They probaly should get Ceasar Milano in that place to teach how to handle dogs. They already have the leashes. Ohhh. Maybe not. I think that would be against the LAW. ANIMAL ABUSE. Lemme see. Dem drugs didn't work like the drug companies hoped. At least they got some free trials. Hey. Maybe we can do what they used to do. Yeah, that's it. Look at the behavior modifications. Wow. We're really smart. Then we can all pray to Jesus for the kids to be better HUMANS. May they all suffer similar fates!

I tried to be objective reading the story as I understand what it is like to deal with violent patients. Yet I cannot understand how shocking someone 5000 times in one day is not criminal assault.Also what does it take before it is recognized something, or a technique is not working. I find the story frightening from the fact that this extreme form of behavior modification is allowed. I have to wonder if allowed what addtional steps would be taken to correct a behavior.

they used to treat depression with shock therapy, who says throwbacks can't happen monkeys? Sounds like hell, glad my meds work

are WE shocked? we shouldn't be... its not as if the information isn't OUT THERE... the fact is... if we KNEW a couple who stuffed their kids into this "care"... how many of us would 'get their hands dirty' to help? worse yet, how many of us are *actively involved* in children in our neighbourhoods? with litigous parents, territorial 'professionals', domineering "I have ONE kid, an All-Terrain Carriage & I'm a Misunderstood GODDESS"-Preppy Mothers, & the general suspicions that ANY adult who wishes to even TALK to kids is a pedophile... who of us isn't too AFRAID of the old adage, "no Good Deed goes unpunished..." our VILLAGES' children are being taught by television & marketing... & little else as our communities become more & more 'privatized'... ...& we all suffer, not *just* the most vulnerable... Spread Love... ... but wear the Glove! BlueBerry Pick'n can be found @ ThisCanadian DOT com "Silent Freedom is Freedom Silenced"

I find it distressing that children with RAD (as the two foster kids mentioned) can be subjected to this. That is the very last treatment a RAD child should receive.

Is the Bush administration running this place?! Sure sound like it. Torture the children to SAVE the children! What will Christians think of next!? Oh! I know, Water Boarding!

I've seen nothing here that excuses using horrible practices such as those described to change behavior.

Matt Israel must have lost his abililty to learn anything new, and so these barbaric practices continue. Parents are being tricked into turning their loved ones over to torture. We need to do a much better job of providing sound alternatives so they are not vulnerable to being driven to this horrid "treatment".

If this place was a facility on Bribie Island, Queensland, these people would be facing court on charges of torture, deprivation of liberty and assault.Similar charges are currently before the Brisbane courts.

What is even more amazing, is that Skinner's theories/techniques are simply accepted without question, yet he stacked the deck by starving his rats first. It looks like Israel watched the first half of A Clockwork Orange before shocking the Palestinians--oh. Wrong Israel. I mean children. Parents: not interested in caring for their children, interested in a nice life without upset and great convenience. Watch out for blowback.

should have shot him. he is still a phsyco, loser .

These inmates have no rights, and their families have been sadly mislead to think this is "treatment". For this treatment to be successful, their wills and spirits must be broken. The more intelligent they are, and the more healthy their sense of self-preservation is when they begin treatment, the more severe their "treatment" will be. Tragic!

I don't understand how this is legal? What happened to cruel and unusual punishment? What laws could possibly protect this torture chamber? Don't they have protesters pacing back and forth outside their doors? If not, why the hell not? Pray to God this place is closed down and every employee has a Judgement Day that no one could fathom. What can we do outside of the state of Mass? I live in IL. I want to close this school. How can I help do that?

