The Echo

My comments follow!
From the Philadelphia Daily News:

Posted on Fri, Feb. 26, 2010

A 'routine investigation' of a shocking treatment
Associated Press

BOSTON - The U.S. Justice Department has begun a review of whether the use of electric-shock therapy by a Massachusetts special-needs school violates the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The Canton-based Judge Rotenberg Educational Center uses the treatment, known as aversive therapy, as a way to control aggressive behavior and to prevent severely autistic students from injuring themselves or others. The privately operated, residential school administers the shocks in 2-second intervals.

In a Feb. 18 letter, the Justice Department refers to the review as a "routine investigation.
Nancy Weiss, director of the National Leadership Consortium on Developmental Disabilities, based at the University of Delaware, wrote to the Justice Department in September, asking that action be taken to end the electric shocks. The letter was signed by 30 other advocacy groups.

Weiss said she hoped the federal scrutiny would ultimately lead to the closing of the 38-year-old school. The school receives public funds for some students and accepts students from several states. In 2007, it had about 230 students.

"If you tell this to the average person on the street, people are horrified and they can't believe this can possibly be legal and going on in this day and age," Weiss said.

Michael Flammia, an attorney who represents the center, said there was nothing at the school that would violate the Americans with Disabilities Act.

"The pain created by the skin- shock devices is far less than the severe injury, in some cases the permanent injury, that the kids are doing to themselves," he said.

Some states have banned or severely restricted the use of electric shocks in mental-health treatment. Besides Massachusetts, the states of California, Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, and the District of Columbia permit students to be referred to the Judge Rotenberg Center.

In their September letter to the Justice Department, critics said that students sometimes receive disciplinary shocks for behavior as minor as stopping work, getting out of their seats without permission, or interrupting others.

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My Take (as both a human being and the parent of a special needs child):

The Judge Rotenberg Educational Center includes on a their website "21 reasons parents place their child at JRC." 

The list includes taking children off their psychotropic meds, a zero- rejection policy, high level of communication, anytime parent visits, computerized behavior charting system, a zero-referral to police policy for discipline infractions, and a powerful and varied reward system. 

Does "powerful = voltage"?  The Kicker:  JRC contends they are fully IDEA compliant! 

Absolutely disgusting.  Federal funds and Delaware recommends children to JRC!

Thanks Nancy Weiss from UD for leading the charge against such abominable practices!!!