly and it's extremely disingenuous. We're against unproven, quack "therapy" provided by pseudo-counselors. We're against forced "therapy" because you can't really have any meaningful help or therapy without trust and forced therapy breeds complete distrust.
That’s my point and the major difference between us on this. You would allow a little girl to walk away from chemotherapy because she decided against it. You would just allow this poor girl to die.
“Doctor my 6 year old daughter doesn’t want Chemotherapy and we don’t believe in forced therapy so we have to go along with her wishes. If she doesn’t trust the therapy then it will not work.”
Shows me where there are pseudo-counselors or that it is quack therapy. If one of the people who administered the Chemotherapy made the little girl drink more than she needed because he wasn’t trained properly would you want to discontinue this therapy and call them pseudo-counselors or pseudo therapy admins. Don’t you see that you don’t think anything through and are unable to see how this is helping the children in the end. You are like a little sheep that follows all the others because someone said it is evil.
Why not think for yourself. Why would you believe that these people wake up in the morning intent on hurting little kids and getting enjoyment from it? Why would these parents enjoy watching their own children getting abused and shocked? What would be the purpose? Are you going to fall back on the whole brainwashing theory? Why would all these doctors spend their entire lives trying to torture children just for the fun of it? Why would parents not pull their kids out if it were ineffective? Why would other parents lie to them about their children improving? Why would this place still be open after being under a spot light for so long?
Backpacks that shock you vs. Chemotherapy… hmmmm which is worse? Chemotherapy may not even be effective, there is a chance that it will make you worse or shorten your life..... hmmmm... but backpacks that shock you are so inhumane, lets not learn any more about it, lets close our minds and pick up some picket signs and join the crowd.
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Article Link (http://http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2008/01/12/skin_shock_therapy_gave_our_son_back_his_life/)
Some more dialog on the subject that I found:
WHEN recent news stories detailed how two students were inappropriately given skin shocks at the Judge Rotenberg Education Center in Canton, my husband and I cringed in anticipation of the well-meaning question, "Do you think your son is OK at that place?"
Against the backdrop of headlines and news accounts that conjure up the mistaken images of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and electroconvulsive therapy, this is difficult to explain to people who cannot understand how even a mild skin shock therapy is more humane than what many of these kids are subjected to in psychiatric hospitals and other specialized schools.
.....the story of hundreds of families who've found their way to the center after painful journeys bouncing from psychiatric wards to specialized schools and even protective custody (jail) with their children, who may be severely disabled, self-abusive, or physically aggressive. Their obvious suffering, and the suffering of their parents, is unimaginable.
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Many people say there are better options:
But when these "better options" don't work, where is the outrage about the years of noneffective treatment given those children who are so self-abusive that they have actually detached their own retinas from pounding their fists into their eyes, or those whose heads are misshapen from banging them repeatedly against walls and floors?
Where is the public outrage over how many children and young adults in Massachusetts spend their days in prolonged restraint or are so disabled from excessive psychotropic drugs they can barely stay awake?
It has been demonstrated that skin shock therapy, added to a positive reward program, breaks the cycle of aggressive and self-abusive behavior. The students then begin to participate in academics, receive vocational training, live in community group homes, and are able to be part of their family again.
Unless and until a more effective therapy becomes available, skin shock therapy has proven to be the most effective alternative to physical and chemical restraints that have left so many of these children imprisoned in their own world. It is the least restrictive and most effective therapy for this small group of very difficult individuals, such as our son, and must continue to be an option.
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That’s my point and the major difference between us on this. You would allow a little girl to walk away from chemotherapy because she decided against it. You would just allow this poor girl to die. “Doctor my 6 year old daughter doesn’t want Chemotherapy and we don’t believe in forced therapy so we have to go along with her wishes. If she doesn’t trust the therapy then it will not work.”
Stop thinking you have any fucking clue how I think, feel or would act. You have no idea.
Shows me where there are pseudo-counselors or that it is quack therapy.
