Posted by wishingstar on February 25, 2007, at 17:35:35
In reply to Re: Shocking autistic children from doing harm, posted by notfred on February 23, 2007, at 16:57:39
I agree with notfred in many ways. I dont have close contact with anyone diagnosed with autism, although I do know quite a bit about it from the work I do. I think it's hard to make a call on these situations without knowing a lot about autism but more importantly, without knowing a lot about these particular children. What is their current level of functioning? What treatments/interventions have been tried before? what were the results? what is their level of cognitive functioning and would it be possible to use a more cognitive reinforcement/punishment system (like tokens, etc) or is this beyond their abilites? How strong are the shocks (because obviously very strong shocks would be unethical, but I'm sure that isnt the case here, or theyd be shut down)? Whats the function of the repetative behavior and can it be redirected or resolved in another way that the person isnt able to communicate? And on and on. My immediate reaction, with few details on the situation of course, is that strictly restraining them isnt enough. Sure, it keeps them safe in the moment, but does very little to stop the behavior from recurring.
I'm not necessairly for shocks.. the idea does sound a bit odd. I guess I'm just trying to present a middle ground. I dont want to judge without knowing what theyre really doing over there.
poster:wishingstar
thread:736043
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20070215/msgs/736170.html