It’s a question of restraint for teachers of autistic kids

Parents, others upset by use of excess force
By Barbara O’Brien NEWS STAFF REPORTER
Updated: 08/03/08 10:15 AM

Robert Kirkham/Buffalo News
Tim Miller, in a speech to his ninth grade classmates, said: “Here we are with hope in our hearts, we have made it through the good and bad times.”
ALLEGANY — Tim Miller has a lot of “what ifs” running through his head.

What if he had never been held facedown by teachers when he was in sixth grade?

What if he had had more friends? What if he had never had autism?

As the number of autistic kids in schools grows, there are signs that teachers and administrators are having difficulty controlling them and addressing their special needs.

That can lead to conflict, and in some cases, to federal court. That’s where Carole and John Miller turned after not getting satisfaction through the state’s special education hearing process.

Their son Tim, a student at Allegany- Limestone Central High School, remembers being restrained facedown when he was 12. There is evidence he was restrained more than 10 times over a four-month period in 2005.

“I thought maybe they were taking his wrist. I didn’t like the idea, but I figured, they know better, they’re the instructors, the teachers,” Carole Miller said. “I asked him what happened when he got home from school, and he would always just say, ‘They’re trying to kill me.’ I thought he was overreacting.”

Dealing with troublesome children leaves some teachers with their own questions:

How much physical force can be used in restraining an unruly child?

How much time and attention should be given to the special-needs child without neglecting others?

Are there better ways to control a frustrated child who has special needs?

Brenda Shepard, a parent advocate who learned to navigate the system while helping her own autistic son, said if children aren’t given the services they need, they can become behavior problems.

“Ninety-nine percent of the mistakes made with my autistic son was [that] the people working with my son were so unfamiliar with the disability and they would trigger an outburst,” she said.

In Tim Miller’s case, it’s important to get a federal court ruling, his parents say, because last September a staff member threw him to the ground three times when he tried to go into the principal’s office.

Allegany-Limestone school officials would not comment for this story.

“We take the privacy of our children very seriously,” said Superintendent Diane Munro. “In the interest of a child’s privacy rights, and in line with the fact this is a matter that is in litigation, I am unable to contribute.”

Tim, 15, is one of about 40 children in Cattaraugus County classified as autistic. The number has been increasing in recent years not just in Western New York but across the country.

In Erie County, the number of children with autism jumped 63 percent between 2003 and 2006. In New York State, the number went up 46 percent over the same time.

John Miller, a podiatrist, and Carole Miller, a pharmacist with multiple sclerosis, were angry when they learned their son had been held down, sometimes with one teacher lying ov er his back while another held his legs. They were outraged when they learned that children in institutional settings around the country have died from asphyxiation after being restrained in similar ways.

“I never dreamed, never dreamed, never in my wildest dream — nightmare — could I think that they could do that to him,” said John Miller. “To this day, we do not know how many times he was restrained during that period of time.”

The teachers’ logs he obtained tell a story of a disruptive 12-year-old and adults’ efforts to control him. His parents don’t dispute that Tim sometimes can be disruptive and difficult, but they say there are techniques that will prevent meltdowns. Other actions — like touching him and holding him down — often trigger them.

The issue of restraints is a touchy one, particularly for schools that must protect the student, sometimes from himself, as well as from other children and staff members.

“When it comes to restraining, the teachers are between a rock and a hard place,” said Philip Rumore, president of the Buffalo Teachers Federation.

Buffalo teachers deal with 9,400 students with disabilities, or about 19 percent of the student population.

“We’ve always advised teachers if you don’t have to, don’t — only if its an emergency. It’s just too easy for a child to get hurt,” Rumore said.

Great strides have been made in recent years in identifying children with autism, which helps them to get treatment earlier, said Lynda Quick, assistant superintendent of Cattaraugus-Allegany BOCES.

“How to treat these children is more understood now,” she said, adding that restraints are a last resort. “But they are indeed sometimes necessary for professionals trained in how to do proper restraints.”

Margaret Jones-Carey, associate superintendent for Erie 1 BOCES, said training on how to administer restraints includes preventive measures and techniques on defusing a situation before the restraint becomes necessary to protect the student, other children, staff or property.

But there are better ways to deal with people, said Veronica Federiconi, executive director of Autistic Services.

“The use of restraints doesn’t really teach people anything, except to be afraid or to run away from people who practice it,” she said. “It doesn’t teach them the correct way of dealing with life.”

Still, restraints are allowed under New York State law.

“Restraints are an emergency practice,” said Patricia Geary, coordinator of special-education policy for the state Education Department. “They should never be a routine.”

Tim has Asperger’s syndrome, which is a form of autism. It’s marked by the same social challenges as autism — such as difficulty in reading body language — without the language or cognitive delays.

Ninth grade agreed with Tim for the most part. He was mainstreamed into regular classrooms and passed all his classes in June. He even spoke at an assembly held to motivate students to be more compassionate in dealing with others.

He apologized for getting agitated in front of his fellow students and invited them to a party at his house.

“It doesn’t matter if someone is popular or not, or being the smartest student in class, or is amazing at sports or electronics, but the only thing that does matter is to try hard and be nice,” he told his classmates.

While he hopes his arrival in heaven is many years away, he’s looking forward to it because his mother and others have told him all things are possible in heaven.

“I would definitely have a lot more friends,” Tim said. “I don’t know if it’s possible, I don’t know if it’s like this forever if you’re in heaven, but, you know what would be an amazing, incredible what if? What if I never had autism?”

bobrien@buffnews.com

Special Education Struggles In School

By: Alysha Palumba (WIBV)
July 30, 2008 05:08 PM EDT
Updated: July 30, 2008 06:45 PM EDT
Video On Demand

Special education struggles in school
BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) - - Young people dealing with Autism or Asperger Syndrome often face an uphill battle in the classroom. One family's struggle with schooling and takes a look at how schools handle the challenge of teaching these special students.

When Tim Miller started coming home from school in sixth grade telling his parents horror stories, they didn't know what to think.

John Miller, Tim's Father, said, "Our son was coming home and telling us the school was trying to kill him - with his communication deficits at the time he didn't know how to say he was being restrained."

John Miller says his son, who has Asperger Syndrome or a higher functioning form of autism, was being put in prone restraints when he acted out in class. Although he admits Tim, then 12, had behavioral issues, he believes the school went too far.

Tim Miller, teen with Asperger Syndrome, said, "I remember they just grabbed me and put me into the room or whatever and I remember they had the mat and just threw me to the ground."

John Miller, Tim's Father, said, "Every time they restrained my son, they were stepping outside of their training."

Summit Educational Resources CEO Dr. Stephen Anderson says in general restraints are a last resort.

Dr. Stephen Anderson, Summit Educational Resources CEO, said, "Restraint is the emergency procedure, it's the back up, it's the thing you may have to do if all else fails and there's a risk to the individual or others."

But the Millers say the restraints were just part of their problem with the Allegany-Limestone Central School District.

John Miller, Tim's Father, said, "Crucial in this whole thing are the denied services. Allegany-Limestone Central Schools I believe intentionally mis-classified my son for six years."

Miller says if Tim had been classified as autistic when he was diagnosed, he would have received the social, behavioral, and educational services he needs.

But Dr. Anderson says that may not be the case in public schools.

Dr. Stephen Anderson, Summit Educational Resources CEO, said, "If a kid is achieving academically, I'm not sure what their responsibility is after that, we'd all like them to embrace and do more, but their resources are limited as well."

He says it's a difficult balance for schools to meet the needs of children with autism or Asperger Syndrome while not disrupting the education of other children.

Dr. Stephen Anderson, Summit Educational Resources CEO, said, "I don't think school districts have ever seen this with the frequency that they're starting to see it now because they're keeping kids with more challenging behaviors within the context."

Both the Allegany-Limestone Superintendent and the school's attorney would not comment because of privacy issues and because Tim Miller's case is currently in litigation.

An impartial hearing on the matter was overturned, and it is now headed to federal court.

Story by Alysha Palumbo (WIVB)
http://www.wivb.com/Global/story.asp?S=8762395

Charges against teacher tossed

Fulton judge says defendant accused of hitting two pupils didn't intend to harm them.
Friday, July 25, 2008
By Kathy Coffta Sims
Staff writer

A Fulton City Court judge has dismissed the charges against a special education teacher who was accused of striking two developmentally disabled students in May 2007.

Judge Spencer Ludington said in court Wednesday that he did not think Gracia Thompson, 45, of 56 W. Third St., Fulton, intended to harm thestudents.

Thompson was facing two counts of endangering the welfare of a child, stemming from incidents in the spring of 2007 at Lanigan ElementarySchool in Fulton.

"I believe it is fair to suggest that this was a reaction to the behavior of an aggressive child," Ludington said.

Thompson's lawyer, James Eby, told the judge that Thompson, who has been at the district since 1999, was assigned to students who have profound mental and physical disabilities. He said the students often have tantrums and throw objects at, scream at, hit and spit at theirteachers.

He said the incidents that resulted in charges against Thompson involved two students, one of whom is profoundly disabled. He said Thompson was trying to teach that student, a 7-year-old, how to urinate in the toilet when he turned on her and spat at her.

"She did smack his upper thigh a few times to redirect him to the task at hand." Eby said. He said that student had no signs of physical injury and was never seen by a nurse or doctor.

