After eight years of suppression by the perps, a video of an autistic student being tortured in the name of "treatment" has finally been released. It's graphic, so be careful, especially if you have PTSD about abuse. Coincidentally, in unrelated news, a disabled child has just died after being "restrained" by having staff pile on top of him, essentially crushing him. I'm extremely upset by this and will mostly just let the video and article speak for themselves. By the way, the video is from Fox, and their coverage of autism has been pretty good -- maybe the only good thing they've ever done, but hey, credit where it's due.
Kids and all people with autism live under tremendous stress. Just being in their bodies in this frequently chaotic, loud and violent world can be an intense and terrifying experience. It naturally follows that the single most important thing to do in a moment of conflict -- a tantrum, refusal to budge, violent outburst, self-injury, anything like that -- is to DE-ESCALATE. Be gentler, quieter, less demanding, etc., until the crisis passes.
More, including the long-suppressed video and a link to the unrelated recent death of a child, below the fold.
De-escalation flies in the face of what a lot of people do in a conflict, whether reflexively (by getting mad) or by design. Police are trained to take control of a situation by commanding people who are detained to comply with various instructions. People with autism often cannot comply, especially in high-stress situations, and to their credit a lot of police departments have instituted autism training programs.
One place where the wisdom of de-escalation has not taken hold -- incredibly -- is in certain schools especially for kids with autism. Some of them use intensely painful "aversives", including electric shocks. One such school is the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center in Massachusetts. Obviously, "aversive" is a euphemism for "torture" here. But because autistic people are systematically devalued in society (gay is the new black; disabled is the new gay), abusive practices continue.
Children have died from abusive practices in the name of education and treatment, but the child featured in this video did not die. He did experience unbearable pain and suffering by being shocked 31 times. Plenty of people have voluntarily tried them, and these are strong, extremely painful shocks, not little joy buzzer zaps. Video:
Notice how they command the student to take off his jacket, and then instead of just helping him they shock him! Notice how the tool of a lawyer retained by the "school" defended the torture by pointing out that the plan that was "in place" for the student was followed. That's just great. It actually makes it worse, doesn't it, that this was premeditated and approved by educators and psychologists? (Fucking hardcore behaviorists.)
The horrors described above occurred eight years ago, but the Rotten-berg Center is still up and running, torturing the most vulnerable people every day. And kids are still suffering and even dying. The problem is not limited to so-called aversives: kids are restrained (sometimes in intolerably painful and terrifying ways) and secluded in dangerous, scary environments. Restraints, seclusion and aversives are the triad upon which rest some of the most shameful, barbaric practices of our time.
In unrelated, breaking news, a child in Yonkers, New York (at a different school than Rotten-berg) died yesterday from cardiac arrest after being restrained at school. Police arrived at the scene. Details are still sketchy and it's not clear whether the school, the police, or both were responsible for the fatal restraint.
* Cops: Boy, 16, dies in Yonkers after being placed in restraints
* 'I can't breathe,' boy shouts after staffers piled onto him, witness says
Restraints, seclusion and aversives: the unholy trinity of abuse that must go.
De-escalation: a gentle, common-sense antidote to abuse and trauma.
Please ingrain these like a mantra and remember them whenever you see a disabled (especially autistic or otherwise cognitively disabled) person in trouble, or when disability rights is a topic of conversation.