I worked at BRI back in 1994 when it had 68 students. I won't say exactly what I did because it would identify me quite closely as the staff was small then. I was in and out of the classrooms and observed the staff and clients. We did not call them "kids" because most were adult age. I saw newly arrived clients in strait jackets and helmet throwing themselves around the room into walls, and beating their heads. One women, if I recall correctly, was blind because she had scratched out her own eye. More than a few clients would eat anything, even inedible objects incompatible with life. So many of the clients had scars from self-injury. Horrific facial scars were common. ALL the clients were profoundly disturbed and/or autistic and/or severely mentally disabled. All had been violent or severely self-injurious. It was terrifying. And despite that, BRI was no hall of horrors. It was a graceful former school, with high ceilings and beautiful woodwork. The clients were in good spirits. They smiled and some--the ones who could--interacted with each other and the staff. Hugs were readily given. The staff was friendly to me and to each other, despite the rigors of their daily labor. We did not socialize much, but that is because all our attention was on the clients. it had to be. Classroom staff were required to note every reward (yes, there were frequent rewards) and every adversive. Unlike your disgruntled former employees, we understood that this was both to monitor behavior modification and to prevent abuse. This was not a bunch of yahoo's shocking the feebs for fun. We were professionals. The behavior modification was conducted in a professional manner. During my time at BRI, I saw the shock used a few times times, never outside guidelines and always with compassion. Like most of the staff, I had been appalled at first. As part of my orientation, I was allowed to feel the electric shock they used--most staff took advantage of that opportunity. It felt exactly like what they described, a bee sting, except that it faded instantly after the requisite two seconds. I didn't feel any further pain. It was no worse than snapping a rubber band against your wrist--something I had done in college to stop biting my nails. I asked questions about the efficacy, the legality, and the protocol for using the shock during my new employee training. All my questions were answered. Everyone--the whole staff and parents--understood that this shock was a terrible thing, but what it prevented was FAR worse. We had clients who had beaten themselves to pulps, scratched themselves bloody until they needed skin grafts. Those same clients were functioning relatively normally, learning what they could learn, but able to interact with parents and staff without the severely violent and self-injurious behavior. They were learning. Far from being the stultifying rote computer tasks, our students were using computers at the cutting edge of what was understood about severe autism. The idea was that severely autistic people have an impossible time interacting with other humans. Using computers gave clients the chance to learn without having the human interactions that was both distressing and overwhelming to them. The computer programs were successful for exactly what Jennifer Gonnerman decries: because there was no human interaction. Gonnerman has a basic disconnect--a lack of research, perhaps--into what drives the learning experience of the severely autistic. Otherwise, she would have known better than to make the criticisms she made. I also met some of the parents. Parents were frequent visitors at BRI. They were particularly cognizant of the what and why of their children's treatment and the necessity for it. One parent told me how her son had been thrown out of every institution there was who served kids like him, all 11, how BRI was their last chance. How BRI had given her son back to her because it stopped a litany of horrific violent and self-abusive behaviors. Another set of parents picked up their cheerleader pretty daughter to take her to lunch and to have her hair done commented that now they COULD, she was no longer self injuring. And I think I knew Brandon. I remember the day he graduated from high school (and left BRI, if I recall correctly). He was a short guy and thin, dark hair. He had the most horrible scars on every visible portion of his body, the kind you get from third degree burns and skin grafts. And I remember him saying that if it wasn't for BRI, he never could have graduated from high school, or even stood talking to the small group of people he was addressing in the main hall. It was a very emotional moment for this young man... and he wasn't itching himself bloody. He was the most capable of the high functioning clients. I knew other high functioning clients... the one who would run away all the time often into dangerous situations. The one who would drink any kind of alcohol (including isopropyl alcohol) which had put him in the hospital more than once. They lied, telling amazingly, creative stories that were completely false and easily proven false. Despite their obvious intelligence, and impressive story telling ability, these were severely disturbed individuals. I had to ask myself, was BRI so much worse than prison or the street? Because that's where these high functioning clients would be otherwise, being victimized by people far worse, far less professional and far less compassionate than the staff at BRI. The low functioning clients were a less difficult case. Their alternative was to slowly beat, scratch, and tantrum themselves to death. They had no lives before BRI and the pain of self-injury was incomparable. The shock was bad, but the alternative was far, far worse. If the shock was inhumane, it was far more inhumane to allow to happen what would have happened in the absence of the shock. This was the end of the road for most of these clients. There was simply nowhere else to go. I had to conclude, appalling and heart-wrenching though it was, that the shock worked when nothing else did. And it gave those clients their lives back. That was my experience at BRI. I worked there during (or slightly after, I forget the exact timing) the Connie Chung debacle. The staff understood very clearly that Chung had entered the school with a set idea in mind, nothing was going to change her mind, and she was going to do what we all referred to as a "hatchet-job." That she did. In the ensuing pullout of students by "horrified" parents, my job was eliminated and I was laid off. Nowadays, I am a journalist, and I understand the wrongness of what Connie Chung did all too well. She was not unbiased. She went in with the idea to prove a point--one that had no basis in reality--and when she could not prove that point, she edited the tapes to make it look like she was correct all along. She deserved to be shown up. What she did was of the greatest malfeasance. It went against everything that a journalist is supposed to do and be. I do not know what is currently happening at the Rotenberg Center, but I do know a hatchet job when I see one. I have always respected Mother Jones' investigative reporting. Mother Jones was one of few magazines that I actually trust in this age of political spin and Rovian lies. I am profoundly disturbed to read such a one-sided article--a hatchet job--in your pages. Apparently, though parents were interviewed, their stories were disregarded through the lens of "we know better." Only disgruntled former employees were interviewed. Would it have been so hard to find someone like me who didn't have an ax to grind? Would showing the other side of the story have been so detrimental to the underlying bias that it couldn't help but show and be debunked? It appalls me that Mother Jones did a less journalistically competent job than Law and Order in covering the Rotenburg Center. At least Law and Order showed the complexities of the treatment, the impossibility of the parents plight at the very end when the now desperate mother asks Jack McCoy if HE will care for her severely autistic son. Shame on you, Mother Jones.