A teacher's aide brought the incident to the attention of the district and they conducted a thorough investigation, Eby said. He said the district came up withan appropriate administrative remedy and that when Thompson returned to the classroom, she received a letter from the boy's mother, welcoming her back.

Oswego County Assistant District Attorney Gregory Oakes told Ludington that the mother did not have the full story of what happened when she wrote the letter.

"She regrets having written that letter," Oakes said. "Now that sheis aware of what happened, she certainly has a different opinion."

Oakes said that the boy's mother spoke to two aides who told her she didn't have the full story of what happened that day in the classroom. It was then that she went to the Fulton Police Department.

Eby said in the second incident Thompson put up her hand to prevent a5-year-old child from butting his head into her head or body. He said she reacted with a defensive motion and did not intend to hurt thechild.

Eby said Thompson's account of that incident was confirmed by an aide who was present in the room when it happened.

Oakes, who had offered to let Thompson plead guilty to two counts of second-degree harassment, told the judge that witnesses to that incident said Thompson was frustrated and hit the victim three or four times in the back of the head, saying "How do you like it?"

"That's acting out of anger and frustration," Oakes said.

But Ludington, who read aloud from several of Thompson's performance evaluations, said that he did not believe that the evidence showed that Thompson acted in any way that was injurious to the child.

He said that neither student was treated by a doctor or nurse for any injuries and that by all accounts, Thompson was a person of good character who was an asset to the Fulton school district.

Earlier in the proceeding, Eby questioned whether the district attorney's office had allowed the evidence in the case to be considered by a grand jury.

"It's clear to me there was no grand jury involved. Therefore, the subpoena that was issued was improperly issued," Eby said. "This is a bunch of baloney. I ask the court to put an end to this matter, hereand now."

Ludington agreed with Eby."There is absolutely no evidence that a grand jury was properly impaneled to review this matter," the judge said. "The district attorney has no authority to issue grand jury subpoenas.

"Thompson had been reassigned to the district office when she was charged. Late last year, Superintendent William Lynch said Thompson would not be allowed back into the classroom until the court proceedings against her were resolved.

Lynch was not available to comment on Thompson's status on Thursday.

Calm Down or Else

By BENEDICT CAREY
Published: July 15, 2008
International Herald Tribune
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/15/healthscience/15restraint.php

The children return from school confused, scared and sometimes with bruises on their wrists, arms or face. Many won’t talk about what happened, or simply can’t, because they are unable to communicate easily, if at all.

“What Tim eventually said,” said John Miller, a podiatrist in Allegany, N.Y., about his son, then 12, “was that he didn’t want to go to school because he thought the school was trying to kill him.”
Dr. Miller learned that Tim, who has Asperger’s syndrome, was being unusually confrontational in class, and that more than once teachers had held him down on the floor to “calm him down,” according to logs teachers kept to track his behavior; on at least one occasion, adults held Tim prone for 20 minutes until he stopped struggling.

The Millers are suing the district, in part for costs of therapy for their son as a result of the restraints. The district did not dispute the logs but denied that teachers behaved improperly.

For more than a decade, parents of children with developmental and psychiatric problems have pushed to gain more access to mainstream schools and classrooms for their sons and daughters.

One unfortunate result, some experts say, is schools’ increasing use of precisely the sort of practices families hoped to avoid by steering clear of institutionalized settings: takedowns, isolation rooms, restraining chairs with straps, and worse.

No one keeps careful track of how often school staff members use such maneuvers. But last year the public system served 600,000 more special education students than it did a decade ago, many at least part time in regular classrooms. Many staff members are not adequately trained to handle severe behavior problems, researchers say.

In April, a 9-year-old Montreal boy with autism died of suffocation when a special education teacher wrapped him in a weighted blanket to calm him, according to the coroner’s report. Two Michigan public school students with autism have died while being held on the ground in so-called prone restraint.

Michigan, Pennsylvania and Tennessee have recently tightened regulations governing the use of restraints and seclusion in schools. California, Iowa and New York are among states considering stronger prohibitions, and reports have appeared on blogs and in newspapers across the country, from The Orange County Register to The Wall Street Journal.

“Behavior problems in school are way up, and there’s good reason to believe that the use of these procedures is up, too,” said Reece L. Peterson, a professor of special education at the University of Nebraska. “It’s an awful combination, because many parents expect restraints to be used — as long as it’s not their kid.”

Federal law leaves it to states and school districts to decide when physical restraints and seclusion are appropriate, and standards vary widely. Oversight is virtually nonexistent in most states, despite the potential for harm and scant evidence of benefit, Dr. Peterson said.

Psychiatric facilities and nursing homes are generally far more accountable to report on such incidents than schools, experts say.

In dozens of interviews, parents, special education experts and lawyers who work to protect disabled people said they now regularly heard of cases of abuse in public schools — up to one or two a week surface on some parent e-mail lists — much more often than a decade ago.

“In all the years I went to school, I never, ever saw or heard of anything like the horrific stories about restraint that we see just about every day now,” said Alison Tepper Singer, executive vice president of Autism Speaks, a charity dedicated to curing the disorder.

The issue is politically sensitive at a time when schools have done a lot to accommodate students with special needs, and some have questioned whether mainstreaming has gone too far.

“Some parent organizations, they’re so grateful to the schools that their kids have been mainstreamed that they don’t want to risk really pushing for change,” said Dee Alpert, an advocate in New York who reports on the issue in the online journal specialeducationmuckraker.com.

For teachers, who have many other responsibilities — not least, to teach — managing even one child with a disability can add a wild card to the day.

“In a class of 30 to 35 children, there’s a huge question of how much safety or teaching a teacher can provide if he or she is being called on to calm or contain a student on a regular basis,” said Patti Ralabate, a special education expert at the National Education Association.

“The teacher is responsible for the safety of all the children in the classroom.”

The line between skillful conflict resolution and abuse is slipperier than many assume. Federal law requires that schools develop a behavioral plan for every student with a disability, which may include techniques to defuse the child’s frustration: a break from the class, for instance, or time out to listen to an iPod.

But in a hectic classroom, children with diagnoses like attention deficit disorder, anxiety or autism can seemingly become defiant, edgy or aggressive on a dime — and the plan, if one exists, can go straight out the window, investigations have found. Even defying a teacher’s instructions — “noncompliance” — can invite a takedown or time alone in a locked room, they found.

In an extensive report published last year, investigators in California documented cases of abuse from districts in the San Francisco Bay Area, the suburbs of Los Angeles and in the rural northeastern part of the state.

During the 2005-6 school year, an 8-year-old with a diagnosis of attention deficit disorder and mild mental retardation was repeatedly locked in a “seclusion room” alone, adjacent to the classroom — at least 31 times in a single year. His parents heard about it from another parent, who saw the boy trying in vain to escape.

In another school, a teacher held a 12-year-old with a diagnosis of attention deficit disorder “face down on the floor, straddling him at his hips, and holding his hands behind his back,” according to the investigation, which was done by California’s office of protection and advocacy. Congress established such offices in each state in the 1970s to protect the rights of the disabled.

Leslie Morrison, director of investigations at the California office, said parents often complained about such episodes but were usually reluctant to cooperate with an investigation. “They’re afraid the school will retaliate,” she said.

And the children, who have an array of psychiatric diagnoses, from attention deficit to autism, often do not understand what is happening or why. “They just think they did something wrong and are being punished,” Ms. Morrison said. “Many of them are not verbal at all and can’t even tell their parents.”

In Tim Miller’s case, school logs obtained by his father illustrate how quickly a situation can escalate, regardless of behavior plans. In one entry, dated March 18, 2005, a teacher wrote:

“Tim was screaming down the hall. He ran past me and began to double his fist to punch the locker. At this point I scooped my arm underneath his and directed him into my room.”

After the boy continued to struggle, this teacher and another “laid him onto the mat, where he was held approximately 20 minutes,” the log said.

Tim, now 15, graduated from the school last year and in June completed his first year of high school, excelling in a variety of mainstream classes without incident. In a telephone interview, he said he no longer thought much about the takedowns.

“I just think now that they were idiots to do that,” he said. “I remember telling my mom to pray to God that they wouldn’t keep doing it, and wishing the other kids would see what was happening.”

When a school has a so-called zero tolerance approach to bad behavior, it often does makes a public spectacle of controlling a child’s behavior, said several parents interviewed for this article.

Kathy Sexton, who lives near Dallas, had to pick up her 11-year-old son, Anthony, who has a diagnosis of attention deficit disorder, at the police station, after school staff members had the boy hauled away in handcuffs for cursing at a teacher.

“I didn’t hear about it for hours and had to go get him at jail,” Ms. Sexton said in a phone interview. “He was hysterical, obviously, and he’s had his ups and downs since then. It’s hard to know what a thing like that does to a child that age.”

Several companies offer programs to teach so-called de-escalation techniques to school staff, and a scattering of schools have developed model programs to pre-empt confrontations, and defuse them when they happen.

But experts say that until policymakers and schools adopt standards, on exactly which techniques are allowed and when, children with behavior problems will in many districts run the risk of being forcibly brought into line.

Dr. Peterson, the Nebraska professor, illustrates the challenges by citing two recent cases in Iowa. In one, the parents of an 11-year-old who died while being held down called for a ban on restraints; in the other, parents charged that a school failed their son by not restraining him. The boy ran away and drowned.

