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Skin-shock therapies
continue at JRC in spite
of controversy
(October
2006 Issue)
By Jennifer Chase Esposito
A Massachusetts school that uses behavioral skin shocks to help
treat students with severe psychological and behavioral problems
was under investigation in June after some 22 complaints were filed,
alleging that the two-second, bee-sting-like electric shocks were
burning students' skin.
The Judge Rotenberg Center (JRC) in Canton, Mass., has been an
oasis of care and often a last resort for parents and families of
severely autistic and otherwise special needs students who have
not responded adequately to medications.
Founded in 1971 by Executive Director Matthew L. Israel and the
only center in New England to use behavioral skin-shock therapy,
JRC's methods treat self-abuse, aggression and major disruptive
behaviors when what Israel calls "positive-only programming" fails.
"It is used to change behaviors in order to save, extend and enrich
students' lives to help turn them around, to give them hope for
their own future and to enable them to once again become part of,
and enjoy the love of, their family," says Israel.
But some didn't see it that way. The complaints - some of which
were the same complaint that, because it listed several students,
was treated as a multiple complaint - led to the New York Board
of Regents vote to curb the use of skin shocks and other aversive
methods for treatment at JRC and placed a set of restrictions and
regulations that would forbid the use of skin shocks to treat behaviors
other than self-abuse and aggression and forbid the use of an aversive
while a student was restrained.
These restrictions would apply to the 123 New York school-age students
and the 24 adult clients who are treated by the center.
Nearly half of JRC's students are New York residents.
As a result of the complaints and to counter the restrictions,
says Israel, a federal court in N.Y. on Sept. 8 issued a restraining
order, requested by 45 parent plaintiffs as well as by JRC, forbidding
the N.Y. State Education Department (NYSED) from enforcing both
of those restrictions with respect to the children of those 45 parents,
"providing that the use of aversives is in the child's IEP and provided
that JRC has obtained a court order from a Massachusetts probate
court, authorizing the use of the aversives for that child." In
cases of 44 of the parent plaintiffs, those two conditions have
been met.
According to a Boston Globe article, only nine complaints had been
filed in JRC's previous six years, a number verified by Israel.
According to Israel, the behavioral skin-shock device, which causes
a sensation that's been compared to a bee sting, JRC uses does not
cause burns, but in a handful of students, it has left marks on
the skin - a known, possible side effect described to parents in
the permission forms JRC requires them to sign before skin-shock
therapy can be administered. A physician and psychiatrist also sign
contraindication forms for every student who receives the skin shocks,
acknowledging that there are no reasons why students should not
receive the therapy.
None of the complaints filed against JRC have been proven. But
their filing prompted some changes in practice at the center, at
least for a while.
Israel says that between June 23, when the new NYSED regulations
took effect, and Sept. 8, when the temporary restraining order was
granted by the federal court, JRC abided by the restrictions that
were imposed for all students who were school-age and from New York.
But the result, he says, was that 80 percent of those students
suffered significant regression in their education and treatment.
"We are optimistic that the court injunction and our resulting ability
to treat destructive, major disruptive and non-compliant behaviors
will cause a significant improvement in their education and treatment."
Asked if anything else had changed at the school, Israel said,
"We have had to spend time in defending our program that would be
better spent on improving our program."
Israel believes JRC incurred more complaints than normal this year
because of the Massachusetts bill banning aversives that passed
the Senate because of what Israel called a last-minute tactic that
added it on to the state's budget bill. Since 1986, Massachusetts
has attempted to enact legislation each year that would ban skin-shock
therapy, he says. None has passed.
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