Oh my God. I have lost all faith in humanity. I want to believe that we are good, but we aren't, are we? I can't stop crying and I'm at work. Oh God.

I think the fact that judges will listen to this school and agree that the students should be shocked shows what they think of the handicapped. They believe they are less than human...like Hitler convinced people about the Jews.If prison authorities went to court to get permission to shock the inmates they wouldn't get it and imagine the uproar if we learned that a dog kennel was shocking dogs.

proof that we live in a society where different isnt different. its wrong. to think that we were born into a world where humans are able to control other humans... shock them, monitor them in high tech facilities.... existence sucks right now.

It's a good thing they didn't just now discover medical surgery. I could see the MJ report now: "Razor sharp knives used to cut through flesh, skin and muscles!. Electric saws cut used into bones, skull!" Then readers would go "how horrific! how uncivilized!" Sometimes treatments are not pleasant, it doesn't make them wrong. Mother Jones has done a disservice sensationalizing the matter, taking it out of context. Let's hope a more balanced treatment of the subject shows up elsewhere in the media.

a really troubled teen will start to enjoy the shocks after the second hit. Dr.Q

This man should be barred from being near children. This is all part of of Big Brother totalitarianism fostered by the GOP ( Goverment Of Psychopaths)

Why aren't mental disorders treated in a similar manner as illness of the body? These boys are ill and need complete medical testing until doctors find the clues to what is wrong. As the parent of a 12 year old boy with autism, I believe that most humans have been damaged by their vaccines received throughout their childhood. Any child with issues should be tested for heavy metal poisoning and chronic viral and bacterial infections. Children on the autism spectrum are now recovering after treatment for these body burdens. It should be standard practice to seriously evaluate these kids physical health before zapping them.

The CIA will probably end up recruiting these kids for black ops. The one kid said it's worse than jail - sounds like hell to me.

What a great Nazi he would make. Yes I know. Yes I know - that is precisely why I said what I said. Odd, how the state can't act against someone who no one in the scientific community would support!

why do they do these horrible things to the mentally ill? mostly, i think, because they can. society doesn't care enough to impose strict guidlines on torturous medical practices. some practicioners may sincerely believe that they are performing in keeping with the highest principles; some are just unprincipled and should be not only routed from the profession, but made legally accountable for their actions.

I cannot believe that this is not against the law! I would so like to go to the owner and ask him to explain why? I just cannot believe that they use shocks to punish the children! It infuriates me so! Oh and they shouldn't suffer the pain from these MANIACS! I wonder what do these people think will come from this torture?

Does the Eighth Amendment mean nothing anymore? Someone, like the Child Advocacy Program at Harvard Law School, should be starting litigation against these sickos.

