N.Y. report denounces school which punishes troubled and disabled students with electric shocks

Students can be shocked for behaviors including 'failure to maintain a neat appearance', 'stopping work for more than 10 seconds', 'interrupting others', 'nagging', 'whispering and/or moving conversation away from staff', 'slouch in chair' ''From the report:

Many of the students observed at JRC were not exhibiting self-abusive/mutilating behaviors, and their IEPs had no indication that these behaviors existed. However, they were still subject to Level III aversive interventions, including use of the GED device. The review of NYS students' records revealed that Level III interventions are used for behaviors including 'refuse to follow staff directions', 'failure to maintain a neat appearance', 'stopping work for more than 10 seconds', 'interrupting others', 'nagging', 'whispering and/or moving conversation away from staff', 'slouch in chair', as well as more intensive behaviors such as physical aggression toward others, property destruction and attempts to hurt/injure self. ...

It was reported by a JRC staff member that one of the behavioral rehearsal lesson (BRL) episodes involved holding a student's face still while staff person went for his mouth with a pen or pencil threatening to stab him in the mouth while repeatedly yelling 'YOU WANT TO EAT THIS?' The goal was to aversively treat the student's target behavior of putting sharp objects in the mouth. ...

One student stated she felt depressed and fearful, stating very coherently her desire to leave the center. She is not permitted to initiate conversation with any member of the staff. She also expressed that she had no one to talk to about her feelings of depression and her desire to kill herself and told the interviewing team that she thought about killing herself everyday. Her greatest fear was that she would remain at JRC beyond her 21st birthday. ...

A student interviewed stated that she had entered JRC at the age of 19 with the expectation that she would receive vocational training while she resolved her emotional and behavioral problems. She had not received any vocational training and still remained in the most restrictive settings offered by JRC. This student wept as she asked the team to bring her back to New York.

New York education officials issued a scathing report yesterday on a Massachusetts school that punishes troubled and disabled students with electric shocks, finding that they can be shocked for simply nagging the teacher and that some are forced to wear shock devices in the bathtub or shower, posing an electrocution hazard. The report, based in part on an inspection last month of the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center in Canton, portrayed a school in which most staff lack training to handle the students and seem more focused on punishing bad behavior than encouraging good acts. The investigators said some forms of discipline, such as a device that delivers shocks at timed intervals, appear to violate federal safety regulations, and students live in an atmosphere of ``pervasive fears and anxieties."

* Read the report on the Rotenberg Center (.pdf)

The report, denounced by Rotenberg officials as biased, is expected to play a key role next Monday when education regulators in New York are scheduled to vote on whether to severely restrict the use of painful punishment on students from New York.