Kerima Çevik theautismwars.blogspot.com Last week the body of Mikaela Lynch, age 9, Autistic, was found in a nearby lake where she apparently drowned. I am sorry to say that when I saw the red flags of a nonspeaking missing child, a nearby body of water, and unfenced backyard leading to woods, I feared the worst while praying for the best. I’m not going to comment on the article on Mikaela’s death in Cafe Mom’s The Stir because I don’t wish to increase hits on the Examiner article, which vilified the parents without a clear grasp of what happened that day. We weren’t there. We don’t know what happened. We only know what is reported to us. I will wait for the police to finish their autopsy and investigation, and pass on my sincere condolences to Mikaela’s family. We have been engaged in teaching our son water survival rather than swimming since…
Tag: legislation
Mary Brandenburg and Tony Brandenburg www.theebrandenburgs.blogspot.com Trigger warning: discussion of aversives, restraint and seclusion; mistreatment of disabled people Recently, a story that has been in the headlines regarding treatment of students with disabilities concerned an autistic 4th grade boy in Kentucky. Reportedly, the boy smirked and threw a ball in class. The teachers’ response to this behavior was to stuff him in a duffel bag and tie the drawstring so he couldn’t get out. His mom was called to the school to deal with his behavior. She discovered him when she heard a voice calling from the army bag. Thankfully, he didn’t suffocate, but who can measure the emotional trauma he suffered? Another school in the news, the Judge Rotenberg Center, uses painful electrical shocks, restraint chairs, shackles and seclusion to control the behavior of people with disabilities. This center, which charges $200,000 yearly tuition, has lobbied extensively in Washington…