I have visited the Judge Rotenburg Center and I am a Behavior Analyst. Perhaps I was misled, and if that is the case, then what I have to say is not accurate. I believe the parents and guardians know exactly what wonderful rewards await their children when they place them in Dr. Israel's program, as well as what punishments there are for extreme (pulling off ears, pulling out intestines, etc.) self-injury and aggression. They should not put their children in Dr. Israel's care if they don't want those contingencies. Only the most disturbed children should go to Judge Rotenburg Center. The research should prove which children are candidates for such harsh treatment. I feel that it is a shame that we need such a program, but you will be able to find parents who are grateful to Dr. Israel and Judge Rotenburg for helping their children who respond ONLY to such contingencies. He has to show through a functional analysis that those children do not respond to reinforcement for appropriate behaviors, extinction or positive correction for inappropriate behaviors, the positive consequences used most the change inappropriate behaviors. I hate it, too!

Utter depravity. Those that proposed such a facility are severely disturbed. Worse, they are conditioning staff to be oblivious to the torture. It's clear that there's pychopaths involved in the creation and operation of these conditioning centers. Wake up!

(Part 1 of 4) [For a properly formatted version of this post, with links to supporting papers, please see http://www.judgerc.org/ResponsetoGonnermanArticle.pdf] Jennifer Gonnerman’s article “School of Shock” (Mother Jones, September/October 2007) is a biased and misleading account of the Judge Rotenberg Center that is best characterized as a hatchet job. For readers who would like the truth about our school, please see http://www.judgerc.org/introto jrc.html...................... ................................... .................................................................... Ms. Gonnerman persuaded JRC and the Parents of the JRC students to allow her to come to JRC and observe the school and the students by very cleverly and falsely pretending to be sympathetic to the cause of the JRC students and their parents. She asserted that she had read all the letters from the parents on the JRC web site (see http://www.judgerc.org/parentletters.html) and had cried while reading them. In addition, she represented that the article she was writing would be published in the New York Times Sunday Magazine, a magazine that has a reputation for printing serious, balanced, non-sensational articles. The Times even flew a very artistic photographer and assistant from San Francisco to do the photography. After the article was written it did not appear in the Times. When we asked Ms. Gonnerman why, she said the Times had rejected it because it was not of sufficiently national interest. Now that we have seen the article, it seems more likely to me that the reason the Times rejected the article was that the article was not a fair and balanced article and was too obviously a negative hatchet job from the start......................... .............................. ................................... ....................................Ms. Gonnerman has, for her own personal gain, shamefully exploited the severely disabled JRC students and their parents. Ms. Gonnerman’s effort to ignore or gloss over JRC’s treatment successes, all the evidence that supports the use of aversives, and the plight of its students before attending JRC, are so blatant in her article that it should never have been published by Mother Jones. The many court victories won by the JRC Parents to preserve the JRC treatment program are a matter of public record and should have been investigated by Mother Jones before the magazine printed Ms. Gonnerman’s fallacious article....................... .............................. ................................... ......................................This type of a dishonest article could have been written about any topic, no matter how benign. Ms. Gonnerman could have written such a negative article about freshman life at any university, for instance. She could write about the cramped and cluttered conditions of the dormitory, the terrible food, the homesickness, the late nights with little sleep, the incredible long lines at the registrar’s office and the book store, the overcrowded classrooms, the high tuition, and the exposure to underage drinking. She could also add lies to further sensationalize her story, as she did with the JRC article, by reporting that most students cry themselves to sleep because they are so depressed and many are dangerously gaunt due to the bad food. Ms Gonnerman could make college sound like a horrible, abusive place by not mentioning such things as all of the interesting subjects the students learned about, the exposure to talented and fascinating professors and other lecturers, exposure to the arts, learning how to do research and write on a college level, learning about and choosing a career, meeting and getting to know fellow students from around the world, meeting the people who will be friends for life, and learning how to live independently from their parents. .............................. .............................. ................................................................. This