“It’s damned if you do, damned if you don’t,” Dr. Peterson said, “and it reflects the level of confusion there is about this whole issue.”

Principal's out to get me, charges teacher in 'Rubber Room' suit

BY RACHEL MONAHAN
DAILY NEWS WRITER

Monday July 14th 2008, 7:36 PM

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/education/2008/07/14/2008-07-14_principals_out_to_get_me_charges_teacher.html

A Brooklyn teacher claims he was banished to a "Rubber Room" after blowing the whistle on his principal for preventing special education students from getting services, the teachers union charges.

Kimani Brown, a teacher at Frederick Douglass Academy IV for three years, is suing Principal Marian Bowden for punishing him in retaliation.

"I'm a special education teacher. I'm supposed to make sure my students are getting their services provided," Brown said. "So I spoke up."

Brown charged Bowden hadn't hired a resource room teacher until months into the 2007-08 school year and that special education students were denied counseling and weren't given mandated extra time on tests.

The allegations mark another controversy swirling about the school, which reported a mom to child welfare services over her daughter's supposed absences, even though she wasn't enrolled, the Daily News reported last month. Brown has been idling at full pay in a detention room since May 21, a lawsuit the union filed July 3 in Manhattan Supreme Court charges.

The suit refers to a letter of commendation Bowden wrote in 2006, praising Brown for his "commitment" to "the special needs population."

After Brown's complaint last fall, the suit charges, city and state education officials visited and gave the school until yesterday to file a plan to correct problems, including the lack of individualized education plans for some students.

The officials said they are reviewing the document and will monitor the academy to ensure compliance.

Education Department spokeswoman Margie Feinberg declined to comment.

State agencies faulted over alleged abuse at Anderson School

By Cara Matthews • Journal Albany Bureau • June 11, 2008

ALBANY -- A report released by the state inspector general today says two agencies neglected their duties in investigating alleged abuses of an autistic and developmentally disabled adolescent while he was in the care of a Dutchess County school.

Inspector General Joseph Fisch faulted the state Commission on Quality of Care and Advocacy for People with Disabilities for deficiencies in New York’s oversight of Jonathan Carey’s care at the Anderson School in Staatsburg from 2003 to 2004.

The CQC and the state Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities provided misleading or inadequate information about Jonathan’s care to his parents and the Governor’s Office, Fisch found.

The CQC in particular conducted a “shoddy child-abuse investigation, failing to fully address allegations that Jonathan was neglected, inadequately fed and left to lie naked on a urine-soaked bed,” the report said.

“The case of Jonathan Carey teaches us that our disabled children deserve a better system,” Fisch said in releasing a 244-page document on the matter.

Jonathan’s parents, Michael and Lisa Carey of Delmar, Albany County, sparked the inspector general’s probe and have sued the Anderson School. Jonathan died last year while he was in the care of the O.D. Heck Developmental Center in Schenectady last year. He was 13. Two workers have been convicted in his death.

Fisch’s report makes 20 recommendations to prevent another case like Jonathan Carey’s, including a review of the state’s Social Services Law related to abuse in institutional settings.

The CQC and Office of Mental Retardation have promised to improve their oversight in the case of children with disabilities, Fisch’s report said.

Michael and Lisa Carey planned a news conference later today to comment on the report.

A spokesman for the Anderson School could not immediately be reached for comment.

Fisch’s investigation included a review of some 25,000 pages of documents and more than 75 interviews.

“It is difficult to contemplate any tragedy more difficult for parents to endure than the death of a child,” Fisch said in a statement. “Such pain is more intolerable when the child, as was the case with Jonathan Carey, suffered at the hands of professionals who were entrusted with Jonathan’s care.

“Jonathan was autistic and developmentally disabled. Such children require more attention, more love, more understanding and more kindness than other youngsters. Parents, and indeed society, have every right to expect and demand such effort in their behalf,” Fisch said.

Other findings in the report include:

-- The CQC misrepresented the extent of its work to the state Senate, the governor, the inspector general and Michael and Lisa Carey.
-- OMRDD “generally conducted an adequate review and gave follow-up assistance to the Anderson School to correct problems.” But the agency did not fully address potential violations by the school in the neglect and maltreatment of Jonathan.
-- OMRDD was deficient in its communications with the Careys and provided inaccurate or misleading information to the governor.

Gov. David Paterson has proposed legislation that would improve the safety of children in residential programs. It would define certain behaviors, such as kicking, biting or withholding food, as abuse, even if they did not injure a child.

Ruling: Hicksville improperly removed home instruction

BY JOHN HILDEBRAND john.hildebrand@newsday.com
June 26, 2008
NewsDay.com

A state review officer has ruled that the Hicksville school system acted improperly in canceling home instruction for a developmentally disabled student whose case became a focus of statewide efforts to improve special-education services.

The student, Billy Schafer Jr., 17, made headlines two years ago, after his parents complained of his detention for misbehavior in a 5-by-6-foot "timeout" chamber at a Nassau BOCES center. The teen had been referred to the center by his home district.

A multimillion-dollar legal action filed by the parents against Hicksville and the Board of Cooperative Educational Services is pending in federal district court in Central Islip.

In their lawsuit, William and Janet Schafer accuse Hicksville of cutting off their son's home instruction and therapy in retaliation for their decision to withdraw the teen from the BOCES center. The son has since enrolled in a private school.

The Schafers also petitioned the state for restoration of educational services formerly provided for their son at home.

Following hearings on that petition that extended over nearly two years, a state review officer, Paul Kelly, granted the parents' request on Friday. Kelly ordered Hicksville to provide the son with three hours of weekly home instruction, along with behavioral, speech and physical therapy.

Hicksville's administrative assistant for community services, Catherine Knight, had no comment on the decision when contacted by Newsday.

Kelly's ruling did not deal directly with the retaliation issue. It did find, however, that the district "improperly removed" home services from Billy Schafer's education plan without advance notice to the parents and without their consent. Hicksville has not yet announced whether it plans to appeal.

The Schafers also petitioned the state for restoration of educational services formerly provided for their son at home.

Following hearings on that petition that extended over nearly two years, a state review officer, Paul Kelly, granted the parents' request on Friday. Kelly ordered Hicksville to provide the son with three hours of weekly home instruction, along with behavioral, speech and physical therapy.

Hicksville's administrative assistant for community services, Catherine Knight, had no comment on the decision when contacted by Newsday.

Kelly's ruling did not deal directly with the retaliation issue. It did find, however, that the district "improperly removed" home services from Billy Schafer's education plan without advance notice to the parents and without their consent. Hicksville has not yet announced whether it plans to appeal.

The Schafers also petitioned the state for restoration of educational services formerly provided for their son at home.

Following hearings on that petition that extended over nearly two years, a state review officer, Paul Kelly, granted the parents' request on Friday. Kelly ordered Hicksville to provide the son with three hours of weekly home instruction, along with behavioral, speech and physical therapy.

Hicksville's administrative assistant for community services, Catherine Knight, had no comment on the decision when contacted by Newsday.

Kelly's ruling did not deal directly with the retaliation issue. It did find, however, that the district "improperly removed" home services from Billy Schafer's education plan without advance notice to the parents and without their consent. Hicksville has not yet announced whether it plans to appeal.

School of Shock

Eight states are sending autistic, mentally retarded, and emotionally troubled kids to a facility that punishes them with painful electric shocks. How many times do you have to zap a child before it's torture?

Jennifer Gonnerman June 13, 2008 Features
The Texas Observer

Rob Santana awoke terrified. He'd had that dream again, the one where silver wires ran under his shirt and into his pants, connecting to electrodes attached to his limbs and torso. Adults armed with surveillance cameras and remote-control activators watched his every move. One press of a button, and there was no telling where the shock would hit—his arm or leg or, worse, his stomach. All Rob knew was that the pain would be intense.

Every time he woke from this dream, it took him a few moments to remember that he was in his own bed, that there weren't electrodes locked to his skin, that he wasn't about to be shocked. It was no mystery where this recurring nightmare came from—not A Clockwork Orange or 1984, but the years he spent confined in America's most controversial "behavior modification" facility.

In 1999, when Rob was 13, his parents sent him to the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center, located in Canton, Massachusetts, 20 miles outside Boston. The facility, which calls itself a "special needs school," takes in all kinds of troubled kids—severely autistic, mentally retarded, schizophrenic, bipolar, emotionally disturbed—and attempts to change their behavior with a complex system of rewards and punishments, including painful electric shocks to the torso and limbs. Of the 234 current residents, about half are wired to receive shocks, including some as young as nine or ten. Nearly 60 percent come from New York, a quarter from Massachusetts, the rest from six other states and Washington, D.C. The Rotenberg Center, which has 900 employees and annual revenues exceeding $56 million, charges $220,000 a year for each student. States and school districts pick up the tab.

The Rotenberg Center is the only facility in the country that disciplines students by shocking them, a form of punishment not inflicted on serial killers or child molesters or any of the 2.2 million inmates now incarcerated in U.S. jails and prisons. Over its 36-year history, six children have died in its care, prompting numerous lawsuits and government investigations. Last year, New York state investigators filed a blistering report that made the place sound like a high school version of Abu Ghraib. Yet the program continues to thrive—in large part because no one except desperate parents, and a few state legislators, seems to care about what happens to the hundreds of kids who pass through its gates.

