An Enquiry Into The Judge Rotenberg Center & ABA Therapy

Post Reply New Topic

I have not read through all of these posts. I commented on shock treatments that take place in the center in an an Autism Speaks post. I had just seen the child being tortured for refusing to take his coat off [typical teen-age behavior, and BTW, though I am FAR from being a teen I sometimes like to keep my coat on when I am feeling insecure] in my post I mentioned that because of my sons experiences I might be over reacting. Now I realize that I was in fact under reacting.

But hey, my son is proof that the method works. My son was never intentionally put through the torture he endured [and still does on a lesser basis] but he went through it just the same. A portion of his brain sends out signals to the nerves in his body that they are under acute attack. The neurologist termed it the most excruciating pain humanly possible. You know what it looks like? it looks like that Rottenberg video.

Oh, and my son, who did have some fairly difficult to handle behaviors, those behaviors dissapeared, totally. Yep.Gone. Yoo-hoo. Except that there was a price to pay for my sons change in attitude.

Where do I start? Okay, lJ was doing college calculus and trigonometry at 12 years old. Now he cannot do simple subtraction. He used to laugh most of the time. Occassionally now I hear a sarcastic snicker. I used to hug him while he was crying because he didn't know why he "did so many bad things," but for the next 7 years I would hold him as he cried and begged me to help him die.

They are ice pick, taser-like pains that come one after another after another. lJ calls them "The Burns." once again, if you want to know what they look like, check out the Rottenberg center video. Twice my son had blood spurting from inside his eye sockets from "The Burns." He passed out from the pain tens of thousands of times. But hey, he never fought with me about taking off his coat or not. And even when he wasn't having the burns, no negative behavior at all, he was too busy living in fear of "The Burns."

My son did not lose all of his intelligence. He reatined enough to be aware of all he has lost. My son does not forget what it felt like before "The Burns." He tells me that he wishes that he did not remember what it was like to be happy. [ most of the time he was one happy spinning stim]

And this is what that center DELIBERATELY does to the children who enter it. And if their goal is to suck the hope,the joy, the dreams and the abilities out of a child [to ensure that he takes his coat off when commanded] I am sure they are doing outstanding work.

Vicky. What is the exact name of this condition so I can research it in detail? I may be able to offer some insight as I am a healer and also know something about brain function. I thought of private messaging you but decided to ask you here as this relates to ABA.

I am so sorry about your son. It must be very difficult for you.

I have added a link on ABA to the intro of this thread. Anyone who wants to discuss the Rotenberg Center please read at least the six page article and also watch the from that center from the second link.

thank you littlebee.

LJ has lesions on BOTH sides of his thalamus that they believe were caused by a stroke BEFORE he was born. We did not know about this, even the stroke until he was 12 years old.[ he was born so unhappy though,even in the delivery room, and he rarely slept] The doctors believe that the hormone changes were responsible for triggering the burns.

Things that have helped him somewhat are accupuncture, medical marijuana, and nortryptalyne. That was after trying everything and taking him everywhere around the world and spending half a million on every lotion, potion, ,therapy, faith healer you can imagine [ He is doing much better, which is good because we have no money left and are currently living in a tiny travel trailer in the mountains [in a nudist club] ]

He is doing somewhat better but I think he would be doing even better if he was not always worrying about my breast cancer. He can be totally relaxed and the burns will hit but they ALWAYS hit if he gets emotional in any way [including joy. so that's gone]

Oh, and about 2 weeks before the burns first hit, he started having profound tourettes. The closest to an actual name for his condition is 'similar to central pain disorder."[or is it syndrome?]

http://canton.patch.com/groups/opinion/ ... e095d6a7c2

Worth a read, if this topic interests you.

Just read this... The writer makes a good point--watching others being tortured is as traumatic, or more traumatic, than being tortured yourself. The only way to solve that problem, psychologically, is to withdraw, to learn how to pretend not to care about others; to learn to be invisible. Or else, you can become the "bad child", the target, so that you're the one getting hurt instead of the other person. Either you learn that friendship isn't worth it, or you learn that you are a horrible person who deserves punishment. Is that the kind of lesson we want our autistic kids to learn? Any kids? Didn't think so. Apparently, at the JRC, friendship is not allowed.

