Charlie on the Hudson
May 25, 2008 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
We were walking down the West Side Highway in Manhattan on Saturday when Charlie started running and laughing. Jim and I saw that we were nearing the shed where you can take out a kayak into the Hudson River—-we had passed the shed back in April and met a retired longshoreman who’d noted how he likes to be near the water, and exchanged stories of the waterfront and Cockeye Dunn, a New York mobster who’s one of the characters in the book about the port of New York and New Jersey and the Waterfront priest that Jim is very, very close to finishing.
“Want a kayak ride?” asked Jim.
“Yes!” said Charlie. He paced back and forth pier 96 with the river splashing below him as Jim filled out some forms and I coaxed Charlie to put on a life vest. “No vest,” said Charlie and the straps got all twisted up. A volunteer appeared and matter-of-factly rearranged the vest around Charlie and pulled the straps tight, and then Charlie proceeded down the ramp where Jim was standing by a kayak. Charlie was sounding anxious as he stepped onto the boat and then he and Jim were heading out towards Jersey on the Hudson, Charlie sitting in front of Jim as he paddled.
“Are you sure they shouldn’t be in a two-seater?” a woman whose voice said she was in charge said to the man who’d helped Jim and Charlie onto the canoe. “I wouldn’t put that kid in a two-seater,” was the response. The woman pointed out that she thought it would be kind of hard for Jim to paddle as he and Charlie were sitting in a space meant for one person. The man just shook his head.
“He’s very nervous,” the woman observed to me (Charlie’s verbalizing could clearly be heard).
“Yeah, it’s something new.” I started to mention autism whereupon the woman said,
“I don’t like to put labels on anyone. He’s nervous.” She paused and added, “My nephew has Asperger’s.”
“How old is he?” I asked.
“Eleven,” she said, and went to work on one of the kayaks.
From having seen Jim teach Charlie to ride bikes on busy streets, to stop at intersections, and to walk the bike up steep hills, I figured that Jim would manage fine. I could see Charlie leaning back on Jim and sensed the smile pulling on the corners of his mouth, and Jim paddling regularly. It was windy and the water was active: Charlie for sure likes to be near the water, and here he was afloat on it, out on the Hudson. When they got back to the pier, Charlie ran up the step and to the top of the ramp, every part of his body seeming to tingle with joy. We started walking again at a fast pace towards the New York Waterways ferry slip on 38th street, Jim and Charlie with half-wet pants.
The kayak ride on the Hudson made it a day when we traveled by car, by train and subway and PATH train (to get into NYC from Jersey), and on foot up 8th Avenue to Columbus Circle. Ok, I didn’t get in the kayak (someone has to take the photos) but we all did ride a ferry to Hoboken and then walked on the other side of the Hudson to Washington Street and a restaurant where Charlie got a very nice hamburger and French fries, and lots of ketchup.
Then, as we stood in the hot a stuffy PATH station in Hoboken, the loudspeaker blared that trains betwee 33rd Street and Journal Square in Jersey City would be delayed by some 10 minutes “due to signal problems.” Consequently, we missed our train out of Newark and had to sit in the waiting room for almost an hour. I got Charlie and Jim sodas and we sat across from a man in a navy blue uniform and work shoes who was eating large bits of sandwich from a bag and reading the newspaper, and an older woman with a wool hat pulled far over her head and three lumpy-stuffed bags around her. Charlie was glad to be sitting and sipped his Sprite and looked around.