It's never been proven to be effective. The burden of proof lies with those claiming the positive, not the negative...although there is plenty of evidence of the negative out there.
You are like a little sheep that follows all the others because someone said it is evil.
You're desperately trying to justify what you've done to your children.
Why not think for yourself. Why would you believe that these people wake up in the morning intent on hurting little kids and getting enjoyment from it? Why would these parents enjoy watching their own children getting abused and shocked? What would be the purpose? Are you going to fall back on the whole brainwashing theory? Why would all these doctors spend their entire lives trying to torture children just for the fun of it? Why would parents not pull their kids out if it were ineffective? Why would other parents lie to them about their children improving? Why would this place still be open after being under a spot light for so long?
For the same reasons that places like Willowbrook were allowed to exist.
Backpacks that shock you vs. Chemotherapy… hmmmm which is worse? Chemotherapy may not even be effective, there is a chance that it will make you worse or shorten your life..... hmmmm... but backpacks that shock you are so inhumane, lets not learn any more about it, lets close our minds and pick up some picket signs and join the crowd.
Big difference. Shocking kids into behaving is a long way from providing actual medicine to a child. But you already knew that.
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Stop thinking you have any fucking clue how I think, feel or would act. You have no idea.
Your words not mine. I am not doing the thinking for you, you are.
It's never been proven to be effective. The burden of proof lies with those claiming the positive, not the negative...although there is plenty of evidence of the negative out there.
Of course the burden of proof lies with those making the claim. But you claimed they had pseudo-counselors and that it is quack therapy. You never backed up this with an outside source.
For the same reasons that places like Willowbrook were allowed to exist.
Hmmmm, Willowbrook… so you never answered one question. Just so you are aware. You threw out a random name. Whats up with that? Are their people working there that worked at willowbrook? Do they have the same policies? Do you wake up wanting to hurt children? Why are you different? How can you tell the difference? What is the connection to Willowbrook. They are more connected to Harvard then Willowbrook from what I have read.
I asked: Why not think for yourself. Why would you believe that these people wake up in the morning intent on hurting little kids and getting enjoyment from it? Why would these parents enjoy watching their own children getting abused and shocked? What would be the purpose? Are you going to fall back on the whole brainwashing theory? Why would all these doctors spend their entire lives trying to torture children just for the fun of it? Why would parents not pull their kids out if it were ineffective? Why would other parents lie to them about their children improving? Why would this place still be open after being under a spot light for so long?
Big difference. Shocking kids into behaving is a long way from providing actual medicine to a child. But you already knew that.
Big difference, okay. But how? Why don’t you explain what you think? How is it a long way? If the backpacks were on only for 4 hours a day would that be better? Why does 24/7 bother you vs a few hours? Is it the pain that bothers you? If you found out that the kids quality of life was improved would that be better? If they lowered the amperage would that change your mind? Do you have an opinion at all besides what others think,Anne?
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Let's give Manne Conney the benefit of the doubt, I'm sure he spends his weekends volunteering at facilities where retarded kids are held. Oh wait, nope! They spend their weekend here on fornits, arguing with random people to tell them about the beaches fun and sun and good life!!
Whooter is great because he doesn't troll with bullshit and lies, all Whooter does is post common sense, rational views and gets pounced on for it. Manne, Ursus and Psy (the trinity of cultists.. the only ones left who post) offer no solutions, they just find any example of what they deem evil, and they sit on their high horse being judgmental and then offering no real world solutions as alternatives. Home therapy! Peaches and Ice Cream! Just be nice to the kid! When Manne, Ursus and Psy join forces and start a facility to take care of retarded or troubled kids maybe they can be judgmental then and not look like such hypocritical assholes. Long live Whooter and his rational argument!
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The fact that you are calling the kids retards and praising the whooter in the same post isn't exactly helping the whooter's case.
Just pointing that out to you is all.
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The fact that you are calling the kids retards and praising the whooter in the same post isn't exactly helping the whooter's case.