distorted report of college life is essentially what Ms. Gonnerman did to JRC when she decided to write a negative article about JRC. Such a fraudulent article about college life would not be so harmful because many people have attended college and would know right away that the article is dishonest. What makes Ms. Gonnerman's article so harmful and exploitive is the fact that only a tiny fraction of the population has had any exposure to severe behavior disorders..................... .............................. ................................... ........................................In order to understand JRC in its proper context, the following points must be made, none of which were explained in Ms. Gonnerman’s article....................... .............................. ................................... ......................................1. It is well documented in scientific articles and in court findings that some special needs children and adolescents have behaviors that are so self-abusive, aggressive or destructive as to be life-threatening and self-maiming. Consider, for example, just one type of behavior -- self-abuse. Some special needs children referred to JRC have shown self-abusive behaviors such as banging their head to the point of brain damage, biting off their own fingertips, pulling out their teeth, vomiting and refusing food to the point of starvation, biting a hole through their cheek, biting off part of their own tongue, scratching their heel to the point of blood, bone infection and eventual death, breaking their own arm, cutting off their own earlobe with a scissor, running into moving traffic, punching their eyes causing detached retinas and blindness, pulling out their hair to the point of baldness, swallowing x-acto knives, and cutting their skin with a knife so often that the skin becomes too tough to be sutured. .............................. .............................. ................................... ..............................2.Children with very severe problem behaviors usually cannot be successfully educated in public schools. When a public school encounters such a student, the school usually refers the student to a psychiatric hospital where the student is often not effectively treated. Instead, the student is usually drugged into a stupor. If students are given high enough dosages of psychotropic drugs, these drugs will sedate them so much that the students are incapable of hurting themselves or anyone else but such students are also incapable of participating in education or even communicating with their family. These drugs also have many debilitating side-effects including kidney damage, liver damage, tremors, obesity, and lock jaw and many effects are permanent. Unfortunately many so-called experts in this field will refer to this drug stupefaction as a treatment success. .............................. .............................. ................................... ..............................Other so-called effective treatments for severe behavior disorders that JRC has seen in the histories of newly admitted students include lobotomy, removal of teeth (for severe biters), constant seclusion, constant mechanical restraint, and many others that experts refer to as “more humane and effective” alternatives to JRC’s aversive procedures. The lack of effective alternatives and the sheer cruelty of drugging a child into a near coma is why parents turn to a non-public, special needs school such as the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center that is specially equipped to manage and educate the student, and has a proven track record of saving students from the ravages of constant heavy sedation. .............................. .............................. .................................................................A real journalist would have mentioned these facts and, more importantly, investigated why the anti-aversive experts are hiding the fact that there are no effective treatment alternatives for severe behavior disorders. A real journalist would have asked why the JRC students have, prior to coming to JRC, spent so many wasted months or years sedated in a psychiatric ward and why their parents had to fight to get their child out of a psychiatric ward and into a special needs school such as JRC. Finally, a real journalist would have investigated why schools and clinicians fear being blackballed if they use, or admit to using aversives. As a result of this fear, children are forced to suffer with untreated painful behavior disorders, to receive no education and to have no social life of any kind. .............................. .............................. ................................................................. 3. Most non-public, special needs schools that try to educate and treat such students use rewards, education and positive-only procedures. Unfortunately, studies show that positive-only treatment procedures are effective in only 60% (see http://www.judgerc.org/PositiveBehaviorSupport.pdf) of the cases at most and cannot handle really severe behavior problems . (See http://www.judgerc.org/PositiveBehaviorSupport2.pdf) .............................. .............................. ..........................................(continued in future post)