I was able to read some of a book, Families of Adults with Autism: Stories and Advice for the Next Generation. It’s just out from Jessica Kingsley Publishers, which publishes many books about autism, and is edited by Jane Johnson (the director of Defeat Autism Now! (DAN!) and Anne Van Rensselaer. The book was originally envisioned by the late Dr. Bernard Rimland and Stephen M. Edelson, Ph.D.. It’s mostly a collection of stories by parents of autistic adults (many are 40-50 years old) and a few by siblings. Rimland’s daughter, Helen Landalf, writes about growing up with her brother Mark; the contributions I liked best are by Clara Claiborne Park (who has written two books about her daughter, Jessy) and Audrey Flack (who is profiled in the film, Refrigerator Mothers). Some of the stories have some painful stuff in them—sexual abuse, self-injurious behavior (some families used “skin-stimulus therapy” of the sort used by the Judge Rotenberg Center), group homes where an autistic person’s dearest possessions (a deceased parent’s shirt) all disappeared. I got a sense of many fewer options than are available to autistic individuals today, and of parents being very much on their own not only to get therapies but to figure out what to do.
And I closed the book and rubbed Charlie’s back, up and down his spine, deep enough. We’ve traveled far with Charlie and I know we’re still at the beginning of a long, long road, in a world that is not at all sure of what his place in it should be.
But we do know how Charlie likes, loves, needs to be near the water, and how it was he himself who ran ahead of us on Saturday afternoon, to show us where to go.
JRC Records Seized by State Police
May 17, 2008 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
This past Thursday in Virginia, a 24 year old autistic man was tazered by James City County police after he was to “become unruly with employees at Wilsons Leather at the Prime Outlets-Williamsburg shopping mall,” according to the Daily Press. It was only after the man was placed under arrest and charged with trespassing and resisting arrest that police learned that he had Asperger’s Syndrome.
Needless to say, incidents like these make training about autism for police and other first responders more than essential. The Daily Press quotes a James City Police spokesman, Mike Spearsman, as saying that the 24-year-old man was “‘rather large’”—-these are words that strike home with me more and more.
Almost every day someone comments to me that Charlie is “so big” or says “he’s taller than you!”. The words are meant kindly but, in practical terms, Charlie’s height and size (he’s the biggest in his class but the youngest in age), combined with his limited speech and communication skills (especially to strangers, especially when he’s under duress), can make people who don’t know him uneasy, even when he’s simply sitting on the subway and does not respond quickly enough when someone asks him to move over. It’s been some time since Charlie got very, very upset in public; it helps that we work a lot on teaching him to manage his anxiety and how he responds to it.
In the past, when Charlie got very upset and aggressed—not out of wanting, I have to emphasize, to hurt anyone, but because that was the response of his body under extreme stress, a kind of “fight or flight” response—personnel at a previous school placement had been instructed to use physical restraints to stop the behavior. What usually happened was that Charlie struggled more (especially when a basket hold was used) and things escalated. And, Charlie started to make it clear that he did not want to go to school: There were many occurrences of those types of physical struggles, phone calls from nurses and principals, bruises and tears. (At one point, Charlie threw his shoes out of the car window as I drove him to school—-a pretty clear message.)
That was a few schools and households ago and Charlie’s had his best school year ever. His teachers and therapists are trained in crisis management procedures and it always seems that the tallest aide (a guy) is assigned to Charlie, but it’s very, very rare that any sort of physical force has to be applied. Careful and highly structured teaching and carefully training, highly motivated staff have made all the difference for Charlie.
So it troubles me all the more to read about how often physical violence and force are used to “treat” or “discipline” autistic and disabled individuals. One of the most egregious examples is the use of “aversive therapy”—electric skin shock transmitted by a device called the Graduated Electronic Decelerator. A school in Canton, Massachusetts, the Judge Rotenburg Center (JRC), uses this highly controversial “therapy.”
