Posted on 12/20/2007 6:36:32 AM PST by laotzu
BOSTON State officials are investigating complaints that at least two teenagers were given electric shock treatments at a residential center for people with special needs because someone telephoned fake orders to the staff.
Initial investigations showed that a former student at the Judge Rotenberg Education Center called in the orders on Aug. 26, Cindy Campbell, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Early Education and Care, said Monday. Center officials reported the incident the following day, she said.
"There is still an ongoing criminal investigation," said the school's senior counsel, Ernest Corrigan. "We are working very closely with investigators."
The state's Disabled Persons Protection Committee is investigating a complaint that a third resident of the center an adult also received unnecessary shock treatments after the call, said Nancy Alterio, the committee's executive director.
The complaints have been referred to the state police and the Norfolk District Attorney's Office, Alterio said.
The school treats people with a wide variety of behavior problems, including autistic-like students who have aggressive, self-injurious or destructive behaviors and high-functioning students with psychiatric or emotional problems, according to a description on its Web site.
The Department of Early Education and Care said the call allegedly came from someone claiming to be on the staff of Dr. Matthew Israel, the psychologist who founded the school.
Campbell said the school has submitted a corrective action plan that her agency is reviewing.
The center is believed to be the only school in the nation that uses two-second skin-shock punishments to change destructive behavior. The center said Monday the treatments are used in a minority of cases as part of overall therapy for "very deeply emotionally disturbed young adults."
The procedures are applied "only after obtaining prior parental, medical, psychiatric, human rights, peer review and individual approval from a Massachusetts Probate Court," Corrigan said.
The center has survived two attempts by the state to close it over allegations that its unorthodox methods amount to abuse.
The last sentence in the article gives the impression that they are politically connected or that they are operated by a protected “minority” group.
Uh, Amanda Huggenkiss? Hey, I'm looking for Amanda Huggenkiss! Ah, why can't I find Amanda Huggenkiss?
“very deeply emotionally disturbed young adults.”
Oh, teenagers.
I am.........shocked............
Good guess; it was actually Strange Brew: "Hey, what about my turn, eh? You hoser! Take off, eh; you didn't let me have my turn, eh."
pretty re-volting, ehhhh.........
I’m sure they have AMPle evidence.......
They still give shock treatment in this day and age?
Sounds as though the hospitals need to establish an authentication protocol to veryify the authenticity of such phone calls.
watt was that?
More true than you think. Ken Kesey worked at an asylum when he discovered "therapeutic" LSD and voluntarily had himself hooked up for shock treatment. From it he wrote One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. He wrote another novel and lived off the receipts from the first. He then threw larger and larger acid parties (which eventually culminated in the Acid Tests) and then traveled across the US in 1964 to meet with the east coast proponents of LSD use (i.e. Leary) and filmed his travel.
Ted Kennedy isn’t outraged. At least it isn’t waterboarding.
I’ll bet they break down the perp’s resistance sooner or later and put a cap on this kind of prank......
Al Cuholic! Is there an Al Cuholic here?
that should de-fuse the situation...
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