(Part 3 of 4 – continued from previous post) 12. In summary: .............................. .............................. .................................................................(a) JRC treats severe problem behaviors of special needs children and adults who have failed in every other program that has been tried with them. .............................. .............................. .................................................................(b) Programs that use “positive-only” treatment procedures expel students with really severe behavior problems and these students are often then referred to JRC. .............................. .............................. ................................... ..............................(c)JRC’s removes students from psychotropic drugs and applies a highly consistent behavioral program of positive rewards and educational procedures for an average of 11 months before considering the use of any aversive. .............................. .............................. ................................................................. (d) If rewards and educational procedures alone prove to be insufficiently effective, they are supplemented, when necessary, with a two-second shock to the surface of the skin, used as a corrective consequence for the problem behavior. .............................. .............................. ................................................................. (e) Before employing skin-shock, JRC obtains consent from the child’s parent and approval from a probate court judge. .............................. .............................. ................................................................. (f) JRC’s skin-shock procedure is extremely effective, has no significant side effects and that can be removed entirely in many cases as the student’s behavior improves; .............................. .............................. ................................................................. (g) JRC’s positive behavioral program is so effective that the skin shock procedure is currently being used for only 43% of JRC’s school-age students; .............................. .............................. ................................................................. (h) JRC’s treatment enables its students to do the following: stop taking harmful psychotropic drugs; avoid restraint, seclusion, warehousing and takedowns; avoid having to be placed in psychiatric hospitals or arrested by police for aggression and other destructive behaviors; start learning in school for the first time in their lives; avoid death or self-maiming by receiving effective and rapid treatment of self-abusive actions; have hope and optimism for their future where previous there was none; and enjoy the company of their parents and family for the first time in years. .................................................................... .........................Other Comments on the Article .............................. .............................. .................................................................1. The title page sets the tone of the article by referring to JRC as a “School of Shock.” The overwhelming reliance at JRC is on positive rewards and educational programs and ninety nine percent or more of a student’s time is spent in educational and rewarding experiences. Less than half of the school-age students at JRC have parent- and court-approved supplementary skin shock as a possible treatment option in their treatment programs. Those that do receive an average of one harmless (no significant side effects) two-second application to the surface of the skin, usually of the arm or leg, per week. As time goes on, many are able to graduate completely from needing this therapy. .............................. .............................. .................................................................2. The title page contains the phrase “Food Deprivation.” Food deprivation is never used as a punishment at JRC. In the case of a small number of students food is used, with full parental and court approval, in the form of “mini-meals” that are earned through behavioral contracts. When this is done, elaborate steps are taken to either provide make-up meals at the end of the day or to otherwise insure proper nutrition and avoid any weight loss. .............................. .............................. .................................................................3. The title page contains the word “Isolation.” Isolation is never used as a punishment at JRC. .............................. .............................. .................................................................4. The title page says “Treats American kids like enemy combatants” This statement, like the cover material and drawing, reflects an attempt to sensationalize JRC’s treatment and evidences a refusal to recognize the use of supplementary aversives as a scientifically proven and accepted form of behavioral treatment. .............................. .............................. .................................................................5. The cover page shows a child in an Abu Ghraib torture-type position on a box with wires leading from the hands. Skin-shock is never used at JRC in the manner depicted in that drawing and is never used for the purpose implied (torture). Skin-shock is used at JRC as a small part of a behavior modification treatment program, based overwhelmingly on positive rewards and educational procedures, to help save and extend lives, to take students off of psychotropic drugs, and to help youngsters turn their lives around. Students whose problematic behaviors were so great that they were expelled or refused admission to every other available school, and who were headed for a prematurely short or miserable life of drugs, restraint and warehousing in a psychiatric hospital, in an institution, in a jail or on the streets are, through effective education and treatment at JRC based on scientifically-validated behavior modification procedures, given hope and optimism for their future where previously they had none. To compare this with Abu Ghraib-type torture is like equating a surgeon’s use of a knife in life-saving surgery to a felon’s use of a knife in a murderous stabbing. .............................. .............................. .................................................................6. JRC has a unique set of rewarding features that is found in no other program. These rewards start with beautifully decorated school buildings that make coming to school a visually interesting and rewarding experience (many of our students have refused to attend school in the past). It continues with: an arcade-type Rewards Lounge; a “retail store” where students can purchase attractive personal items with the money they earn each week by displaying appropriate behaviors and learning; a lounge/reward corner in many classrooms; a reward afternoon once per week; Reward Boxes containing desired items that students can earn each day; a personal computer and self-instructional software for every student; frequent field trips used as rewards; healthy and nutritional foods and no junk foods and soda machines; health-club type exercise facilities; community residences with wide-screen televisions, stereos and electronic games; and an open visiting policy in which parents or visitors can visit at any time of the day or night. To imply that a program that does all this for its students and parents is similar to the Abu Ghraib prison, as the cover and text of this article does, is to perpetuate a journalistic fraud on the readers. .............................. .............................. .................................................................7. The article devotes the initial two pages to two former students whose parents changed their minds and decided to remove their son from JRC. JRC parents are always free to change their minds and withdraw their consent to JRC to employ aversives with their child. In both of the cases Ms. Gonnerman describes, the students made major progress while they attended JRC (a fact ignored by Ms. Gonnerman), and were removed prematurely before their treatment had been completed. The overwhelming majority of JRC parents have been extremely positive about JRC and thankful for the changes they have seen in their children. The fact that the first two pages focus on two former parents or students who have no verifiable evidence that the JRC program caused them any harm is further evidence of the bias that pervades the article. .............................. .............................. ................................................................. 8. “To change their behavior, he developed a large repertoire of punishments...” Here, as in the article as a whole, there is a failure to give adequate space to JRC’s innovative and wide-ranging use of rewards and educational procedures, which is the background against which aversives are introduced, if needed in some cases, as an occasional (once per week, on average) supplement in the programs of a minority of our school-age students. No mention is made of the fact that all of these aversive procedures were parent- and court-approved. .............................. .............................. ........................................(Continued in future post)

