Special education law advocate Wrightslaw posts about the handcuffing of a North Carolina middle-school student. Over at my friend Liz Ditz’s I Speak of Dreams blog is a post about crisis prevention training “to help professionals—those who have occasional workplace encounters with people on the autism spectrum—interact safely, effectively, and respectfully,” via the Crisis Prevention Institute.
Physical restraint can seem like “the only way” and a “last resort” but I think we need to focus on teaching autistic kids in ways appropriate to their needs and training and supporting teachers and staff, so things just never get to the point of …read more

Yes, another autistic child gets handcuffed and, as reported by WSMV (Nashville) today, put into the back seat of a police car. 10-year-old Heath Burk had “acted up at school”:
Felicia Burk adopted Heath and his sister Scarlett two years ago. Both of them have autism. She said Heath can get out of control, but he isn’t supposed to be restrained, as that only makes him act worse. Tuesday when he acted up, the Murfreesboro City school called the police.
“I didn’t like it,” said Heath of the hand-cuffing.
“The special-ed supervisor told me he was in a police car because I had …read more

From an ABC News report today about autistic children being handcuffed in a public school in North Carolina:
According to the complaint, one parent of a child attending the school reported that her son had allegedly been handcuffed around his ankles to prevent him from kicking during a temper tantrum, said John Rittelmeyer, a lawyer who represents the DRNC, and another parent claimed his son had bruised arms from teachers grabbing him.
One parent said the school had a “WWF room” — a reference to the former World Wrestling Federation — in which students were encouraged to wrestle with one another, according …read more

Handcuffs? The “WWF room”—a vacant classroom, “used to encourage students to wrestle with one another and teaching assistants to release aggression”?
As reported in WRAL today, these were methods used to improperly restrain autistic children in the Wake County School District in North Carolina. This morning, Disability Rights North Carolina, a disability rights groups, filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court against the Wake County Board of Education.
Here’s more about restraints and about timeout rooms. And handcuffs.
Small wonder that parents and school districts become adversaries.

A certain TV show about a certain lawyer and a certain hypothesis about what causes autism dominated autism discussions this week, for better or for worse—-when I talk about autism, I’m thinking of a very real boy, my son Charlie, and not so much about a fictional TV character. My real boy’s week was more of a struggle than has been usual. And then, this evening as we stood in the checkout line at the grocery store, a teenage clerk in the next aisle said “his tooth’s on the floor!” and sure enough, there was Charlie bending over to pick …read more

11-year-old Gunnar Moody was handcuffed by school police because he would not leave a P.E. class at Bret Harte Middle School. As reported yesterday by NBC11.com, Gunnar said that he was singing while doing sit-ups and handcuffed and dragged out when he did not respond to requests to leave.   

Gunnar’s parents said what happened at Bret Harte Middle School is unacceptable. ”The bottom line he’s in phys ed. And all the kids are making noise yelling, screaming and talking and he gets singled out for going ‘la-la-la?’” Michael Moody, Gunnar’s father, said.

His mother, Laura Moody, asked a campus police officer if …read more