Some parents swear that it has made all the difference in their children’s lives and theirs. Derrick Jeffries, who has Asperger Syndrome, and University of Delaware professor Nancy Weiss have started an online petition to call on the American Psychological Association to condemn the JRC’s shock therapy and other “aversive” treatments. In December of 2007, more questionable practices at the JRC were noted in an article by the Boston Globe. Back in January, a key legislative committee in Massachusetts considered a bill to decrease the use of shock treatment. A state investigation into the JRC was called after an August 2007 incident, in which a former JRC student made a prank phone call to administer shocks to two students. The May 15th Boston Globe reports that State Police were ordered to seize documents from the offices of the JRC related to that prank phone call:
The collection of evidence has to do with a yearlong grand jury investigation led by the office of Attorney General Martha Coakley, said Kenneth Mollins, a New York lawyer who has filed several lawsuits against the school and who said he spoke to a representative of Coakley’s office about the Rotenberg investigation. Mollins said he was told the grand jury is also examining possible financial improprieties by the school.
JRC officials say that they have issued “numerous safeguards” to prevent the August prank call from happening again:
The incident was caught on 24-hour surveillance tapes, which were shown to investigators last summer. The tapes were subsequently destroyed by school officials, even though investigators had instructed them to preserve the tapes.
After hearing about the destruction of the tapes, Senator Brian A. Joyce, a Democrat from Milton who has sought to ban shock therapy at the school, said he intended to ask the attorney general’s office to look into the matter.
More analysis at Club 166.
Charlie was able to tell me that he wanted out of his former school by throwing his shoes out the car window. But would a JRC student do, if they had minimal or no language or communication skills do?
JRC Staffer Charged with Rape, Assault and Battery
April 9, 2008 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
The Judge Rotenberg Center (JRC) in Canton, Massachusetts, has been called “[o]ne of the most controversial schools in the country” dues to its use of electric skin shock—aversive stimulation—”to treat children and adults with the most severe cases of autism and emotional and behavioral challenges” (from a February 2007 ABC News report). Some parents whose children have been at the JRC have defended the school on the grounds that the JRC’s aversion therapy has been the only way to stop their children’s violent and self-injurious behavior (see this December 2007 New York Times story).
I seriously question the JRC’s “treatment” methods. There have also been reports of serious lapses in administrative protocol and staff supervision at the JRC: Back in August, a former JRC student made a prank phone call to the JRC staff; the former student pretended to be a supervisor and directed a staff member to administer a number of shocks to two current students. A December 22nd Boston Globe article described other practices at the the JRC that suggest that the services and education it provides are in need of significant revision and improvement.
And now, on April 1, JRC staff member Elliston Livingstone, 24, of Providence R.I., was arrested on charges of rape and indecent assault and battery, the April 3rd Wicked Local Norton report (ABFH also has a report). Livingstone is accused of assaulting another staff member.
A staff member charged with assaulting another staff member? Who is taking care of the students, the children?
Massachusetts Considers Bill about Shock Treatment at the JRC
January 16, 2008 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
A key legislative committee in Massachusetts is weighing a bill to significantly decrease the use of electric shock in “aversive therapy” at the Judge Rotenberg School (JRC) in Canton, according to WWLP. Senator Brian Joyce says that the treatment is “barbaric” and that it should be limited to those who present a clear risk of injury to themselves or others. A state investigation into the JRC was called for after an incident last summer in which two former students telephoned in and ordered shocks on a student still at the center. Some parents have spoken in support of the school as “saving the life” of their children, some of whom have autism, mental retardation, and developmental disabilities. Other serious administrative lapses and questionable practices in the supervision of staff and the treatment of children at the school have also been found.
January 4th is Friday—-Responses to the NIMH’s Request for Information about Autism Research Priorities is Due
January 1, 2008 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
What better way to start the new year than making your voice heard to the NIMH with your suggestions in response to a Request for Information (RFI): Research Priorities for the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee Strategic Plan for Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD).
Please send responses to iacc@mail.nih.gov no later than January 4, 2008.
Keep in mind that research does not only refer to scientific studies on genetics, the environment, neuroscience, and the like: Research also refers to research about the delivery of services and treatments. Some commenters have pointed out, for instance, that there are already resources about the use of restraints and of seclusion: How, then, can more and (ideally) all school districts and centers and programs know about these resources, and have qualified professionals to train and supervise staff? Further: Aversion therapy that involves the use of electric shock is still used in this country at the Judge Rotenberg Center: What about research about the efficacy, or non-efficacy, of such a treatment? (which I personally have serious reason to question.)