In Rob Santana's case, he freely admits he was an out-of-control kid with "serious behavioral problems." At birth he was abandoned at the hospital, traces of cocaine, heroin, and alcohol in his body. A middle-class couple adopted him out of foster care when he was 11 months old, but his troubles continued. He started fires; he got kicked out of preschool for opening the back door of a moving school bus; when he was six, he cut himself with a razor. His mother took him to specialists, who diagnosed him with a slew of psychiatric problems: attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, bipolar disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Rob was at the Rotenberg Center for about three and a half years. From the start, he cursed, hollered, fought with employees. Eventually the staff obtained permission from his mother and a Massachusetts probate court to use electric shock. Rob was forced to wear a backpack containing five two-pound, battery-operated devices, each connected to an electrode attached to his skin. "I felt humiliated," he says. "You have a bunch of wires coming out of your shirt and pants." Rob remained hooked up to the apparatus 24 hours a day. He wore it while jogging on the treadmill and playing basketball, though it wasn't easy to sink a jump shot with a 10-pound backpack on. When he showered, a staff member would remove his electrodes, all except the one on his arm, which he had to hold outside the shower to keep it dry. At night, Rob slept with the backpack next to him, under the gaze of a surveillance camera.

Employees shocked him for aggressive behavior, he says, but also for minor misdeeds, like yelling or cursing. Each shock lasts two seconds. "It hurts like hell," Rob says. (The school's staff claim it is no more painful than a bee sting; when I tried the shock, it felt like a horde of wasps attacking me all at once. Two seconds never felt so long.) On several occasions, Rob was tied facedown to a four-point restraint board and shocked over and over again by a person he couldn't see. The constant threat of being zapped did persuade him to act less aggressively, but at a high cost. "I thought of killing myself a few times," he says.

Rob's mother Jo-Anne deLeon had sent him to the Rotenberg Center at the suggestion of the special-ed committee at his school district in upstate New York, which, she says, told her that the program had everything Rob needed. She believed he would receive regular psychiatric counseling—though the school does not provide this.

As the months passed, Rob's mother became increasingly unhappy. "My whole dispute with them was, 'When is he going to get psychiatric treatment?'" she says. "I think they had to get to the root of his problems—like why was he so angry? Why was he so destructive? I really think they needed to go in his head somehow and figure this out." She didn't think the shocks were helping, and in 2002 she sent a furious fax demanding that Rob's electrodes be removed before she came up for Parents' Day. She says she got a call the next day from the executive director, Matthew Israel, who told her, "You don't want to stick with our treatment plan? Pick him up." (Israel says he doesn't remember this conversation, but adds, "If a parent doesn't want the use of the skin shock and wants psychiatric treatment, this isn't the right program for them.")

Rob's mother is not the only parent angry at the Rotenberg Center. Last year, Evelyn Nicholson sued the facility after her 17-year-old son Antwone was shocked 79 times in 18 months. Nicholson says she decided to take action after Antwone called home and told her, "Mommy, you don't love me anymore because you let them hurt me so bad." Rob and Antwone don't know each other (Rob left the facility before Antwone arrived), but in some ways their stories are similar. Antwone's birth mother was a drug addict; he was burned on an electric hot plate as an infant. Evelyn took him in as a foster child and later adopted him. The lawsuit she filed against the Rotenberg Center set off a chain of events: investigations by multiple government agencies, emotional public hearings, scrutiny by the media. Legislation to restrict or ban the use of electric shocks in such facilities has been introduced in two state legislatures. Yet not much has changed.

Rob has paid little attention to the public debate over his alma mater, though he visits its website occasionally to see which of the kids he knew are still there. After he left the center he moved back in with his parents. At first glance, he seems like any other 21-year-old: baggy Rocawear jeans, black T-shirt, powder-blue Nikes. But when asked to recount his years at the Rotenberg Center, he speaks for nearly two hours in astonishing detail, recalling names and specific events from seven or eight years earlier. When he describes his recurring nightmares, he raises both arms and rubs his forehead with his palms.

Despite spending more than three years at this behavior-modification facility, Rob still has problems controlling his behavior. In 2005, he was arrested for attempted assault and sent to jail. (This year he was arrested again, for drugs and assault.) Being locked up has given him plenty of time to reflect on his childhood, and he has gained a new perspective on the Rotenberg Center. "It's worse than jail," he told me. "That place is the worst place on earth."

One Punishment Fits All

The story of the Rotenberg Center is in many ways a tale of two schools. Slightly more than half the residents are what the school calls "high functioning": kids like Rob and Antwone, who have diagnoses like attention-deficit disorder, bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and other emotional problems. The other group is even more troubled. Referred to as "low functioning," it includes kids with severe autism and mental retardation; most cannot speak or have very limited verbal abilities. Some have behaviors so extreme they can be life threatening: chomping on their hands and arms, running into walls, nearly blinding themselves by banging their heads on the floor again and again.

The Rotenberg Center has long been known as the school of last resort—a place that will take any kid, no matter how extreme his or her problems are. It doesn't matter if a child has been booted out of 2, 5, 10, or 20 other programs—he or she is still welcome here. For desperate parents, the Rotenberg Center can seem like a godsend. Just ask Louisa Goldberg, the mother of 25-year-old Andrew, who has severe mental retardation. Andrew's last residential school kicked him out after he kept assaulting staff members; the Rotenberg Center was the only place willing to accept him. According to Louisa, Andrew's quality of life has improved dramatically since 2000, when he was hooked up to the shock device, known as the Graduated Electronic Decelerator, or ged.

The Rotenberg Center has a policy of not giving psychiatric drugs to students—no Depakote, Paxil, Risperdal, Ritalin, or Seroquel. It's a policy that appeals to Louisa and many other parents. At Andrew's last school, she says, "he had so many medicines in him he'd take a two-hour nap in the morning, he'd take a two-hour nap in the afternoon. They'd have him in bed at eight o'clock at night. He was sleeping his life away." These days, Louisa says she is no longer afraid when her son comes home to visit. "[For him] to have an electrode on and to receive a ged is to me a much more favorable way of dealing with this," she says. "He's not sending people to the hospital."

Marguerite Famolare brought her son Michael to the Rotenberg Center six years ago, after he attacked her so aggressively she had to call 911 and, in a separate incident, flipped over a kitchen table onto a tutor. Michael, now 19, suffers from mental retardation and severe autism. These days, when he comes home for a visit, Marguerite carries his shock activator in her purse. All she has to do, she says, is show it to him. "He'll automatically comply to whatever my signal command may be, whether it is 'Put on your seatbelt,' or 'Hand me that apple,' or 'Sit appropriately and eat your food,'" she says. "It's made him a human being, a civilized human being."

Massachusetts officials have twice tried to shut the Rotenberg Center down—once in the 1980s and again in the 1990s. Both times parents rallied to its defense, and both times it prevailed in court. (See "Why Can't Massachusetts Shut Matthew Israel Down?" page 44.) The name of the center ensures nobody forgets these victories; it was Judge Ernest Rotenberg, now deceased, who in the mid-'80s ruled that the facility could continue using aversives—painful punishments designed to change behavior—so long as it obtained authorization from the Bristol County Probate and Family Court in each student's case. But even though the facility wasn't using electric shock when this ruling was handed down, the court rarely, if ever, bars the Rotenberg Center from adding shock to a student's treatment plan, according to lawyers and disability advocates who have tried to prevent it from doing so.

Since Evelyn Nicholson filed her lawsuit in 2006, the Rotenberg Center has faced a new wave of criticism and controversy. (See "Nagging? Zap. Swearing? Zap," page 41.) And again, the facility has relied heavily on the testimonials of parents like Louisa Goldberg and Marguerite Famolare to defend itself. Not surprisingly, the most vocal parent-supporters tend to be those with the sickest children, since they are the ones with the fewest options. But at the Rotenberg Center, the same methods of "behavior modification" are applied to all kids, no matter what is causing their behavior problems. And so, while Rob would seem to have little in common with mentally retarded students like Michael and Andrew, they all shared a similar fate once their parents placed them under the care of the same psychologist, a radical behaviorist known as Dr. Israel.

Dr. Israel's Radical Behavior

In 1950, matt israel was a Harvard freshman looking to fill his science requirement. He knew little about B.F. Skinner when he signed up for his course, Human Behavior. Soon, though, Israel became fascinated with Skinner's scientific approach to the study of behavior, and he picked up Walden Two, Skinner's controversial novel about an experimental community based on the principles of behaviorism. The book changed Israel's life. "I decided my mission was to start a utopian community," he says. Israel got a Ph.D. in psychology in 1960 from Harvard, and started two communal houses outside Boston.

One of the people Israel lived with was a three-year-old named Andrea, the daughter of a roommate. The two did not get along. "She was wild and screaming," Israel recalls. "I would retreat to my own room, and she'd be trying to pull away and get into my room, and I'd have to hold the door on one side to keep her from disturbing me." When company would come over, he says, "She would walk around with a toy broom and whack people over the head."

Through experiments with rats and pigeons, Skinner had demonstrated how animals learn from the consequences of their actions. With permission from Andrea's mother, Israel decided to try out Skinner's ideas on the three-year-old. When Andrea was well behaved, Israel took her out for walks. But when she misbehaved, he punished her by snapping his finger against her cheek. His mentor Skinner preached that positive reinforcement was vastly preferable to punishment, but Israel says his methods transformed the girl. "Instead of being an annoyance, she became a charming addition to the house."

