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State investigates burn claims from therapy at Canton School

June 26, 2006

BOSTON --A Boston Globe review of complaints against a school in Canton, Mass. shows the state is looking into claims that shock therapy delivered to misbehaving students burned them on their arms, legs or torsos.
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The Disabled Persons Protection Commission has brought the case of one student at the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center to the attention of the Norfolk County District attorney for a criminal investigation.

School officials said the shock treatments do not burn students, but that the school's enemies made the allegations to make the center look bad. Officials liken the shocks to a bee sting -- painful, but harmless with the benefit of preventing some of the severely disabled students from inflicting serious injuries to themselves and others.

Half of the students at the school are on the shock-punishment program. They wear either a backpack or fanny pack containing the shock device: a battery and stimulator attached to a wire that carries the voltage to an electrode just above the skin.

Former employees have said that the burns are common, and earlier this month the state of New York, which pays the school $50 million a year to care for and educate about 150 students, called for a federal investigation on the devices.

Twenty-two abuse complaints against the Rotenberg Center were filed with the Disabled Persons Protection Commission in 2006, up from just nine in the preceding six years combined. "We need a team of investigators," to handle the complaints, Nancy Alterio, executive director of the commission said.

But supporters insist the therapy works. Representative Jeffrey Sanchez of Boston has a nephew that attends the school. He said the young man, who is autistic and mentally retarded, would intentionally vomit and then re-swallow food; stomach acid was eroding his esophagus.

"My brother ... feels that the Rotenberg Center is the only thing that kept him alive," Sanchez said.

The complaints with the commission were filed anonymously, but former teachers said several of them were filed by employees.

© Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

 

 

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