Child electrocuted for not removing jacket at school

[Dave5150]

Originally Posted by eastwesteastagain

I'm working on a longer response with references, but I don't think anyone is saying using physical aversives such as shock with children (or anyone else) is a good thing. As I read the posts on the thread, people were pointing out that the Rotenburg Center is not typical, even for special needs residential facilities, and certainly not the norm for school in general. I can understand you being appalled by the case reported by the media and I beleive most people, behaviorist or otherwise, would agree their methods should not be used in the way they are reported to be using them. The Rotenburg Center has a reputation for being very controversial, but it is important to note that they are by no means the norm. They have so many legal problems exactly because they operate outside the realm of accepted state of the art. The APA has issued statement after statement about the ethical use of behavioral interventions, to which the Rotenburg Center does not conform.

Additionally, there is a historical context for using physical aversives, which no matter how appalling we find them using the lens of today's standards of ethical treatment, exist in almost every branch of medicine and psychology. I am not defending the practice, by any stretch of the imagination, particularly because so many advances have been made in positive behavior support programs, which have been documented to help make more permanent positive behavioral changes in treatment resistant patients. However, knowing the history and context of where the use of aversives came from, I can understand though not agree with its use. I would fully support anyone who wants to agitate for change at the Rotenburg Center.

I know that noone is advocating for this for any person, children or not, handicapped, mental issues, whatever. But I felt like people were trying to justify it by saying, well this isnt the norm. Obviously it isnt the norm, it shouldnt be at all.

But that person sounds like they believe someone is disagreeing with me about it. Does that person disagree with my upset over this issue? Its hard to explain.

[eastwesteastagain]

Originally Posted by Dave5150

I know that noone is advocating for this for any person, children or not, handicapped, mental issues, whatever. But I felt like people were trying to justify it by saying, well this isnt the norm. Obviously it isnt the norm, it shouldnt be at all.

But that person sounds like they believe someone is disagreeing with me about it. Does that person disagree with my upset over this issue? Its hard to explain.

Ah, ok, I read the posts differently than you did, I think. I didn't interpret it as justifying the use of physical aversives as much as clarifying the context. The OP and title sounded a bit like this is a widespread practice occurring without parents' knowledge rather than an anomaly frowned upon by most people and mental health professionals. I understand your point that the use of the Rotenburg Center's practices, even in one location, is too much.

[eastwesteastagain]

As promised, the longer post with references - apologies if there is overlap with my other post.

To be clear, I do not support the use of physical aversives, particularly not the way they are used by the Rotenburg Center, nor do most behaviorists or psychologists (Guidelines on Effective Behavior Modification from APA Division 33 - subgroup of psychologists specializing in treatment of persons with mental retardation or developmental disabilities: Guidelines on Effective Behavioral Treatment for).

While I understand how horrified people are by this story, you have to keep in mind the historical context as well as that this occurred/occurs at a very specific specialty clinic that is quite controversial for continuing to offer physical aversives as a treatment for cases that they report do not respond to other treatment. Interestingly, Micheal Israel (clinic founder, who has been to court numerous times about these issues) was trained by BF Skinner (a seminal developer of behaviorism) and before his death even Skinner disavowed the way Israel was implementing physical aversive treatments at the Rotenburg Center. Even the Rotenburg Center website, when trying to spin its history of interventions and legal issues in a positive light, has a difficult time doing so, IMO (Judge Rotenberg Center - Residential Program Treating Behavior Disorders and Developmental Disabilities).

Historically speaking, use of aversives (which include but are not limited to physical aversives) were used to decrease unwanted severe behaviors (think risk of harm to self or others) in combination with an intervention program highly focused on positively reinforcing desired behaviors. The implementation of radical behavioral interventions in the 70s and 80s looked a lot different than the current state of the art. Ethics codes were different then, and the experts at the time were not trying to be cruel as much as they were trying to get results for people who until that point were treatment nonresponsive, consistently engaged in self-injurious behaviors to the point of serious physical harm, and were likely to be warehoused in an institution for the entirety of their lives with severely limited quality of life. What we know now, but they didn't know then, is that greater treatment gains can be made with positive behavior support programs than with punitive methods. Even at that time (60s-80s), physical aversives were used in a very limited way, for very short time periods and to intervene on very severe behaviors. The reports of recent use of aversives at the Rotenburg Center imply frequent use of shock (their replacement for other physical aversives) for non-severe behaviors. Apparently their current policy is to offer the optional use of physical aversives to families when the other treatment interventions provided are not providing results. Mainstream psychology and behaviorism does not support the Rotenburg Center's methods.

Not sure how great a job I did explaining the historical context (I had difficulty finding a comprehensive link briefly outlining advances in behavioral theory - most online resources critique radical behaviorism in its nascent stages in the 50s-80s without addressing how behavioral theory is applied currently, includes elements of cognition and emotion as behaviors, and forms a basis for many current evidence-based treatments), but it is important to keep in mind that many, many medical and psychological innovations over the years, looking with the lens of what we know now, appear barbaric. Let there be no confusion: I do not support the physical aversive methods the Rotenburg Center uses.

I'm pretty sure I'm the only geek here who finds this stuff interesting, but just in case I'm not : (not a comprehensive list)
Brief history of early behaviorists: http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/beh.html
Basic principles of behavioral theory: http://allpsych.com/psychology101/learning.html
Behaviorism as it relates to Cognitive Behavior Therapy: http://nacbt.org/historyofcbt.aspx, http://www.effectivechildtherapy.com...=pub_WhatIsCBT; http://behavioraltech.org/resources/whatisdbt.cfm
Current broad applications of behavioral theory: http://www.bfskinner.org/BFSkinner/Home.html (broken link)