Israel's success with Andrea convinced him to start a school. In 1971, he founded the Behavior Research Institute in Rhode Island, a facility that would later move to Massachusetts and become known as the Judge Rotenberg Center. Israel took in children nobody else wanted—severely autistic and mentally retarded kids who did dangerous things to themselves and others. To change their behavior, he developed a large repertoire of punishments: spraying kids in the face with water, shoving ammonia under their noses, pinching the soles of their feet, smacking them with a spatula, forcing them to wear a "white-noise helmet" that assaulted them with static.

In 1977, Israel opened a branch of his program in California's San Fernando Valley, along with Judy Weber, whose son Tobin is severely autistic. Two years later, the Los Angeles Times reported Israel had pinched the feet of Christopher Hirsch, an autistic 12-year-old, at least 24 times in 30 minutes, while the boy screamed and cried. This was a punishment for soiling his pants. ("It might have been true," Israel says. "It's true that pinches were being used as an aversive. The pinch, the spank, the muscle squeeze, water sprays, bad taste—all those procedures were being used.") Israel was in the news again in 1981, when another student, 14-year-old Danny Aswad, died while strapped facedown to his bed. In 1982, the California Department of Social Services compiled a 64-page complaint that read like a catalog of horrors, describing students with bruises, welts, and cuts. It also accused Israel of telling a staff member "to grow his fingernails longer so he could give an effective pinch."

In 1982, the facility settled with state officials and agreed to stop using physical punishments. Now called Tobinworld, and still run by Judy Weber, it is a $10-million-a-year organization operating day schools near Los Angeles and San Francisco. The Rotenberg Center considers itself a "sister school" to Tobinworld, and Israel makes frequent trips to California to visit Weber. The two were married last year.

Despite his setback in California, Israel continued to expand on the East Coast—and to generate controversy. In 1985, Vincent Milletich, an autistic 22-year-old, suffered a seizure and died after he was put in restraints and forced to wear a white-noise helmet. Five years later, 19-year-old Linda Cornelison, who had the mental capacity of a toddler, refused to eat. On the bus to school, she clutched her stomach; someone had to carry her inside, and she spent the day on a couch in a classroom. Linda could not speak, and the staff treated her actions as misbehaviors. Between 3:52 p.m. and 8 p.m., staffers punished her with 13 spatula spankings, 29 finger pinches, 14 muscle squeezes, and 5 forced inhalings of ammonia. It turned out that Linda had a perforated stomach. She died on the operating table at 1:45 a.m.

The local district attorney's office examined the circumstances of Vincent's death but declined to file any charges. In Linda's case, the Massachusetts Department of Mental Retardation investigated and found that while Linda's treatment had "violated the most basic codes and standards of decency and humane treatment," there was insufficient evidence to prove that the use of aversives had caused her death.

The local district attorney's office examined the circumstances of Vincent's death but declined to file any charges. In Linda's case, the Massachusetts Department of Mental Retardation investigated and found that while Linda's treatment had "violated the most basic codes and standards of decency and humane treatment," there was insufficient evidence to prove that the use of aversives had caused her death.

Israel purchased a shock device then on the market known as sibis—Self-Injurious Behavior Inhibiting System—that had been invented by the parents of an autistic girl and delivered a mild shock that lasted .2 second. Between 1988 and 1990, Israel used sibis on 29 students, including one of his most challenging, Brandon, then 12, who would bite off chunks of his tongue, regurgitate entire meals, and pound himself on the head. At times Brandon was required to keep his hands on a paddle; if he removed them, he would get automatic shocks, one per second. One infamous day, Brandon received more than 5,000 shocks. "You have to realize," Israel says. "I thought his life was in the balance. I couldn't find any medical solution. He was vomiting, losing weight. He was down to 52 pounds. I knew it was risky to use the shock in large numbers, but if I persevered that day, I thought maybe it would eventually work. There was nothing else I could think of to do...but by the time it went into the 3,000 or 4,000 range, it became clear it wasn't working."

This day was a turning point in the history of Israel's operation—that's when he decided to ratchet up the pain. The problem, he decided, was that the shock sibis emitted was not strong enough. He says he asked sibis's manufacturer, Human Technologies, to create a more powerful device, but it refused. "So we had to redesign the device ourselves," he says. He envisioned a device that would start with a low current but that could increase the voltage if needed—hence its name, Graduated Electronic Decelerator or ged—but he abandoned this idea early on. "As it turns out, that's really not a wise approach," he says. "It's sort of like operating a car and wearing out the brakes because you never really apply them strongly enough. Instead, we set it at a certain level that was more or less going to be effective for most of our students."

Thirty years earlier, O. Ivar Lovaas, a psychology professor at ucla, had pioneered the use of slaps and screams and electric jolts to try to normalize the behavior of autistic kids. Life magazine featured his work in a nine-page photo essay in 1965 with the headline, "A surprising, shocking treatment helps far-gone mental cripples." Lovaas eventually abandoned these methods, telling cbs in 1993 that shock was "only a temporary suppression" because patients become inured to the pain. "These people are so used to pain that they can adapt to almost any kind of aversive you give them," he said.

Israel encountered this same sort of adaptation in his students, but his solution was markedly different: He decided to increase the pain once again. Today, there are two shock devices in use at the Rotenberg Center: the ged and the ged-4. The devices look similar and both administer a two-second shock, but the ged-4 is nearly three times more powerful—and the pain it inflicts is that much more severe.

The Mickey Mouse Club

Ten years ago, Israel hung up a Mickey Mouse poster in the main hall, and he noticed that it made people smile—so he bought every Mickey Mouse poster he could find. He hung them in the corridors and even papered the walls of what became known as the Mickey Mouse Conference Room. Entering the Rotenberg Center is a bit like stepping into a carnival fun house, I discovered during a two-day visit last autumn. Two brushed-aluminum dogs, each nearly 5 feet tall and sporting a purple neon collar, stand guard outside. Giant silver stars dangle from the lobby ceiling; the walls and chairs in the front offices are turquoise, lime green, and lavender.

Israel, 74, still holds the title of executive director, for which he pays himself nearly $400,000 in salary and benefits. He appears utterly unimposing: short and slender with soft hands, rounded shoulders, curly white hair, paisley tie. Then he sits down beside me and, unprompted, starts talking about shocking children. "The treatment is so powerful it's hard not to use if you have seen how effective it is," he says quietly. "It's brief. It's painful. But there are no side effects. It's two seconds of discomfort." His tone is neither defensive nor apologetic; rather, it's perfectly calm, almost soothing. It's the sort of demeanor a mother might find comforting if she were about to hand over her child.

Before we set off on our tour of the facility, there's something Israel wants me to see: Before & After, a homemade movie featuring six of his most severe cases. Israel has been using some of the same grainy footage for more than two decades, showing it to parents of prospective students as well as visiting reporters. They've already mailed me a copy, but Israel wants to make sure I watch it. An assistant slips the tape into the vcr, Israel presses the remote, and we all stare at the screen:

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.

1981: Janine, also 11 years old, shrieks and slams her head against the ground, a table, the door. Bald spots testify to the severity of her troubles; she's yanked out so much hair it's half gone.

Both girls exhibit autistic behaviors, and compared with these scenes, the "After" footage looks almost unbelievable: Janine splashes in a plastic pool, while Caroline grins as she sits in a chair at a beauty salon. "Most people haven't seen these pictures," Israel says, setting down the remote. "They haven't seen children like this, so they cannot imagine. These are children for whom positive-only procedures did not work, drugs did not work. And if it wasn't for this treatment, some of these people would not be alive." The video is extremely persuasive: The girls' self-abuse is so violent and so frightening that it almost makes me want to grab a ged remote and push the button myself. Of course, this is precisely the point.

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.

A few minutes later, I meet 36-year-old Janine, who appears in much better shape. She's not wearing a helmet and has a full head of black hair. She's also got a backpack on her shoulders and canvas straps hanging from her legs, the telltale sign that electrodes are attached to both calves. For 16 years—nearly half her life—Janine has been hooked up to Israel's shock device. A couple years ago, when the shocks began to lose their effect, the staff switched the devices inside her backpack to the much more painful ged-4.

Rogue Science

In 1994, matthew israel had just 64 students. Today he has 234. This astonishing rate of growth is largely the result of a dramatic change in the types of students he takes in. Until recently, nearly all were "low functioning," autistic and mentally retarded people. But today slightly more than 50 percent are "high functioning," with diagnoses like add, adhd, and bipolar disorder. New York state supplies the majority of these students, many of whom grew up in the poorest parts of New York City. Yet despite this change in his population, Israel's methods have remained essentially the same.

Israel has long faced criticism that he has not published research about his use of electric shocks in peer-reviewed journals, where experts could scrutinize it. To defend his methods, he points to a bibliography of 110 research articles that he's posted on the Rotenberg Center website. This catalog seems impressive at first. Studied more closely, however, it is not nearly so convincing. Three-quarters of the articles were published more than 20 years ago. Eight were written or cowritten by Lovaas, the ucla-affiliated behaviorist. One of America's leading autism experts, Lovaas long ago stopped endorsing painful aversives. And Lovaas' old studies focus primarily on children with autism who engage in extreme self-injury—not on troubled teens who have been diagnosed with adhd or add.

