What's more to be envisaged from Autism Speaks? Their "advocacy" on ASD's have always been based on the mainstream pathological view; therefore, they have been relentless for their eminently biased, misinforming and overly-sentimentalized propaganda campaigns of classifying autism as a "calamitous epidemic" and a "debilitating and environmentally induced illness" which is lamentably nauseating to the core. They have never discussed the fundamental subject with the inclusion of autistic people and they NEVER will. Keep in mind though that they aren't the only distinguished group known for their ardency of denigrating autistic people with their hate-mongering, as well as their insidious and dogmatic anti-neurodiversity diatribes ("Age of Autism" in particular). No matter how coherent us autistics can express for ourselves to insure them that autism isn't what the medical model cracks it up to be, the representative's adamance is too insurmountable due to their disappreciation of the spectrum, their staunchly pro-eugenic views, and their financial conflicts of interest with the pharmaceutical industry.
Unprecedented until now, Autism Speaks have even formulated an alliance with the Judge Rotenberg Center (JRC) by featuring them as one of their exhibitors at the resource fair, despite previously condemning their fervent usage of deleterious and aversive behavior modification techniques such as contingent electric shock therapies (especially graduated electronic decelerator (GED)). There is absolutely no scientific corroboration to back up their claims of improving the temperaments of the endured patients, although they have been triumphant with their beyond heinous and scientifically groundless tactics on torturing the lives and infringing the civil rights of autistic people and those with other developmental disabilities. The JRC has also elusively and repeatedly evaded legislative and administrative efforts from anti-psychiatry collations, disability rights organizations, and the neurodiversity proponency group the Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN), who lobby against them to put an end to their abhorrent malpractices for a multitude of years. The JRC has persistently accomplished this due to making formidable and sophisticated lobbying campaigns with representatives at US congress (some may have ties with pharmaceutical companies) to abstain the interdiction of their abhorrent electric shock techniques.
Quote:
For those who may not be regular readers of Autistic Hoya, let me elaborate on the history of the Judge Rotenberg Center. The JRC, formerly known as the Behavior Research Institute, was originally founded in 1971 by Harvard-educated psychologist Matthew Israel, who studied behaviorism under B. F. Skinner. Israel opened shop in California, taking in students with significant developmental, neurological, and behavioral disabilities with a no-expulsion, no-rejection policy. His methodology of treatment was predicated on techniques called aversive interventions — slaps, forced inhalation of ammonia, food deprivation, sleep deprivation, prolonged restraint, deep-muscle pinches intended to inflict maximum pain, and long-term seclusion. One of the more disturbing practices that Israel favors is called "behavior rehearsal lessons," in which students are coerced into producing unwanted behaviors solely for the purpose of subsequently punishing them. Essentially, aversive interventions operate on the same philosophy that some people apply to animals — if you pair an unwanted behavior with a painful stimulus, the unwanted behavior will go away.
Except in California, one of Israel's students died as a result of his "treatment" methods. The BRI was forced to relocate, and Israel settled in Rhode Island, where his abusive practices continued. In the early 1990's, Israel had a brilliant epiphany — what if he were to use electric shock as an aversive? Rhode Island's regulatory agency refused to permit the BRI to subject its residents to electric shock punishments, and so Israel moved the facility once again to Massachusetts, where it has remained ever since. The BRI invented their own device, known as the graduated electronic decelator, which is intentionally designed to be more powerful and more painful than a police taser. Students are forced to wear electrodes attached to various parts of their bodies, and whenever they engage in any unwanted behavior (anything from head-banging to flapping their hands to getting out of their seat without permission), staff press a button that causes an electric shock. When the state of Massachusetts attempted to end this barbaric practice, Israel sued the regulating agency. When he prevailed, forcing the then-Commissioner of Mental Retardation to resign, he renamed the facility after the judge who oversaw the agreement — Ernest Rotenberg.
At least six students with disabilities have died at the JRC either directly or indirectly because of the torture inflicted upon them in the name of treatment. The former and current U.N. Special Rapporteurs on Torture, Manfred Nowak and Juan E. Méndez, have condemned the JRC's practices as torture. The U.S. Department of Justice's civil rights division has been investigating the JRC since around the time that footage of the JRC's shock treatment (link has a photosensitive epilepsy warning in addition to the trigger warning for torture) was played in open court during a civil lawsuit against the facility. The JRC is the only facility in the entire United States that uses electric shock as punishment on disabled people — a form of abuse that would readily lead to public outrage if used on convicted prisoners or animals, but that remains largely unquestioned when called "treatment" and used on disabled people instead.
People with disabilities, family members, and community advocates have been calling for an end to the JRC's abuses for decades. I have compiled a long list of links to articles, formal reports, court documents, and videos documenting the JRC's brutal practices. Of the myriad of abuses that occur in institutional settings, the JRC's are certainly among the worst.
And yet Autism Speaks had the gall to include the JRC as a "service provider" in their resource fair at the DC Walk Now for Autism.
This is the organization that is hosting a national policy and action summit to develop a national plan on autism in Washington DC this week. An organization that explicitly and unabashedly partnered itself with the Judge Rotenberg Center. Autism Speaks' history of excluding autistic people from leadership (up through the utter absence of any autistic people whatsoever on their board in the history of the organization's existence) ought to be troubling already — and their repeated insistence on justifications for violence against autistic people murdered by family members or caregivers shocking to the conscience. This alliance between Autism Speaks and the Judge Rotenberg Center is outrageous beyond belief.
http://www.autistichoya.com/2013/11/an- ... s-and.html
_________________
Diagnosed with "Classical" Asperger's syndrome in 1998 (Clinical psychologist).
RAADS-R: 237/240
Aspie score: 199 out of 200
Neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 1 out of 200
Alexithymia Questionnaire: 166/185 AQ: 49/50 EQ: 9/80
13 Nov 2013, 9:46 am
