Child abuse, Skinner style

[danohu]

Wow. Drop what you're doing, and go read this article:

The only thing that sets these students apart from kids at any other school in America - aside from their special-ed designation - is the electric wires running from their backpacks to their wrists. Each wire connects to a silver-dollar-sized metal disk strapped with a cloth band to the student's wrist, forearm, abdomen, thigh, or foot. Inside each student's backpack is a battery and a generator, both about the size of a VHS cassette. Each generator is uniquely coded to a single keychain transmitter kept in a clear plastic box labeled with the student's name. Staff members dressed neatly in ties and green aprons keep the boxes hooked to their belts, and their eyes trained on the students' behavior. They stand ready, if they witness a behavior they've been told to target, to flip open the box, press the button, and deliver a painful two-second electrical shock into the student at the end of the wire.

Now, this is already astoundingly nasty stuff. The justification is that these are severely disabled children who would otherwise be locked up, drugged to the eyeballs, or killing themselves. I can't accept it - because I wouldn't want anybody to have that power over anyone, certainly not in such a regimented system - but at least I can see the defence. Only, read on and it gets far worse:

Sometimes, the student gets shocked for doing precisely what he's told. In a few cases where a student is suspected of being capable of an extremely dangerous but infrequent behavior, the staff at Rotenberg won't wait for him to try it. They will exhort him to do it, and then punish him. In these behavior rehearsal lessons, staff members will force a student to start a dangerous activity - for a person who likes to cut himself, they might get him to pick up a plastic knife on the table - and then shock him when he does.

And worse:

New York state inspectors concluded that "the background and preparation of staff is not sufficient," that JRC shocks students "without a clear history of self-injurious behavior," and that it uses the GED "for behaviors that are not aggressive, health dangerous, or destructive, such as nagging, swearing, and failing to keep a neat appearance."

Edit: wow, there have been some totally fascinating comments on this. Thanks, everybody :)

Comments

[serena-lesley.livejournal.com]

I assume that when you say 'maybe this place isn't that much worse than the alternatives', you mean cost wise? Assuming that to be the case, I'm sure you agree that the money would be better spent in a way that uses a less painfiul and harmful method in order to get results.

[nairoz.livejournal.com]

I think the question needs to be asked... does it work?

I don't support this particuarly, but is it actually effective at all?

Although goading students to try stuff is way out of line - that will just lead to neurotic behavior, with the students afraid to try anything at all.

[rachelfmb.livejournal.com]

I'm not convinced that the question is "does it work?" See the slippery slope argument pointed out by people below. Also even if it were the case that it did "work" in some extreme cases, perhaps there is something still wrong about treating people in this way.

[nairoz.livejournal.com]

Quite - it is (potentially, not always I feel) child abuse. But as it's being pushed as a technique to "control children not otherwise controllable", I think whether it works or not at least needs to be answered - if it doesn't, it's just abuse, end of story.

And although it may be horrifying to people (I'm disturbed by it), if it IS effective, and does work in cases where other methods have failed - is it truly a bad thing?

That's why I think the question of "does it work" needs to be answered, to see if there's any benefit whatsoever, or if it's just abuse.

[serena-lesley.livejournal.com]

I think you've overlooked that if it does get results, but those results could also have been got through less violent methods, then it's still abuse.

[nairoz.livejournal.com]

Not overlooked - I'm not saying that this is the only technique that can be used if it's shown to provide any benefit whatsoever. If it does work, it's a tool which should at least be considered along with any other techniques that are effective (and may still be abuse, as other people have stated).

It's certainly a tricky subject, I just feel that "does it work" needs to be answered before any other discussion can really take place - if it provides some benefit, then it's potentially abuse, if it has no benefits, then it IS abuse.

I feel that the main problem is, how do you know if a method's effective without trying it? And, at the moment, ARE there better (not nessecarily as/more effective - if this actually is effective) treatments availible?

There's a lot of questions that need answering, and everyone's made a lot of very valid points here.