Under what circumstances would you say it’s okay to administer electric shocks to disabled children?

Personally I would rather have a shock from a professional than a ruler to the knuckles by some perverse nun.

I'm very close to the kids in this article. My father has his PHD in special education and mental retardation, he worked for the DOE and wrote legislation for the programs we see in schools today. My brother has been working for the same private school, educating kids with learning disabilities and behavior problems just like the ones in the video for 35 years. Without electro-shock and day school only, the tuition is $80,000, $200,000 for 24/7 is cheap.

My best friend in Virginia tried to raise a retarded daughter like these kids after her mother died. His daughter would be fine one day and a monster the next. She would head butt until she split her forehead wide open, bite herself to the bone and anyone she was playing with or who tried to restrain her, her dad was a regular to the ER . Her strength was phenomenal, at age nine and 50 pounds she could match her 170 pound father. She slept in a bare room with a bathtub and plastic mattress. She would strip her diapers and fling poo and smear herself every night.Charlie would have to bathe her and sanitize the room every morning and get her ready for special school and her two normal brothers every morning before he went to work.

At age eleven she started having her period and gaining weight so Charlie finally had to institutionalize her. Now she is too drugged to remember him anymore but he still drives two hours every Saturday morning to visit her, she is in her thirties now. - so sad.

Had Charlie known about this place when his daughter was young he would have jumped at the opportunity to send his daughter. A lot less traumatic than the bruises and gashes she would inflict on herself or by Charlie trying to restrain her. And today maybe she wouldn't drugged up in some human warehouse

The journalist in the video is a puthie, she knew the shock was coming and hammed it up for the camera and her article. Her knee was out of sync with the arm she was shocked in, electricity doesn't work like that, the faker. I know, I wear a TENZ unit.

I still grab an electric fence to see if it's on, my cousins will drive a half mile to check the light at the transformer, the puthies.

One final word, that electric fence will deter a 2,000 pound animal but stings less than a ruler on the knuckles, lets charge some nuns with torture shall we?.

RScott

I am utterly astounded. How on earth can anyone justify something that clearly comes under the category of "cruel and inhuman treatment"?

Your link doesn't seem to be working, but I think I've found the piece: http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/shock-therapy-mass... (hoping this link works)

It is said in the piece that some of these children suffer from autism-like conditions. How anyone can imagine that an autistic child can change their behaviour through torture, I can't imagine. And for at least some of these children, it would seem that something has gone seriously wrong in their upbringing. What is needed is help and support for the parents so that they can find ways to help their child back to a balanced place.

It is never, ever acceptable to treat children in this way. If it was animals, the person conducting the torture would be imprisoned. I understand how extremely difficult it can be to manage some children's behaviour, but electric shock is neither justifiable nor likely to be effective (which makes it 100% unjustifiable).

EDIT: This sort of 'behavioural modification' seems aimed at making its recipients into automatons. Sure, they may (if they have enough capacity to inhibit impulses) stop doing things that the people around them don't like, or that are damaging to themselves or others. But who are they are the end of this process? They merely know what they like (the 'rewards' which appear to be a pile of tat) and what they don't (being hurt, severely). Where is the respect for someone's humanity? I don't disagree that merely drugging people is not much better, but at least it doesn't cause pain. And there are places, in the US I am certain just as much as in the UK and elsewhere, that have astounding results with simply thinking about each child's need, and giving them love and containment in the most appropriate ways for them. It's highly demanding and personnel-intensive work, but are we trying to create performing monkeys (actually, that's an insult to monkeys) or functioning human beings? If the latter, then this sort of 'treatment' is simply barbaric.

I have three children with disabilities. There is no way I would allow an institution to torture my babies.

There are other methods. The school and the parents are the truly handicapped in this case. Between the teachers and the parents, children with disabilities can be helped and taught to act appropriately.

Never. Proper discipline and alternative therapies that do not involve torturous manners of "teaching" would have to be good enough for my children. I believe that paying a good deal of attention to children who are disabled, and helping them to understand and learn what they need to to make them more able, rather than babying them, would help out a great deal.

And if my husband< or whoever I was with, tried to put my child into something like this, he'd be doing it without a few balls.

I don't know. I've seem some pretty out of control kids that have blown through every other type of treatment program with no success, but is it something that just administers a shock like a dog and a shock collar or is it more like an ECT treatment? I can't open the link at work.

Can the very word "freedom" have any meaning without the freedom to administer electric shocks to disabled children? I think not!

Why do you hate freedom so much?

Yes! It would come in handy, when the trolls are lurking about!! When I receive my daily violations, along with my best answers!! I guess it would all depend how often I would use that button depending on how many violations were in store for me, that day!! I am just waiting for them to get to my question, about the blowup dolls name!! agoodgirl xxx

Under no circumstances I'd care more for my child's peace of mind than I would care about making life a little easier for myself.

It's downright Dickensian, obscene.

This is truly nauseating.

It borders on monstrous.

Ya know what? If your kid requires that much attention, QUIT THE ******* JOB THAT PAYS YOU OVER 200 GRAND A YEAR AND TAKE CARE OF YOUR CHILD YOURSELF!

Shock therapy!?

**** that ****.

The way you describe it seems wrong but if its ECT which is a proven form of treatment for depression then the possibility exists that its ok.

http://www.doctorslounge.com/psychiatry/procedures...