For more information, read a condensed version of the NIMH’s RFI below; for the full version, go here.
On November 30th, the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee met and approved a process to develop a Strategic Plan for research on autism. Notes the NIMH’s Request for Information (RFI):
To identify research priorities for possible inclusion in the strategic plan for ASD research, the IACC will convene several scientific workshops in January 2008. The responses received through this RFI will be collated, summarized, and provided to workshop participants. The scientific workshops will be organized around four broad areas of ASD research:
* Treatment – includes ASD treatment, intervention, and services research that aim to reduce symptoms, promote development, and improve outcomes. This area includes the development and evaluation of medical, behavioral, educational, and complementary interventions for ASD. In addition, this area includes research studies that evaluate the effectiveness of treatments in real world settings, disparities in ASD treatment among specific subpopulations, practice patterns in ASD programs and services, and their cost-effectiveness.
* Diagnosis – is concerned with the accurate and valid description of ASD (phenotype) both at the individual and the population level. The public health impact of ASD can be better understood by such studies. In addition, this area concerns itself with the diversity of what constitutes ASD and the characteristics of the condition over the lifespan.
* Risk Factors – has to do with investigations of the factors that contribute to the risk of having an ASD in a given person or population. This includes genetic studies of clusters or sporadic occurrences of ASD, studies that focus on environmental factors, e.g., intrauterine events or exposure to toxins, which could lead to ASD, and the interaction between these factors that concentrate risk for ASD.
* Biology –studies the underlying biological processes that lead to developmental and medical problems associated with ASD. This includes research in the area of neurosciences but does not confine itself to neurosciences. Therefore, research on other organ systems, interactions between organ systems, and/or other disease processes are included in this area.
The development of the strategic plan is expected to take approximately six months and will include several additional opportunities for public input.
Information Requested
We are interested in receiving your input and ideas about what are high-priority questions and issues for advancing research on ASD. We ask for your constructive and specific suggestions in the following areas (please refer to the above descriptions for each area).
What topics or issues need to be addressed to advance research on the:
- Treatment of ASD?
- Diagnosis of ASD?
- Risk factors for ASD?
- Biology of ASD?
- Other areas of ASD research?
Responses
Please send responses to iacc@mail.nih.gov no later than January 4, 2008.
Please limit your response to two pages and mark it with this RFI identifier NOT-MH-08-103 in the subject line. The responses received through this RFI will be collated, summarized, and provided to scientific workshop participants in January 2008. Summarized results will also be made available to the public. Any proprietary information should be so marked. Respondents will receive an email confirmation acknowledging receipt of their response, but will not receive individualized feedback.
I read this statement to the IACC meeting on November 30th, and much of what I said is at the core of the response I’m now writing. In addition to a request for research on education and schools, I am including a request for research on how to train teachers and therapists to teach autistic children to best manage self-injurious and aggressive behavior: My son has struggled with both of these types of behaviors for the past few years and now rarely engages in them. There are strategies and training that teachers, therapists, and parents can learn to deal with these behaviors, and these methods can make a significant difference in the lives of autistic children.
A Christmas Story
December 25, 2007 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under HealthHoliday greetings several times over to all.
A note about what follows: This post, which references a New York Times article on the JRC, is not exactly, the most “Christmas-y” of posts—but it is ultimately more about light than darkness.
Midway through a Christmas Eve party, Charlie—-who had had his fill of nah mai fan (sticky rice), a bit of prime rib, and a can of ginger ale (shared with Jim)—-sat on a chair by the front door and started crying and keening. My parents sat with him, I saw with him, Jim pulled on his coat and took Charlie on a walk. Holidays mean a break from routine and numerous indulgences—no school, visits with relatives, traveling far from home, lots too eat, lots and lots of different faces to see and voices to hear—and I think it all got to Charlie at that moment. The walk in fresh air seemed to help and Charlie concluded the evening by singing “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” into a tape recorder: A relative who just graduated from college is in the Peace Corps in Ghana, and her mother asked us all to record a Christmas message.
