The Timeout Box (3): The elevator closet
August 14, 2006 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
According to today’s Newsday, a 9-year-old autistic boy, Matthew Grogan, was put in “time out” in an elevator closet for hours while attending a special education class at Seaford Harbor Elementary in Long Island, NY.
Matthew Grogan and his parents described this morning the fear the boy felt inside the 8-feet by 8-feet room, which serves as a vestibule to the building’s elevator. “I was very, very scared,” said Matthew, who has problems with social interaction. “I was trying to get the door open.”
The Grogan say that the school district never informed them that Matthew would be sent to the elevator closet and “only heard about it when one day the boy screamed and begged not to be put there again when his parents sent him to his bedroom.”
Go here to read about my earlier post on the use of a timeout box in a school district in Olympia, Washington.
