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Regents rethinks shock therapy - (NY, Judge Rotenberg Center)

SEPT 12, 2006

BY JENNIFER SINCO KELLEHER
Newsday Staff Writer

September 12, 2006, 9:08 PM EDTThe state Board of Regents agreed yesterday to take a month to review hundreds of public comments before deciding whether to make permanent its emergency restrictions on behavioral-control techniques in schools such as the use of mild electric shock and the application of ice.

In the meantime, the limits the board imposed in June, which had been due to expire next week, have been extended until the Regents' scheduled meeting next month.

Although the Regents are taking more time on the issue than expected, they do not appear fazed by a federal judge's decision last week to lift the limits on some New York students at the Judge Rotenberg Center in Canton, Mass., where electric skin-shock and other "aversive therapies" are used.

Yet, a lobbyist for Rotenberg said he doesn't believe the month will make a difference and that the Regents have made up their minds.

In June, the Regents decided to allow the use of aversive therapies, but with restrictions. They can now be used only to discourage physically abusive behavior, and only one form of aversion can be used at a time.

The Regents adopted the emergency rules after the state Education Department reported that the Rotenberg center uses skin-shock too liberally.

But last month, some parents of Rotenberg students who oppose limits on the treatment their children receive filed a federal lawsuit. A judge has temporarily excluded those students from the Regents' rules.

Roger Tilles, a Regent from Long Island, said after yesterday's meeting that the board will make revisions to the rules after going through the more than 400 public comments.

An Albany lobbyist for Rotenberg, Gene DeSantis, said yesterday's action was more about procedure than the Regents' genuinely considering an opposing view. DeSantis noted that no Regents attended last month at three public hearings to discuss aversive therapy. "We've never been treated fairly thus far," he said.

Whether they become permanent or not, the Regents' rules still leave room for abuse, said Assemb. Richard N. Gottfried (D-Manhattan), who chairs the Assembly's health committee.

Copyright 2006 Newsday Inc.

 

 

 

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