Susan Senator

Yesterday was the hearing at the State House for the use of aversives in the State of Massachusetts. I could not attend, because of appointments, but The Globe has a front page story about it, with a photo of my very own State Rep. Jeff Sanchez hugging his nephew, who is a Judge Rotenberg Center student, claiming that the JRC saved the boy’s life. The boy’s father reportedly pleaded that if the school is closed, his son goes home and he cannot do that.

I find myself completely stymied by that testimony. I am looking into residential placement for Nat at a behavioral school, but one where they use positive reinforcement, not electric shock therapy. Is that because I have found the right place, the right people, and my State Rep’s family have not? Or is it that the Sanchez’ situation is just so different from mine, that I have no idea? But don’t I? What about my friends, who had had the police to their house several times because they could not handle an aggressive autistic child? Do I know how difficult life can get with the behaviors that can arise with the challenges from severe autism? Or do I not know? I am asking honestly. I hear stories about the most minor infractions that end with a shock, and that these are justified because if you give in an inch the kid will not understand and will take a mile? The article gives as an example a girl who repeatedly pulls her own hair, and how she receives a shock to her hand even if her hand is just “close” to her head. Sometimes a so-called “antecedent” is actually something else. Isn’t anyone concerned about the error that people can make when observing other people’s behaviors? What if the girl had a dry, itchy scalp from the winter weather? Is the staff savvy enough to tell a pull from a scratch?

How can that be the way to do things? By using shock therapy you instill terror in the person; is this what we are reduced to, as a society? Difficulty = simple solution of violence? Ends justify means?

I am also angered by the assumption The Globe makes implicitly about how this shock therapy is somehow preferable to the use of psychotropic medication. Actually, the psychotropic drug Risperdal has had some very good research backing up its uses as a buffer against aggressive behavior, and its major side effect is weight gain, rather than burns or psychological trauma. Why is there so much skepticism about medication use, but not nearly as much skepticism on the part of my Legislature and The Globe about something as patently horrific as electric shock for even the most minor of infractions?

In terms of the incident where two students were shocked and shocked repeatedly, dozens of times, as the result of a prank, the founder of the school Dr. Matthew Israel says in the Globe article that this was his, “9/11.” How terrible for him. What, then, was it like for those burned boys?

I am so sad about this. Why my state Legislature cannot find their ass from their elbow, and ban the use of aversives is beyond me. Some things should not be tolerated. Dr. Israel is wrong and shock therapy should be banned.