And for a fully formatted version of the above response to Ms.Gonnerman's article, please see http://www.judgerc.org/ResponsetoGonnermanArticle.pdf Matthew L. Israel, Ph.D. Executive Director Judge Rotenberg Educational Center

This is a disgusting practice

Tale of Twin Brothers I have identical twin brothers and a daughter with autism. I am also a practicing psychiatrist who specializes in autism. One brother banged his head into sharp corners requiring surgery. He was in the hospital for five and a half months and despite having a staff member present with him around the clock he continued to need repeated suturing for repeated head banging. This all occurred despite a cocktail of five medications with their adverse effects of obesity, tardive dyskinesia, loss of ability to verbally communicate, drooling and excessive daytime sedation. The board of education told my mother that no educational facility would accept my brother and she was requested to waive his right to an education. Furthermore, the medical insurance was running out and my parents were told they could be held responsible for hospitalization costs. I remember my father wondering if the hospital could take our house. However, through my mother's physician she was informed about the Judge Rotenberg Center. He has been there for nineteen years and doing quite well on no medication. We have taken him on trips to other states but to all those positive behavior only enthusiasts when my brother was in the hospital, WHERE WERE YOU THEN? My other brother was functioning quite well and as an adult had a full time job for three years without any medication and was travel trained. He moved into a New York State OMRDD (Organization of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities) funded agency residence while holding this job. Well now he is obsessive with setting fires and has tried to set a peer on fire. He is frequent flyer in the hospital and has failed positive behavior supports with functional analysis and about fifteen medication trials but not without having obesity, tardive dyskinesia, sedation and seizures from them. This is the story of his current hospitalization: He was upset a staple was out of place on a chair, but after being reassured appeared calm for about fifteen minutes. Then he ran out and into the traffic and punched a stranger accross the street who wanted to call the police. Speaking of police, I just evaluated a girl with autism who is terrified of police. She wasn't afraid before her New York State public school called the police after she threw a chair but not at anyone. The police threatened her with pepper spray, handcuffed her, put her back in a squad car alone and told her to keep her head down and not move. So this is the way New York State handles agitation in an autistic child. Speaking of agitation, my parents are now quite agitated that they were told two days ago that they may be responsible for my brother's current hospital bill as the insurance is running out. His OMRDD funded residence is not comfortable taking him back. Perhaps one of these positive behavior only enthusiasts can take him home. I suggest this positive behavior enthusiast may sure his or her smoke detectors are functioning so between the positive behavior support and the smoke detectors we can be sure at least one method will work. However, if positive behavior only enthusiasts do not want my brother around can they at least help my parents pay his hospital bill?

My child attends currently attends JRC. My child was in a mental hospital for a year and a half waiting for a school that best for him. His IQ was low and he had behavoir problems. I gave permission for the Board of Ed.to look outside of New York. Low and behold they presented JRC. I have tried the GED myself. And its not that painful. I would much rather use the GED than to have my son spaced out on drugs. That's not living. Of course, my son doesn't like it. What child would? That's only natural. Children complain when it comes to disipline. I just want to say that I read this articile. Please don't believe everything you read. If the school was half as bad as this article makes it out to be I would've taken my child out of it a long time ago.