Just pointing that out to you is all.
who trully gives a hit, not like any of you einstiens are going to end this any time soo. just look at some of you...excellent examples of spokespeople. You all are here for on thing..ATTENTION WHORING. :beat: :beat: :beat:
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And some more (http://http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/03/09/shocking_truths/?comments=all#readerComm) from Nancy Weiss...
Nancy21212 wrote: 3/12/2010 8:18 AM EST
PART ONE:
Everything JRC puts forth in defense of its unorthodox behavioral techniques hinges on the argument that sold Globe columnist Lawrence Harmon – these are children who have severe developmental disabilities and life threatening behaviors who (in their view), without electric shock, would be (as Harmon lists) eye gouging, mutilating their genitals, and banging their heads. Positive behavior supports are effective for people with behaviors this severe but one wonders if the population JRC talks so much about and parades out in its PR campaigns even represents the population that is really there today.
JRCs census has fallen dramatically in recent years. When states stopped being willing to send kids with autism to JRC (or when some states stopped sending kids at all) JRC clearly shifted its focus. Many of the people there now (and for the past number of years) are not kids with severe autism or other developmental disabilities but the other group that can push the limits of families, professionals and systems -- tough, oppositional street kids that had gotten in trouble multiple times and that schools were anxious to see go elsewhere.
Even if you can be sold on the trade-off of shocking kids with severe life threatening behaviors, how do you make a case for shocking the kind of kids they have there now? Kids who get shocked for talking back, failing to maintain a neat appearance, interrupting others, nagging, swearing and making unauthorized phone calls. One clear indication of the population JRC is now marketing to is the professional conferences at which it exhibits. Recently, these have included the American Probation and Parole Association and the Virginia Juvenile Justice Association. Of JRC's current population, how many are the kind of kids with severe disabilities that are the only ones anyone ever sees or talks about? This would be an interesting issue for a reporter to explore.
There are three documents on JRC's website – you can search for them by clicking the search button across the banner at the top and searching for 'prior place' (they are not designed to be able to provide a link). They are called: Exhibits 1, 2, and 3 priorplace.html. They list, by initials, which facilities people at JRC had been in prior to coming to JRC. Almost none of these places are facilities for people with developmental disabilities. This is not to say that a child with a significant developmental disability might not have ended up at a treatment center that usually focuses on kids with psychiatric problems or on kids in the juvenile justice system, but it would be very unusual for a child like this not to have at least started at facilities for children with developmental disabilities.
Nancy21212 wrote: 3/12/2010 8:19 AM EST
PART TWO:
Someone familiar with the treatment of kids with varying disabilities could make a good guess about how many of the residents listed represent JRC's "old population" and how many are more likely tough kids who proved too much for their families and schools to handle. If an argument could be made that "surely this is better than letting a child gauge his eyes out or eat feces or bang his head against the wall" – it just doesn't hold water when you're working with kids whose biggest issue may be that they come from families that didn't have the skills or support to help their kids grow up with controls.
Because as a society we (like every other industrialized nation in the world) are clear that we would not allow painful electric shock to be used even against hardened criminals or political prisoners, JRC would have a much harder time defending the use of these practices against kids who are simply troubled.
-- Nancy Weiss
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Nancy Weiss wrote
…..Of JRC's current population, how many are the kind of kids with severe disabilities that are the only ones anyone ever sees or talks about? This would be an interesting issue for a reporter to explore.
It would be interesting to see how the population has changed over time. I think the current practice of having a judge review each case prior to authorizing shock treatment and having advocacy people and a psychiatrist sign off on the treatment helps eliminate the shock treatment from just being administered at will on anyone.
Most of the people at the center do not receive electric shock therapy and of the ones that do the average person receives one shock per week which lasts 2 seconds. So I think there is some misinformation going around that needs to be cleared up or at the very least some discrepancies.
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. You all are here for on thing..ATTENTION WHORING. :beat: :beat: :beat:
and you know all about that..........