Another guest had mentioned to me that she knew a family, twenty-five-something years ago, who had an autistic child, and that the child was institutionalized. I looked over at Charlie, humming some other tune under his breath and trying to sneak a cookie adorned in frosting and sprinkles, and thought that the one gift I’m too grateful for is that Charlie, with all his needs and challenges, is with us. He lives with us, goes places with us, he is one of us.
Three years ago, Charlie’s self-injurious behaviors—-head-banging—were so frequent that Jim and I were not sure what would happen to him. There was talk of helmets. I went to see schools where one child, clad in a dull t-shirt and gray sweats, was wearing a helmet, and various other kinds of “protective gear,” and was basically being contained in a small area by three staff members. The woman from the office who was giving me a tour brushed back tears as we left the room. At this point, windows had been broken (included the one on the front door) in our house, dents made in the walls that had become holes after Charlie picked at them (Jim and I dragged furniture in front of them after the taped-up cardboard was pulled off—yet another moment when I knew interior decorating in our house was for the birds). I always traveled with an extra change of clothes for Charlie in my bag.
I didn’t know what was going to happen, to Charlie; to us.
In piecemeal and in ragtag fashion, with a lot of ABA with therapists who sat with Charlie when he cried and said to me “he’s been through so much,” with teachers who sat with him and taught him to tell them “I need a break!” and, when Charlie was having trouble, told me about how they must not be doing something right—that they needed to change their teaching methods—Charlie learned not to hit his head.
There is still a bump there in the center of his forehead. A doctor told me that, due to how many times he had hit it, the bump is there permanently. Just the other night Charlie and I were looking at photos from last summer and one flashed by with him smiling, and a scab on his forehead. Over the past year, there have been fewer and fewer instances of head-banging; the potential for this behavior will remain, I suspect, but we feel emboldened, grateful, and stronger knowing that there are ways to teach Charlie.
I must emphasize the word “grateful.” I know it is Christmas and I feel odd to be writing about this particular not so very joyful topic. It is the truth and the reality that, for families with autistic children, difficult things can happen every day: “Vacation” is a relative thing in life raising an autistic child, and sometimes the holidays—when expectations are high for good times and relaxing—-are the very times when something tough can occur. Today’s New York Times has an article entitled Parents Defend School’s Use of Shock Therapy about the Massachusetts Judge Rotenberg Center (JRC). The JRC uses electric shock transmitted by a device called the Graduated Electronic Decelerator (see a picture here) in aversion therapy for students who have self-injurious and other “challenging” behaviors. The New York Times article quotes one parent, Susan Handon of Jamaica, Queens, whose 20-year-old daughter, Crystal, has been at the JRC for four years. When Crystal was first at the JRC, she received some 200 shocks a month; last month she received four.
…. for state officials, many behavior experts and even some former Rotenberg parents, the shock therapy at the school represents a dangerous, outdated approach to severe behavioral problems, reminiscent of the electric shock helmets used on some autistic patients into the 1980s and now discredited.
They say Rotenberg does not use shock punishments only for dangerous self-mutilation, but rather for a wide variety of actions, including shouting profanities and spitting, which are known to be effectively treated with less extreme punishments. And critics of the school say that unlike the more widely known electroconvulsive therapy, which has been used successfully in cases of severe depression and is being used experimentally on severely autistic people, applying shock as a punishment is not widely supported by the scientific community.
“People don’t use it anymore because they don’t need to. It is not the standard of care. There are alternative procedures that do not involve aversives like electronic shock,” said William Pelham, a behavioral specialist and director of the Center for Children and Families at the State University of New York at Buffalo. “And I am not talking about drugs as an alternative. I am talking about other behavioral treatments.”