But then, it would be hard for Israel to find contemporary research supporting his program, because the practice of treating self-abusive kids with pain has been largely abandoned. According to Dr. Saul Axelrod, a professor at Temple University and an expert on behavior modification, "the field has moved away from painful stimuli because of public outcry and because we've devised better techniques," including determining the cause of an individual's self-abuse.

Another expert Israel cites several times is Dr. Brian A. Iwata, a consultant on the development of sibis, the device Israel modified to create his ged. Now a professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Florida, he's a nationally recognized authority on treating severe self-abuse among children with developmental disabilities. Iwata has visited the Rotenberg Center and describes its approach as dangerously simplistic: "There appears to be a mission of that program to use shock for problem behaviors. It doesn't matter what that behavior is." Iwata has consulted for 25 states and says there is little relationship between what goes on at Israel's program and what goes on at other facilities. "He may have gotten his Ph.D. at Harvard, but he didn't learn what he's doing at Harvard. Whatever he's doing, he decided to do on his own."

Paul Touchette, who also studied with B.F. Skinner, has known Israel since the 1960s when they were both in Cambridge. Like Israel, Touchette went on to treat children with autism who exhibit extreme self-abuse, but he isn't a fan of Israel's approach either. "Punishment doesn't get at the cause," says Touchette, who is on the faculty of the University of California-Irvine School of Medicine. "It just scares the hell out of patients."

Over the decades, Touchette has followed Israel's career and bumped into him at professional conferences. "He's a very smart man, but he's an embarrassment to his profession," Touchette says. "I've never been able to figure out if Matt is a little off-kilter and actually believes all this stuff, or whether he's just a clever businessman."

Big Reward Store

At the rotenberg center, an elaborate system of rewards and punishments governs all interactions. Well-behaved kids can watch TV, go for pizza, play basketball. Students who've earned points for good behavior visit a store stocked with dvd players, cds, cologne, PlayStation 2, Essence magazine, knockoff Prada purses—anything the staff thinks students might want. But even more prized is a visit to the "Big Reward Store," an arcade full of pinball machines, video games, a pool table, and the most popular feature, a row of 42-inch flat-screen TVs hooked up to Xbox 360s.

Students like the "brs" for another reason—it's the only place many can socialize freely. At the Rotenberg Center, students have to earn the right to talk to each other. "We had to wait until we were in brs to communicate with others," says Isabel Cedeño, a 16-year-old who ran away from Rotenberg in 2006 after her boyfriend, a former student, came and got her. "That was the only time you really laughed, had fun, hung around with your friends. Because usually, you can't talk to them. It was basically like we had to have enemies. They didn't want us to be friendly with nobody."

Students live grouped together in homes and apartments scattered in nearby towns and are bused to the facility's headquarters every morning. They spend their days in classrooms, staring at a computer screen, their backs to the teacher. They are supposed to teach themselves, using self-instruction programs that include lessons in math, reading, and typing. Even with breaks for gym and lunch, the days can be incredibly dull. "On paper, it does look like they're being educated, because we have lesson plans," says former teacher Jessica Croteau, who oversaw a classroom of high-functioning teens for six months before leaving in 2006. But "to self-teach is not exciting. Why would the kids want to sit there and read a chapter on their own without any discussion?"

Croteau says teachers have to spend so much time monitoring misbehaviors there's often little time left for teaching. Whenever a student disobeys a rule, a staff member must point it out, using the student's name and just one or two rote phrases like, "Mark, there's no stopping work. Work on your task, please." Each time a student curses or yells, a staffer marks it on the student's recording sheet. Teachers and aides then use the sheet to calculate what level of punishment is required—when to just say "No!" and when to shock.

Employees carry students' shock activators inside plastic cases, which they hook onto their belt loops. These cases are known as "sleds," and each sled has a photo on it to ensure employees don't zap the wrong kid.

Behaviorism would seem to dictate that staff shock students immediately after they break the rules. But if employees learn about a misbehavior after it has occurred—by, say, reviewing surveillance footage—they may still administer punishment. Rob Santana recalls that Mondays were always the most stressful day of the week. He would sit at his desk all day, trying to remember if he had broken any rules over the weekend, waiting to see if he'd be shocked.

Employees are encouraged to use the element of surprise. "Attempt to be as discreet as possible and hold the transmitter out of view of the student," states the employee manual. This way, students cannot do anything to minimize the pain, like flipping over their electrodes or tensing their muscles. "We hear the sound of [a staffer] picking up a sled," says Isabel, the former student. "Then we turn around and see the person jump out of their seat."

Employees shock students for a wide range of behaviors, from violent actions to less serious offenses, like getting out of their seats without permission. In 2006, the New York State Education Department sent a team of investigators, including three psychologists, to the Rotenberg Center, then issued a scathing report. Among its many criticisms was that the staff shocked kids for "nagging, swearing, and failing to maintain a neat appearance." Israel only disputes the latter. As for nagging and swearing? "Sometimes a behavior looks innocuous," he says, "but if it's an antecedent for aggression, it may have to be treated with an aversive."

New York officials disagreed, and in January 2007 issued regulations that would prohibit shocking New York students for minor infractions. But a group of New York parents filed a federal lawsuit to stop the state from enforcing these regulations. They prevailed, winning a temporary restraining order against the state, one that permits the Rotenberg Center staffers to continue using shock. The parents' case is expected to go to trial in 2008.

When they talk about why they use the shock device, Israel and his employees like to use the word "treatment," but it might be more accurate to use words like "convenience" or "control." "The ged—it's two seconds and it's done," says Patricia Rivera, a psychologist who serves as assistant director of clinical services. "Then it's right back to work." By contrast, it can take 8 or 10 employees half an hour or longer to restrain a strong male student: to pin him to the floor, wait for him to stop struggling, then move his body onto a restraint board and tie down each limb. Restraining five or eight kids in a single day—or the same student again and again—can be incredibly time-consuming and sometimes dangerous.

When they talk about why they use the shock device, Israel and his employees like to use the word "treatment," but it might be more accurate to use words like "convenience" or "control." "The ged—it's two seconds and it's done," says Patricia Rivera, a psychologist who serves as assistant director of clinical services. "Then it's right back to work." By contrast, it can take 8 or 10 employees half an hour or longer to restrain a strong male student: to pin him to the floor, wait for him to stop struggling, then move his body onto a restraint board and tie down each limb. Restraining five or eight kids in a single day—or the same student again and again—can be incredibly time-consuming and sometimes dangerous.

"Our Students Have a Tendency to Lie"

Rotenberg staff place the more troubled (or troublesome) residents on 1:1 status, meaning that an aide monitors them everywhere they go. For extremely violent students, the ratio is 2:1. Soon after I arrived, right before I set off on my tour, a small crowd gathered—it seemed that almost the entire hierarchy of the Rotenberg Center was going to follow me around. That's when I realized I'd been put on 5:1. As I began to roam around the school with my escorts, my every move monitored by surveillance cameras, I realized it would be impossible to have a private conversation with any student. The best I could hope for would be a few unscripted moments.

Ten years ago, a reporter visiting Israel's center would have been unable to talk to most students; back then few of them could speak. These days, there are more than 100 high-functioning kids fully capable of voicing their views, and Israel has enlisted a few in his campaign to promote the ged. "If we had only [severely] autistic students, they couldn't talk to you and say, 'Gee, this is really helping me,'" Israel says. "Now for the first time we have students like Katie who can tell you it helped them."

In the world of the Rotenberg Center, Katie Spartichino is a star. She left the facility in the spring of 2006 and now attends community college in Boston. Around noon, a staff member brings her back to the facility to talk to me. We sit at an outdoor picnic table away from the surveillance cameras but there's no privacy: Israel and Karen LaChance, the assistant to the executive director for admissions, sit with us.

Katie, 19, tells me she overdosed on pills at 9, spent her early adolescence in and out of psych wards, was hooked up to the ged at 16, and stayed on the device for two years. "This is a great place," she says. "It took me off all my medicine. I was close to 200 pounds and I'm 160 now." She admits her outlook was less rosy when she first had to wear the electrodes. "I cried," she says. "I kind of felt like I was walking on eggshells; I had to watch everything I said. Sometimes a curse word would just come out of my mouth automatically. So being on the geds and knowing that swearing was a targeted behavior where I would receive a [GED] application, it really got me to think twice before I said something disrespectful or something just plain-out rude."

As Katie speaks, LaChance runs her fingers through Katie's hair again and again. The gesture is so deliberate it draws my attention. I wonder if it's just an expression of affection—or something more, like a reward.

"Do you swear anymore?" I ask.

"Oh, God, all the time," Katie says. She pauses. "Well, I have learned to control it, but I'm not going to lie. When I'm on the phone, curse words come out."

The hair stroking stops. LaChance turns to Katie. "I hope you're not going to tell me you're aggressive."

"Oh, no, that's gone," Katie says. "No, no, no. The worst thing I do sometimes is me and my mom get into little arguments."

For Israel, of course, one drawback of having so many high-functioning students is that he cannot control everything they say. One afternoon, when I walk into a classroom of teenagers, a 15-year-old girl catches my eye, smiles, and holds up a sheet of paper with a message written in pink marker: HELP US. She puts it back down and shuffles it into her stack of papers before anyone else sees. When I move closer, she tells me her name is Raquel, she is from the Bronx, and she wants to go home.