One thing that stood out to me was the report that students sometimes would "act out" until they had received their maximum shocks per day, then they would stop. I remember doing this as a child in an abusive houshold, though I didn't realize it at the time. I lived with an unpredictably abusive stepfather, and sometimes I would deliberately defy him in order to provoke a rage, so that I could predict when I was going to be hurt rather than constantly being afraid. It gave me a little more control. I knew I was going to be hurt no matter what I did, so I decided to choose when it would happen.

I think that you are partly right, but risk making what I think of as "the semiotic mistake" -- losing any sense of the reality behind the screen of representation and coming to believe that there is no truth, everything is relative, there is no objective reality.

Roland Barthes was killed by a motor vehicle that he did not know was there. Even to the most ardent deconstructionist, this really should be sufficient proof that belief in reality or ideas about reality do not determine reality. Reality happens even when people are unaware of it. If a tree falls in the forest, it always makes a sound because forests don't exist in a vacuum.

It is difficult for us to get through our own systems of sign and signifier and very easy to lose contact with reality and get lost in simulacra and representation. These are natural consequence of the mechanisms of thought.

Nevertheless, there is an objective reality and we can use consensus interpretation of sensory inputs and the scientific method to approach an understanding of it, even if it is difficult or impossible to apprehend directly.

I don't understand some of the terms you use and suspect that the way you use them implies things which I don't believe are true.

I don't know what you mean by "whole human being" or "intelligent group culture" so I am not sure if I agree or disagree with your idea about productivity. I am also not at all sure about what you may mean by people at a "primitive level" -- the idea of the primitive has a very chequered past. Sometimes the word is used from a 19th century colonialist perspective and means "culturally inferior and worthy of conquest." Sometimes it is used from a Marxist perspective and means less advanced on the long march through the inevitable phases of history. Sometimes it is used in a purely technological way to indicate a lower level of engineering and technological capability (e.g., steam engines are more "primitive" than nuclear powerplants.) Sometimes it is a stand in concept for "not good" or "not what I like."

In this case it could be used to say "if you raise an issue which I don't like, you are promoting primitive thinking" which can be rewritten as "Your style of argument is bad and your goal is wrong. You should change your approach to something I approve of."

Two things stood out for me: the account of shocking a child for asking to use the bathroom and then, after hours of this, shocking her for soiling her pants. The worker showing signs of PTSD made as a result of witnessing and participating in this stuff made me think about the idea that they might modify the behavior of children with PTSD by exposing them systematically to more trauma. I can understand that you could come to believe this if you preferred skinnerian behavioral doctrine to well documented reality, but at this stage that is really indefensible.

Those "intangible," subjective inner states Skinner wanted to discount in favor of observed behavior are now observable through functional MRI and other means. It makes no sense to act is if there is nothing going on in minds and the behavior of bodies is the only thing accessible to rational investigation. The claim that the behaviorist approach is rational dissolve in the face of evidence.

Hi everyone. I think this is going to be an interesting thread, and I am looking forward to participating here as much as I can find the time to do so.

Admanantium, I appreciate what you wrote, especially asking me to define the term primitive. I did not mean it in any of the ways you mentioned, but more in terms of object relation which studies how a child develops by individuating himself from his environment. By "a whole person" I also was speaking from this angle, and by primitive a natural intuitive organizational capacity but with a certain according to differentiation of subject and object, but with a lack of the kind of understanding that comes only over time and experience with the development of a person. I intend to go into this in detail when I can find the time. By an intelligent group I mean a group whose members hava conscious intent to understand and define its own purpose.

The one problem I have with your message is that you took my wrote out of context. I think if we go back to the original context of what Callista wrote that might give a better understanding. I intended to do that anyway. I was very tired when I responded to her and that was just a beginning, but you're right, the term primitive can be interpreted in many ways and is kind of charged. I should have been more aware of that. What Callista wrote was very interesting to me and I wanted to respond right away as to make a bit of an emphasis in that particular direction of enquiry..

I think the idea of using vague thinking and terminology to discount others reality is a worth looking at. It can definitely be a device. It also can be a theory of mind thing in that a person just assumes another person will be able to relate to his own generality(of which he himself understands the specifics, and I think these two can overlap. However, there is also the possibility of picking up a new kind of terminology by association rather than just be definition. Not giving a definition can slow down understanding and even lead to a tower of babel but it can also in certain contexts facilitate understanding. There are two ways to assimilate the understanding of a language.

In terms of reality, would you say that sensation is the' ground' of reality? The tree falling in the forest situation you mentioned is based on extrapolation. Without the sense organs of yourself it would not be possible for you to make such an extrapolation.

Vicky, I am sorry about your cancer and will be praying for a healing.