Still, the parents say the shocks are making a difference in their children’s lives as nothing else has. In 2006, after New York issued an immediate ban on electric shock for behavior modification, Ms. Handon was among the parents of more than 40 children who sued and won a court injunction to keep treatments going.
Handon notes that, once her daughter is too old for special education, she hopes to “keep her at home for good”: “‘“She loves that place………If she knows she is returning from vacation on a Monday, on Saturday she will pack her bags and start begging to go.’” We have been fortunate that Charlie has learned other ways to communicate his frustration and needs and more in other ways besides head-banging; I hope that the JRC is also teaching Handon’s daughter Crystal other ways to deal with her own needs to communicate when she leaves the center. But I agree with William Pelham: There are “other behavioral treatments”—there are ways to teach—a child and they do not involve the use of shock treatment. The New York Times quotes the JRC’s lawyer, Michael P. Flammia, who speaks in the “rhetoric of the last resort”:
“People want to believe positive interventions work even in the most extreme cases……If they did, that is all we would use. Many of these kids come in on massive dosages of antipsychotic drugs, so doped up that they are almost comatose. We get them off drugs and give their parents something very important: hope.”
Maybe my son’s head-banging was not the “most extreme” of cases. But I can you assure that, the night Jim and I looked at the jagged glass left on the window Charlie had kicked out and Jim knocked out the bits with a hammer, and I donned gloves and dropped them into the garbage, I was not so sure what alternatives were left. Hope came, not from someone proffering electroshock treatment, but from Charlie himself, from Charlie struggling not to swing his head and to “calm down” when he got upset and to ask “I want to go for a walk!” when another child started to cry in a high-pitched tone. Yes, Mr. Flammia, there is hope. I would prefer that my school district, and my family, spend $228,000 (a year’s tuition at the JRC), to teach autistic children.
I know this is not, on the surface, the most “Christmas-y” of posts, full of Yuletide cheer and references to Old Saint Nick. But reading the New York Times article about the JRC, I’m reminded that I have the best gift one could have, a beautiful boy who shines a light that shows me where I need to go.
Derrick Jeffries, who has Asperger Syndrome, and University of Delaware professor Nancy Weiss have started an online petition to call on the American Psychological Association to condemn the JRC’s shock therapy and other “aversive” treatments. More than 250 individuals have signed the petition (you can read the petition and sign it by going here).
The JRC, a prank phone call, and 2 students get shocked
December 19, 2007 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under HealthMention what kind of “therapy” is done to treat students with autism, emotional/behavioral problems, and mental retardation at the Judge Rotenburg Center in Canton, MA—-aversion therapy that uses electric shock transmitted by a device called the Graduated Electronic Decelerator—-and most people will (at least) shudder and express their own shock that this kind of “treatment” goes on in the US, and that it is performed upon individuals with disabilities. As noted in the Examiner.com, Derrick Jeffries, who has Asperger Syndrome, and University of Delaware professor Nancy Weiss have started an online petition to call on the American Psychological Association to condemn the JRC’s shock therapy and other “aversive” treatments. More than 250 individuals have signed the petition (you can read the petition and sign it by going here).
Then I heard about this story from the December 18th Boston Globe: On August 26th, a former JRC student, posing as a supervisor, made prank phone calls that resulted in two students wrongfully receiving electric shocks:
School staffers contacted state authorities after they realized they had been tricked on Aug. 26 into delivering 77 shocks to one student and 29 shocks to another, according to Cindy Campbell, a spokeswoman for the Department of Early Education and Care, which drafted the report. Both students were part of a Rotenberg-run group home in Stoughton for males under age 22.
…….
