One school and one school only uses electric shocks as a main part of their program. This is the Judge Rotenberg Center and the students are largely autistic.
Up until now.
The FDA has banned the devices.
ACLU COMMENT ON FDA’S FINAL RULE TO BAN ELECTRICAL STIMULATION DEVICES
From the ACLU statement:
“People with disabilities deserve the right to be supported with dignity and respect, and there are no circumstances under which they should be subjected to pain as a means of behavior modification.”
Here is a news article:
FDA bans shock device used on mentally disabled patients
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By Matt Carey
ABA Leaks has a correction to this good news. We previously reported this in our Facebook page. Behaviorists in the USA have been skin shocking gays illegally in their Gay Conversion Therapy. It’s not only happening at the Judge Rotenberg Center in Massachusetts
It’s about time! I am so glad that no other autistic people will have to go through that.
Finally! I cannot believe that such techniques were used. This is stuff that belongs to the 1950s and has long been proved to be non-effective and dangerous. How could they possibly do things like this to our children!?!
Sorry, but I disagree. This isn’t even something that belonged in the 1950’s, this is more Gestapo era in nature.
This isn’t electroconvulsive therapy, it’s zapping someone until they comply with whatever arbitrary rule one gins up, regardless of any inability to comprehend what is desired.
As far as I’m concerned, the lot of that group at that “Center” should share in the fate of the Gestapo agents that tortured men and women across Europe.
I’ve worked on electronics, where circuits had to be live to adjust voltages and currents, catching my fair share of jolts over the years. I’ve also been subjected to not one, but three electromyogram sessions, where the pain management physician didn’t trust an outside professional’s results, scheduled me for him to perform the test, only for his office to schedule his partner and I agreed to his performing the test on the condition that I perform the same test on him.
He backed out of participating as a volunteer.
That’s much milder than what these victims suffered, as that was around 90 volts, 20 hertz (power line frequency in the US is 60 hertz, other regions use either 60 hertz or 50 hertz), so it basically felt like I was holding a telephone line when it was rang (yeah, had a friend foul up and call when he knew I was fixing the wires, we chuckled over it after).
I can’t believe it’s taken this long and the JR Center’s response is abhorrent. They claim the decision is “political”. Gross.