The man I love but am not with as he is living several hundred miles away now is taking nortryptalyne.and lots of other medically prescribed drugs and is slurring his words. I am not sure which drug is causing it, and wish I know. He is also taking prosac..

So joy is gone for your son? That is a sad and shocking.

I don't know if you would care to share, bur how old is your son? How do you spend your days? What does he do with his time?

Also, you mentioned his mathematical skills at age twelve. If you care to share, how did he get interested in that? Did you guys coach him? And was there any major life change or trauma at about the time this happened? Also, does he still have tourettes, and if so, what are the exact symptoms? I have mild tourettes which I developed in my sixties and it is somewhat increasing in the last year, all mainly around shouting out, originally when falling asleep, but now at some other time in public, but it is still very mild..

I do have a tendency to be over-optimistic, but I think I may have found a possible cure for what what your son is experiencing; however I want to research some more.and also learn a little bit more about your son and then when the times comes I will pm you sometime pretty soon after Christmas.....

Had to add this to the discussion:

What I think when I see twenty bazillion posts about the JRC on my dash

This was posted on Tumblr by an autistic woman. She makes a very, very good point: If we focus on the JRC and think we've won if we shut them down, we'll be ignoring other places where people are being hurt just as much and more. What's more, you don't have to physically hurt someone to hurt them. Those of you who've been bullied or abused at home, you probably remember the non-physical aspects of it... the fear, the loss of freedom, having your identity denied. I much prefer a physical attack to that; at least it's honest. At least bruises heal. People can be abused in the nicest-looking environments. One of the nicest-looking places I have ever lived at was also one of the places where I was subjected to a totalitarian environment, one I still have nightmares about. And no one ever even touched me there.

So, yeah, it's more complex than just stopping one type of torture at one particular place. In order to solve the problem, we have to change our society at a basic level. We have to make it known that disabled people are equals. Equal rights, equal value. People don't get to have power over us just because we're disabled, and people don't get to say they're treating us well simply because they don't physically abuse us.

^I've just read the tumblr post and I've learned a lot from the woman who wrote it.

One of the interesting and useful ideas that comes up if you study semiotics, Saussure and Barthes along with pretty much any of the main branches of psychology is that the idea of context and authorial intent are complicated. How much of what we write is the self-aware product of our conscious mind, our intent or ego? How much the product of our unconscious mind and the ocean of thoughts we form and process without self-awareness? (Scientific American article on a related process) But I take your point. I also found Callista's comment extremely interesting and look forward to more discussion of these topics. I look forward to seeing your more involved thoughts on this, too.

I also intend to explain my belief in the need to stop the practices at the JRC and the way my system of ethics underlies this goal. Informing and changing public views about the acceptability of the ideas behind the JRC is part of that argument.

I also hope to discuss strategies for achieving the closure of the JRC and transformation of other institutions engaged in abusive practices. To facilitate this, I will look at some historical movements for human rights issues and effective movements for change that I have participated in. The movements that may be constructive to study and learn from are, the movement for the reform of insane asylums, the american civil rights movement, the movement for women's suffrage, the anti-nuclear movement, the anti-apartheid movement and the movement for gay rights. There is ample evidence in the historical perspective and my own experience that very large social change, including dramatic legal changes and changes in the hearts and minds of the majority, can be achieved through strategic action by dedicated individuals.

Thanks for the intelligent response.

I think i made clear my intent in the introduction to this thread, which intent is to look at human brain function, but, as mentioned, I do not see why this cannot occur in conjunction with shutting down the JRC.if someone is interested in doing that....except if a person is hard core dedicated to such a purpose (which I am not), wouldn't the other material on this thread which is looking at human brain function dilute the focus of such an aim? I think Callista's message, though she does not say this directly, kind of touches on this subject.

Anyway, I put the three links at the beginning of this thread to be specifically used as learning material here because they allow a lot of flexibility and also give a lot of very specific detail and contrast to look at various aspects of this situation, and though I said the link on ABA (applied behavior analysis) is optional, I think it is important to look at that subject, also.

What is probably going to happen, imo, is that due to a lot of people's efforts, perhaps including your own, ultimately this kind of shock therapy will be outlawed in he United States and then people will find all kinds of other things to do to each other. So my personal intent, from my own passionate interest in social science and human brain function, is to try to change people's attitudes in such a way as to affect broad social trends and tendencies.