Ernest Corrigan, a spokesman for the Rotenberg center, said the school contacted law enforcement “within hours” after discovering the prank, and that such an incident has never before happened at the school. Corrigan said they have instituted new safeguards to prevent such occurrences. He also said that while the school regrets the incident, the two male students who received the wrongful shocks did not experience any serious physical harm and did not need medical treatment afterwards.
The shock devices, which are strapped to some students’ arms, legs, or torsos, deliver two-second electric jolts to the skin. The devices are controlled remotely by teachers.
State officials said the identity of the prankster is known to law enforcement authorities, but they would not release his name publicly and he has not been arrested. The identity of the staffer who was fooled into administering the shocks has also not been released. State officials indicated that some disciplinary action took place, though they would not specify what it was.
So a JRC “supervisor” can just call to inform the staff to deliver shock treatments on the students?
While, as the Boston Globe notes, the JRC’s “defenders say that the school takes in troubled students, some with self-damaging behavior, who have been rejected by other schools, there is just too much that is beyond troubling here. I do not understand how the JRC can be called a “school,” a place of learning. What kind of supervision or policies or administration is going on, or not, at the JRC?
I can say this about aversive “therapy” that involves the delivering of shocks: Yes, it is cruel.
The Key of G: new PBS documentary
November 5, 2007 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health21-year-old Devon Carmans has an apartment of his own in the federally subsidized ABC Apartments on Corte Arango in El Sobrante, California; he has a roommate and a regular support staff. Gannet is 22 years old and has physical and developmental disabilities; in the film The Key of G he moves out of his mother’s apartment and into a new living arrangement:
……he leaves his mother’s home to share an apartment with a close-knit group of artists and musicians who support him, not only as paid caregivers, but also as friends. Together they create a uniquely successful model of supported living, and a compelling alternative to institutionalized care.
You can watch a trailer of The Key of G at the Newsday reports that some 162 new residential beds for the “severely disabled” will be added at five sites on Long Island. It is hoped that students who had been housed at out-of-state centers—-including the Judge Rotenberg Center in Canton, Massachusetts—-can be brought back to New York State, and nearer to their families.
ECT and Autism
October 24, 2007 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under HealthThis is not a reference to the Judge Rotenberg Center (JRC), the school in Canton, Massachusetts, which uses electroshock to “address” its students’ challenging behaviors. (To see a letter to the American Psychological Association about the JRC’s use of “aversive stimulation,” go to Disabled SoapBox.)
I mentioned electroconvulsive therapy in the context of an event at the New York Academy of Sciences. It is entitled The History of Convulsive Therapy from Depression to Autism: Past Uses, Future Possibilities and here is some information:
This special event, co-sponsored by the New York Academy of Medicine’s Section on the History of Medicine and Public Health and the Academy’s Section on Psychiatry, celebrates the publication of Shock Therapy: The History of Electroconvulsive Treatment in Mental Illness (Rutgers University Press), by Edward Shorter and David Healy, the first full-length history of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT).
A panel comprising historians, journalists, and clinicians, will address not only ECT’s history, but its future applications, especially as a treatment for autism.
Speakers include Dr. Healy, Hannah Professor of the History of Medicine, and Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto, and Lee Wachtel, MD, Medical Director and an attending child psychiatrist of the Neurobehavioral Unit at the Kennedy Krieger Institute, Johns Hopkins University.
Yes, It is Cruel
August 15, 2007 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under HealthAn article in today’s NineMSN (Australia) about electroshock treatment used for autistic children at the Judge Rotenberg Center (JRC) in Canton, Massacusetts, asks whether it is “cruel or effective?”
I’m not going to dignify that question with a response.
Here are some previous Autism Vox posts on the JRC:
- What’s really shocking about the JRC
- Yes, it is shocking: More on the Judge Rotenburg Center’s use of electric shock
- Disability Rights are Human Rights: The Rotenburg Center and Torture
- Aversive Stimulation, Improper Behavior, and the JRC
- Shock “therapy” ruled illegal at Illinois group home
- A ‘Temporary Painful Experience’?
