{"id":693,"date":"2007-12-17T18:40:00","date_gmt":"2007-12-17T18:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog2\/2007\/12\/somethings-roten-in-the-state-of-massachusetts\/"},"modified":"2007-12-17T18:40:00","modified_gmt":"2007-12-17T18:40:00","slug":"somethings-roten-in-the-state-of-massachusetts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/2007\/12\/somethings-roten-in-the-state-of-massachusetts\/","title":{"rendered":"Something’s Roten in the State of Massachusetts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Please tell me how it is that Massachusetts, on of the most cutting-edge states in terms of educational progress, can still allow a place like the Judge Rotenberg Center to exist? What is the justification for a school that uses electroshock therapy as well as food deprivation and other forms of punishment, in this day and age? The Boston Globe<\/span> thinks they know<\/a>. But the Boston Globe <\/span>has often gotten things wrong when they tried to take on Special Education. I am remembering, of course, former Globe reporter Kate Zernike’s horrible attack on Special Education several years back, which coincided with the State House gutting Chapter 766, the Massachusetts Special Education Law.<\/p>\n

This time, the justification for severity, i.e., aversive therapy, is the children themselves. For they have autism, MR, ADD. Ah, so that is supposed to explain it for us all. We’ve seen the Autism Speaks film<\/a>, after all. We’ve seen the Ransom Notes<\/a>. We’ve watched St. Elsewhere<\/span><\/a>, and seen the Wild Child depicted again and again. And, well, the parents and the schools who referred the children to the Judge Rotenberg Center just could not handle the kids. So they get placed in a school that uses electric shock to the skin and other forms of painful punishment, in order to “treat” their challenging behaviors.<\/p>\n

Newsflash to the Globe<\/span> and the JRC: if a child is gouging at his own eyes, biting himself, banging his head, as some of these JRC students were reported as doing, there is a reason<\/span> for their behavior. This is a person, first and foremost, so you can be sure that people do not hurt and scream for no reason. But — a person who cannot communicate in the typical manners, a person with over-the-top sensory issues, a person who might have chronic stomach pain from an intestinal disorder that was undiagnosed because the person has autism — those people might have to scream to relieve their frustration and make their own pain stop. The specialists should be doing everything they can to find out why they are doing what they are doing, just as we do with cholicky babies. We don’t hurt them or even let them cry for long. We all know that physical punishment is wrong, inhumane, and does not even work. And yet, many autism specialists throw up their hands and say, “use behavioral methods,” or “Do what works.” Is the behavior something that calls for behavioral strategies, or is it something else? And is there ever a justification for aversive therapy? I cannot imagine there would be.<\/p>\n

There is no justification. There is always<\/span> a way to connect and help. Teachers have to stop and regroup. They have to keep going in and trying. They have to Do No Harm. That slogan doesn’t change just because one is autistic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Please tell me how it is that Massachusetts, on of the most cutting-edge states in terms of educational progress, can still allow a place like the Judge Rotenberg Center to exist? What is the justification for a school that uses electroshock therapy as well as food deprivation and other forms of punishment, in this day […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pSTth-bb","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}