My escorts allow me to interview Raquel while two of them sit nearby. Raquel is not hooked up to the ged, but she has many complaints, including that she has just witnessed one of her housemates get shocked. "She was screaming," Raquel says. "They told her to step up to be searched; she didn't want to step up to be searched, so they gave her one." After 20 minutes, my escorts cut us off. "Raquel, you did a great job—thank you for taking the time," says Patricia Rivera, the psychologist.

Once Raquel is out of earshot, Rivera adds, "Some of the things she said are not true, some of them are. Our students obviously have a tendency to lie about things." She explains that a staff member searches Raquel's housemate every hour because she's the one who recently stabbed an employee with a pencil.

The Rotenberg Center does not have a rule about how old a child must be before he or she can be hooked up to the ged. One of the program's youngest students is a nine-year-old named Rodrigo. When I see him, he is seated outside at a picnic table with his aide. Rodrigo's backpack looks enormous on his tiny frame; canvas straps dangle from both legs.

"He was horrible when he first came in," Rivera says. "It would take five staff to restrain him because he's so wiry." What was he like? "A lot of aggression. A lot of disruptive behavior. Whenever he was asked to do a task that he didn't feel like doing, he would scream, yell, swear. The stuff that would come out of his mouth you wouldn't believe—very sexually inappropriate."

"Rodrigo, come here," one of my escorts says.

Rodrigo walks over, his straps slapping the ground. He wears a white dress shirt and tie—the standard uniform for male students—but because he is so small, maybe 4 feet tall, his tie nearly reaches his thighs. "What's that?" he asks.

"That's a tape recorder," I say. "Do you want to say something?"

"Yeah."

"That's a tape recorder," I say. "Do you want to say something?"

"Yeah."

The Employee-Modification System

To understand how the Rotenberg Center works, it helps to know that it runs not just one behavior-modification program, but two—one for the residents, and one for the staff. Employees have no autonomy. If a staffer believes it's okay to shock a kid who is smashing his head against a wall, but it's not okay to shock someone for getting out of his chair without permission, that could spell trouble. "There's pressure on you to do it," a former teacher told me. "They punish you if you don't."

I met this former teacher at a restaurant, and our meeting stretched on for six hours. At times it felt less like an interview than a confession. "The first time you give someone a ged is the worst one," the teacher said. "You don't want to hurt somebody; you want to help. You're thinking, 'This has got to be okay. This has got to be legal, or they wouldn't be doing this.'" At the Rotenberg Center, it's virtually impossible to discuss such concerns with coworkers because there are cameras everywhere, even in the staff break room. Staff members who want to talk to each other without being overheard may meet up in the parking lot or scribble notes to each other. But it's hard to know whom to trust, since Israel encourages employees to file anonymous reports about their coworkers' lapses.

In addition, staff members are prohibited from having casual conversations with each other. They cannot, for example, say to a coworker, "Hey, did you see the Red Sox game last night?" "We don't want them discussing their social life or the ball games in front of the students or while they're on duty," Israel says. "So we'll sometimes actually have one staffer deliberately start a social conversation with another and we'll see whether the other—as he or she should—will say, 'I don't want to discuss that now.'" Monitors watch these setups on the surveillance cameras and punish staffers who take the bait.

Former employees describe a workplace permeated with fear—fear of being attacked by students and fear of losing their job. There are so many rules—and so many cameras—it's not easy to stay out of trouble. Employees quit or are fired so often that two-thirds of the direct-care employees remain on the job for less than a year.

New employees must sign a confidentiality agreement promising not to talk about the Rotenberg Center—even after they no longer work there. Of the eight ex-employees I interviewed, most did not want to be identified by name for fear of Israel suing them; all were critical of how the ged is used. Maybe, says one, the use of shocks was justified in a few extreme self-injurious cases, but that's all. "Say you had a hospital that was the only hospital in the nation that had chemotherapy, and they were treating people who had the common cold with it," she says. "I think the extreme to which they abuse their power has outweighed what good they do."

The Hard Lessons of Connie Chung

Matthew Israel has been fielding questions from journalists since the 1970s, but few have examined his operation as thoroughly—and critically—as the producers at Eye to Eye with Connie Chung did. In 1993, they spent six months investigating the facility. They even found an employee willing to go inside with a hidden camera. But Israel ended up getting the last laugh. As he recounts the story for me, he can barely contain his glee. "We refused to meet with her unless the parents could be in the same room," he says, grinning. "She talked to the parents, and they really gave it to her." This is no exaggeration: When Chung tried to ask him tough questions, his parent-supporters shouted her down.

Throughout this raucous meeting, Israel had his own camera rolling, too, which turned out to be a brilliant move. Before cbs got its 40-minute story on the air, Israel launched a national campaign to discredit both Chung and her report. He accused her of being "biased" and "hostile," and to prove it, he distributed edited videotapes of her interview to media critics and cbs affiliates. It worked. A New York Times television critic savaged cbs, accusing it of using "shabby tricks of the trade." Suddenly the story was not about whether the school had abused students—but whether cbs had abused the school.

"I don't think it was a positive thing for her career," says Israel, still smiling. It's late in the day, right near the end of my visit, and I'm starting to wonder why he's brought up this topic.

By now I've spent 22 hours with Israel and his staff—wandering around the facility, meeting parents they've brought in for me to interview. But before I depart, there's one more place I want to see, the room where they repair the geds. Israel and Glenda Crookes, an assistant executive director, agree to take me there. It is just past 7 p.m. and drizzling as we climb into Israel's Lexus for a short drive to the maintenance building.

There, Crookes and Israel lead me down a hall, past storerooms filled with red helmets, ged sleds, batteries and their chargers. The room at the end of the hall looks like it could be a repair shop for any sort of electronics equipment: scissors, screwdrivers, industrial-grade glue, a Black & Decker Pivot Driver. On one desk, I spot a form called a ged Trouble Report. The report explains that someone dropped off Duane's shock device because it was "making rattling noises." Crookes explains, "Anytime a screw is loose or anything is wrong with the device, it's automatically sent back here."

A Trouble Report on another desk suggests a more serious problem: "Jamie Z was getting his battery changed, Luigi received a shock." "What does this mean?" I ask. Crookes picks up the paper, reads it, then hands it to Israel and walks away. Her gesture seems to say, I cannot believe we just spent two days with this reporter and now this is the last thing she sees.

Israel stares at the report, then reaches into his pocket and pulls out a pair of reading glasses. Nobody says anything. Outside, one car after another races by, the tail end of the evening commute.

After a minute or two, Israel says, "Well, I don't understand the whole of it." He is still staring at the paper in his hand. "But there was apparently a spontaneous activation." The ged, in other words, delivered a shock without anyone pressing its remote.

This moment reminds me of something Israel told me earlier about the premise of Skinner's Walden Two, that by changing people's behaviors you can help them have a better life. But, Israel was careful to add, "The notion was that you needed to have the whole environment under control. With a school like this, we have an awful lot. Not the whole environment, but an awful lot."

He was right; he controls nearly every aspect of his facility. But all of his surveillance cameras and microphones and paperwork and protocols had failed to protect Luigi, a mentally retarded resident who had done nothing wrong.

Queens boy still out of school

BY CARRIE MELAGO Monday, April 21st 2008, 4:00 AM

Dennis Rivera, 5, is still waiting to get back in the classroom.

He was handcuffed, hauled out of his kindergarten - and then left sitting home for months without any way to get an education.

Three months after a school safety agent ignited an uproar by shackling a 5-year-old Queens boy for throwing a tantrum in kindergarten, Dennis Rivera is still waiting for a seat at a new school.

"His education has basically been put on the back burner because what he needs, he's not receiving," said Dennis' mom, Jasmine Vasquez. "My son is falling behind."

After Dennis, now 6, was handcuffed and sent to a psych ward for misbehaving at Public School 81 in Ridgewood, his mother withdrew him from the school and had him evaluated for special education services. Then she waited. The family is still waiting for the city Education Department to get Dennis help.

When called by the Daily News, the Education Department said it had found an appropriate school for Dennis, but insisted it would take a few more days before it mailed the information to his parents. The officials said they must first notify Dennis' new school.

A spokeswoman said that under state law, the Education Department has 60 school days to find an appropriate special education placement after a case is opened. For Dennis, that period would end May 7.

That's not soon enough for Vasquez, who is concerned her son is missing out on much-needed physical, occupational and speech therapy.

Just days after the Jan. 17 handcuffing - which occurred after Dennis knocked items off a principal's desk - officials began creating an "individualized education program" for him to address his special needs.

His mom was excited after a Feb. 6 meeting with educators, who said they'd place her son in a smaller setting that could help him deal with his problems.

"Nothing has happened. It's been going on three months, and I haven't gotten anything in the mail. I haven't even gotten courtesy calls," she said.

A schools spokeswoman said the state provides the 60-day window because making a good match can be complicated.

"If a student needs a variety of services, we have to make sure the school can provide them," said Maibe Gonzalez-Fuentes. "A number of arrangements have to be made. It takes time."
Dennis has been attending a Head Start program at the Grand Street Settlement program in Brooklyn while waiting for a classroom seat.

"Unfortunately, we see far too many children who suffer from delays in placement. It's particularly sad in a case like this where the child has been through so much trauma," said Kim Sweet, executive director of Advocates for Children.

Parents Outraged Over Discovery at Buffalo School #67

Updated: March 13, 2008 06:40 PM EDT

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) - Parents wanted to give the school board an earful at Wednesday night's meeting about alleged sexual abuse of a student.