Just read with horror this article and related comments after sent word of this from relative with Flordia's Agency for Person's With Disabilities. Am appalled at what I have read. Why are the Regulatory Agnecies of MA not acting upon this in-humane treatment of patients? Where is the Department of Justice? DOJ shut down a MR-DD State operated facility in Indiana after reports and findings of patient mis-treatment. The Indiana findings were in no way as severe or restrictive as those noted in the report on JRC. As many commented, prisons do not treat even the worst criminals in this manner. Having worked throughout my career with Developmentally Disabled I understand how difficult it can be to treat our most challenging citizens, BUT this is unacceptable to me. Health care professionals are all taught Cardinal Rule #1: First DO NO HARM to the patient. Obviously, someone at JRC has forgotten that.

you folks only see Matthew Israel's school you don't see that his methods have been used in public schools. in the 70's and 80's special ed bd classes used many of his methods. now some of us get to try and live with the abuses. personally i would love to see Dr. Matthew Israel subject to his own work.

Personal feelings and emotions have no place in the life of an individual who is mentally or physically impaired. The facts are as follows: Research has demonstrated that positive behavior supports and medication management are only sufficiently effective in some individuals with life-threatening behaviors. The children placed at the Judge Rotenberg Center have all been through an impartial court hearing presided over by a judge, have been represented by a lawyer and the parent or legal guardian has consented to the proceeding. I received the 2000 New York Medical College Award of Academic Excellence for my research in this area. I have posted elsewhere with respect to my identical twin brothers who have compulsive life threatening behaviors unresponsive to medications and positive behavioral interventions only.

I read with dismay the article written by Jennifer Gonnerman regarding the disciplinary methods employed by the Judge Rotenber Center, commonly known as JRC. I found her article to be unbalanced and rather a knee-jerk reaction to a very complex process. Her article was also written out of context. It contains emotional rather than factual solutions. I have a first-hand working knowledge of JRC because I deal with JRC almost on a daily basis and have done so for the past 4 years. I am a court-appointed attorney who is not employeed by JRC or the Trial Court system. I am completely unbiased and work only for myslef and in the best interests of the students that I represent. I found her story to be completely lopsided. Very little attention was paid to the positive aspects of the program but rather emphasized the negative aspects of the program. Following suit were the bloggers who probably never even visited JRC or had any working knowledge of its methods. If the aricle had been writted on a more positive note, bloggers would have in turn responded in a more positive fashion. My role is to assure that the behavioral treatment plans are appropriate to meet my students/client's needs. If there is a provision which is overly punitive than that provision is addressed and the applicable punishment is removed from the plan. If no middle grounds are met then several independent doctors are obtained and the independent doctors will also evaluate the treatment plan. The student also has some input into their treatment plan and allowed to make reasonable requests. Therefore, students are given the GED's after much forethought and planning has been established. The treatment plan must then be approved by Judges of the Probate Court system. I have yet to hear a Judge condemn the program in it's entirety. That is because the Judges have witnessed such overwhelming improvemnets and turnarounds that it almost boggles the mind. When I first meet some of my students they had to be kept apart from any human contact because of their agressive and dangerous nature. Some must be protected with staff personel around the clock. They are not able to matriculate into a traditional classroom setting. Some of these students have stabbed others or themselves with sharp insturments, some have set fires and I had one student who once head-butted a pregnant teacher. The list goes on and on. I might ask is this any way to exist? These students would never be able to socialize or be educated within the traditonal system. I have seen students who were restrained on a full time basis but whom after the GEDS were applied are now able to lead full and productive lives, are educated, have jobs and families. Without JRC these students would either be jailed for the rest of their lives with litte to no education or given a cocktail of the most potent drugs known to society. With the medications they usually suffer from the effects such as trembling, drooling, sedation, low white blood counts which is ofter fatal and many other side effects including diabetes and heart failure. I admire the fact that JRC will accept students who no other placement will accept. Without the JRC program where would these children go? Even without the use of the GEDs this is a highly structural and organized program that is dedicated to the turning around of some of the country's most worst behaved students. As the student's behavior is improved the Geds start being removed. Remeber, it is the decision of the higher functioning student whether they get an application or not. To behave appropriately means no applications. The decisons is theirs. In conclusion, Ms. Gonnerman reports other less structured disciplinary programs that are allegedly successful but I see no examples, data or articles documenting other behavioral approaches. She also states that students would rather be in jail than at JRC. T