People do not have much of an inkling, if they have ever even thought about it, of how the organization of conscious community on the internet can affect all aspects of human society. There is so much data on the internet that anything a person does seems like just a drop in a very large body of water, but because the internet is an electromagnetic medium in which people function in a way that mirrors the functioning of society, but with some anomaly, there may be a way to consciously work with symbolism that can affect many people..

I think that both goals can be pursued without any loss to either. A component of every successful movement for social change is what we used to call "consciousness raising" but might better be termed education about the condition to be changed and promotion of the alternatives. I think a few well placed links and succinct descriptions can achieve this goal in this thread without derailing your exploration of brain function. I also think such content in this thread will be part of a much larger communication program which includes the material linked to, news reports about the JRC and related stories about aversive therapy and institutional abuse. I don't think the discussion of brain function will detract from the communicative goal of including those links. Because of the headline, this thread is a good place for a small piece of that effort.

Ideally, some autistic people or people who care about autistic people (or other people who may be "treated" at JRC or abused in institutions) will follow some of the links and the neural pathways that lead to the idea of such abuse and the need to end it will be strengthened. In time with enough reinforcement, these neural pathways will result in people taking actions. Enough of these and we will see changes in the legality of aversive therapy and safeguards against institutional abuse.

The links were great. I thought the ABA piece was very interesting. I have read a lot of mentions of ABA in the last year without knowing what it means. I look forward to hearing more of your thoughts about on ABA.

I hope your forecast is correct! This kind of change only happens if people work toward it, though there are many ways to do this! I think your goal to change attitudes is likely to succeed, based on what I have seen of changing attitudes towards race and homosexuality over my lifetime. I see things through an Anglo-American cultural lens, so these are not universal truths, but within the anglosphere, I see an increasingly tolerant culture. The next generation of Southern Baptists, for example, are far more accepting of homosexuality than their parents. The general trend is toward increasing respect for individuals and diminishing group-based bigotry.

Interesting. As a veteran of many consciousness raising efforts I find this language appealing. I wonder what, exactly, you mean by "conscious." I think this will be a very interesting thread.

I wanted to add a further thought in response to your earlier post:

Information created in the mind in response to stimulation of the sense organs is the basis of each person's conceptual model of reality.
The ground of reality is another, very complicated idea.

In some senses you might be talking about the "ground of all being" --the theological conception of some modern Christian thinkers. In another sense you might be talking about something like Max Tegmark's neoplatonic "Mathematical Universe" --these ideas of an ultimate reality that is somewhat remote from our experience and may be understood from its impact on the world we experience through our senses rather than directly sensed (unless you consider abstract cognition a form of sensation.)

What I would say about the tree falling in the forest is that "forest" is a consensus concept that necessarily implies many things: trees, earth for the trees to root in (or some substitute system to distribute nutrients to the roots), sunlight and atmospheric gasses for the photosynthetic chemistry that fuels the lives of the trees, etc. That's all we need to realize that the falling tree makes sound--because we know through the best analytical means we have (science) that the impact of a tree hitting the ground in a forest will always create shockwaves in the atmospheric gasses the trees inhabit. Trees really don't live in a vacuum, so sound must happen, QED. A great many other things are needed for a forest: a planet, entailing stellar evolution; a variety of elements suggesting the whole process of cosmology that lead to the distribution of elements that make up the molecules required for trees and their energy and matter supplies. To the extent that we can believe in any external reality at all, these things follow.

It's possible to imagine scenarios in which a falling tree does not make sound (a tree deployed in orbit, for example. or Larry Niven's Integral Trees) but the question is generally phrased "If a tree falls in a forest" and it's the many meanings of the term forest that make it reasonable to conclude that when a tree falls in a forest it certainly does make a sound--always and regardless of whether there is a listener.

Yeah, like I said on page one:

I think you will find that discussing these strategies with littlebee directly will result in getting mired down in technicalities, in misrepresentation of your arguments and facing multiple straw men. You are interacting with someone who might on the surface claim to be sympathetic to your goals, but as you continue to discuss these things, she will try to block certain aspects of the discussion by asserting a sense of false peril (like her comment about these things keeping us primitive, or in another thread claiming that talking about torture as torture causes human suffering). And she might actually accuse you of saying horrible things about her or doing horrible things to her when all you might have said is "I don't understand what your argument is."

Just kind of a warning going in. My experience seeing her discuss this specific topic is that she's less interested in dealing with institutional abuse than she is in trying to get people to only speak of it in a "nice" tone.

Which is why I am not going to discuss this with her.