News 4's Alysha Palumbo reports parents had to just sit on their hands.

Parents outraged at the allegations of sexual abuse at School 67 took their concerns to the Buffalo School Board Wednesday night, but they weren't heard because the deadline to speak was Tuesday.

Concerned parent Mike Digiacomo said, "We were told that a public discussion would be available on April 9th. In my opinion, that is far too long."

News 4 has confirmed that a teacher at School 67 discovered the alleged abuse in November when a five-year-old autistic boy was taking a long time in the bathroom.

Buffalo Teachers Federation President Phil Rumore said, "She went in and saw, I think it was the teacher aide, holding the autistic boy's private parts."

Now four months later, parents got this letter from the school's principal, not saying what happened, but that it would be dealt with swiftly and severely.

Digiacomo said, "If it was due to be handled swiftly and severely, the alleged perpetrator should have been removed from the school immediately."

_________________________________________________________

Story by Alysha Palumbo, WIVB.

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) - - Parents and community members are furious that they've just found out about sexual abuse allegations at School 67, four months after the alleged incident happened.

Rev. Kinzer Pointer, former District-Parent Coordinator, "The reality that this has taken several months to get to this point scares the hell out of me."

News 4 has confirmed that a teacher at School 67 discovered the alleged abuse in November when a five-year-old autistic boy was taking a long time in the bathroom.

Phil Rumore, BTF President, "She went in and saw, I think it was the teacher aide, holding the autistic boy's private parts."

Now four months later, parents got this letter from the school's principal, not saying what happened, but that it would be dealt with swiftly and severely.

Mike DiGiacomo, concerned parent, "If it was due to be handled swiftly and and severely, the alleged perpetrator should have been removed from the school immediately."

Dawn Darling, parent, "I thought you were here to protect our children and obviously not."

Parents took their concerns to the Buffalo School Board tonight, but they weren't heard because the deadline to speak was Tuesday.

Mike DiGiacomo, concerned parent, "We were told that a public discussion would be available on April 9th, in my opinion that is far too long."

_________________________________________________________

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) - - Some Buffalo Public School parents are outraged by what allegedly took place in a bathroom at Discovery School 67 in South Buffalo.

Ed Bednarz, parent, "Cause I have kids. A 4 year-old and a 6 year-old. If indeed that's what's happening. It just makes you sick to your stomach."

News 4 has confirmed a teacher became concerned when a 5 year-old autistic child seemed to be in a bathroom little too long.

Phil Rumore, Buffalo Teachers Federation (BTF) President, "She went in and saw, I think it was the teacher aide, holding the autistic boy's private parts."

The alledged incident involving the aid took place in a bathroom in November, and now many parents are wondering why it took so long to come to light.

Dawn Darling, parent, "I'm furious. Furious. And you knew about this how many months ago?"

Almost 4 months later, parents are just now getting letters about the allegation.

Dawn Darling, parent, "I thought you were here to protect our children and obviously not."

BTF President Phil Rumore says the teacher reported what she saw right away to the principle, the teacher writes the adult was not suspended and charged with sexual abuse. Without another witness to support my statements and the abuser's denial of my charges, my allegations were labeled unfounded.

Phil Rumore, Buffalo Teachers Federation (BTF) President, "You don't touch a young boy's private parts."

Until a few days ago, the aide was in the same classroom with the teacher and the student.

Rumore wonders why, if the allegation had been made against a teacher.

Phil Rumore, Buffalo Teachers Federation (BTF) President, "That teacher would have been immediately sent home and put on administrative leave."

The Buffalo Police Department's sex offense squad is investigating and may turn over its findings to the District Attorney's Office in the next week or so.

There are questions about whether proper procedures were followed by the school. The school board may take up the matter Wednesday evening.

Boy with autism died 'while care workers brought drinks and shopping'

Boy with autism died 'while care workers brought drinks and shopping'

NISKAYUNA, New York State, USA: A 13-year-old boy with autism died on February 15 after police say two care workers for the disabled drove him around for 90 minutes - running errands, buying beverages and shopping - when he stopped breathing in their van.

The men, one of whom allegedly used an improper physical restraint on the boy, Jonathan Carey, were both charged with manslaughter.

Colonie Police said the workers did not seek or offer medical help during the drive on February 15. Instead, the employees of the O.D. Heck Developmental Center in Niskayuna allegedly stopped to buy beverages, then a computer game and then dropped the game off at one man's home.

Edwin Tirado, 35, of 1634 6th Ave., Schenectady, and Nadeem Mall, 32, of 9 Plaske Drive, Schenectady, reported the boy needed medical attention only once they had finally returned to the O.D. Heck Center where the child, who was also mentally retarded, lived, police said.

The child, identified by police as Jonathan Carey, had been with the Niskayuna centre since his parents moved him from a Dutchess County facility they believed had abused him.

We are devastated," sobbed Mike Carey as he and his wife, Lisa, waited for an plane to bring them home. "He was such a special human being."

The Glenmont couple was on a long-awaited vacation together, having left their younger son with friends. It was to be a respite from the constant advocacy for Jonathan.

"We can't believe it," they sobbed from the St. Thomas airport in the Virgin Islands. "We are in total shock."

The accused O.D. Heck employees are being held in Albany County jail without bail.

Police said Mall was driving a van to take Jonathan Carey and a 14-year-old client, whose identity has not been made public, from O.D. Heck to Crossgates Mall, Colonie Police Chief Steven Heider said in a news conference on February 16.

Along the drive, Mall stopped for cash from an ATM and when he returned to the van, according to Heider, Tirado had the boy in the illegal hold. "The two adults rendered no aid and they did not return to O.D. Heck for an hour and a half," Heider said.

Efforts were made to revive the boy at the centre, and he was taken to St. Claire's Hospital in Schenectady, where he was pronounced dead. Police cannot say the boy died in the van because a person is not ruled dead until pronounced so by a hospital or medical examiner, the chief said. An autopsy is set for today.

"The 13-year-old succumbed to what we're alleging were improper and wrongful holds placed on him," Heider said.

Niskayuna Police were called first, but their investigation indicated the boy had been suffocated while being driven around Colonie, he said. Police said the 14-year-old client is verbal and was able to give them a description of the events.

"The bottom line is the Niskayuna police and the first responders did a fantastic job here in being able to pick apart their story," said Albany County District Attorney David Soares. "You couldn't ask for anything better."

Soares said the case would be put to a grand jury for indictment as soon as results of the autopsy are received. Although current information supports the charges of manslaughter, Soares said, he would not rule out the possibility of increased charges.

"It's too early to tell," he said. "At this point in time, my thoughts are with the Carey family."

The state Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities, which oversees the centre, issued a statement on February 16 expressing sadness over the boy's death.

"Officials have been and will continue to work closely with law enforcement as they piece together what happened," the statement said, adding the agency provides "intensive staff training, monitoring and follow-up of any use of behavioural interventions and, given the current situation, these protocols will once again be reviewed."

Spokeswoman Deborah Sturm Rausch said she was not sure if she could find information about what Mall and Tirado's exact job titles were, or whether they had to be, or were, licensed.

Tirado, who had worked at the agency for six years, was the person restraining the boy but Mall had an equal responsibility for failing to provide or get medical assistance, Heider said. He declined to specify what hold was used but said the boy suffocated.

A woman answering the door with an infant at Mall's Schenectady home declined to comment. There was no answer when a reporter approached Tirado's home.

Since 2004, the Carey family has fought for legislation to force state agencies to disclose information they said could prove abuse of patients like their son. In October that year, Mike said he found Jonathan, then 11, naked, covered in bruises and lying in his own urine in the Anderson School in Dutchess County. The father had popped in unexpectedly to visit his son and took him home the same day.

The Careys said they never knew what their son endured because Jonathan was non-verbal and could not tell them himself. He was moved to O.D. Heck where the Careys said in December he was doing well.

The Careys described the fawn-haired boy with huge cerulean eyes as a good son who loved his father and mother. "He loved to watch Jesus films," Mike said softly. "He loved people and wanted to be around people. He loved horses. There was just so much love in his heart."

Jonathan was a regular visitor of the New Horizons stable on Pearse Road. When he was riding horses, Jonathan seemed happy, his parents said.

The Careys sued Anderson School in 2005, in state Supreme Court in Albany, claiming the institution and its staff violated Jonathan's right to safety and nourishment.

In December, Mike Carey said, "No parent or guardian should ever have to go through what Lisa and I have had to endure just to get answers. We would have been arrested if what happened to Jonathan had happened at home."

Since then, the couple has fought to get sealed records opened that they believe could reveal who had physically abused the boy as well as who knew it but did nothing to prevent it or report it. He said he hoped his son's death would enable the family to get the law changed.

"This is what we had been concerned about, what we have been fighting for," Mike said, of his son's death. "We really felt compelled, like a God-given responsibility, to help other children, to get changes and reform to help prevent something like this from happening."

Jonathan's death is prompting county lawmakers to renew calls for the passage of Jonathan's Law. The Rensselaer County Legislature is now calling on state lawmakers to take action and pass the Bill. If it passes, the law would give parents the right to access their children's records. Right now, that information cannot be released and acts of abuse can be concealed from families.

Jonathan's family has been trying to get a law passed since 2004, after they said their son was being mistreated at a Dutchess County facility.

(Source: Albany Times Union, February 17, 2007)