State to limit
student electric shock therapy
BY KARLA SCHUSTER
Newsday Staff Writer
June 20, 2006
The use of aversive therapies such
as electric shocks and food deprivation to treat troubled New
York students would be limited and more closely monitored under
a new state regulation approved by a Board of Regents panel
yesterday.
The new rule, expected to be approved by the full Board of
Regents today, would prohibit any facility, including those
out-of-state, from treating New York students with more than one
type of aversive therapy at the same time (for example
restraining a child and then shocking them). The ban, which also
would cover automated devices such as those that shock a child
every time they get out of a chair, would take effect on Friday.
"We didn't feel like binding and gagging a kid and then giving
him an electric shock was consonant with best education policy,"
said Roger Tilles, the regent from Long Island. "We believe that
there are real reasons for institutions that are doing aversive
therapies without the proper safeguards to stop immediately."
Also, the Regents panel recommended a new monitoring program for
the use of aversive therapy on New York students.
The case of all students now receiving such therapy would be
reviewed by a new state panel which would make a recommendation
to local school district officials by Oct. 1. The final decision
on whether aversive treatment continues after that would remain
up to the local district. In cases where the therapy continues,
students' treatment would be reviewed every six months.
The action by the Regents comes less than a week after the state
released a scathing site review of a controversial Massachusetts
facility - the Judge Rotenberg Center - that uses electric shock
therapy on its students. New York State sends about 155 students
with severe emotional problems to Rotenberg, at a cost of about
$50 million per year.
Among the state's findings were that the center sometimes used
more than one aversive treatment at a time - strapping students
to a wooden board before shocking them.
A Freeport woman, Evelyn Nicholson, is suing the state for
placing her teenage son at the Rotenberg Center, saying his
treatment amounted to abuse. Antwone Nicholson is now being
treated at a facility in Westchester, and is no longer receiving
aversive therapy. Also, the center is under investigation in
Massachusetts for several abuse complaints.
Officials said yesterday the proposed new regulation was not
specifically targeted at the Rotenberg Center, but rather part
of an ongoing effort to better regulate the treatment of
severely disabled students placed in private facilities that use
aversive therapy. They said other private facilities also use
aversive therapies, but Rotenberg is the only one in the nation
using electric shocks for behavior modification.
"We've never had any standards or requirements in place for
using what should be a very unusual and very extreme form of
treatment," said deputy state Education Commissioner Rebecca
Cort. Officials from the Rotenberg Center could not be reached
for comment yesterday. Last week, they called the state's report
biased and denied its findings. On Friday, the center turned
documents, including student records, to the state to justify
its use of aversive therapy.
Cort said a recommendation on whether to keep Rotenberg on New
York's list of approved out-of-state facilities would not be
made until a final report is complete.
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