Feds probe Mass. special needs school

The U.S. Justice Department has begun a review of whether the use of electric shock therapy by a Massachusetts special needs school violates the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The Canton-based Judge Rotenberg Educational Center uses the treatment, known as aversive therapy, as a way to control aggressive behavior and prevent severely autistic students from injuring themselves or others. The privately operated, residential school administers the shocks in 2 second intervals.

In a Feb. 18 letter, the Justice Department refers to the review as a "routine investigation."

"Our goal is to investigate this matter in a fair and impartial manner and to work with all parties to reach a productive and amicable resolution," the letter stated.

Renee Wohlenhaus, deputy chief of the Disability Rights Section, wrote the letter to Nancy Weiss, director of the National Leadership Consortium on Developmental Disabilities.

Weiss's organization, based at the University of Delaware, wrote to the Justice Department in September, asking that action be taken to end the electric shocks. The letter was signed by more than 30 other advocacy groups.

Weiss said she hoped the federal scrutiny would ultimately lead to the closing of the 38-year-old school. The school receives public funds for some students and accepts students from several states. In 2007, it had about 230 students.

"If you tell this to the average person on the street, people are horrified and they can't believe this can possibly be legal and going on in this day and age," Weiss said.

Michael Flammia, a Boston-based attorney who represents the center, said there was nothing at the school that would violate the Americans with Disabilities Act.

"The pain created by the skin shock devices is far less than the severe injury, in some cases the permanent injury, that the kids are doing to themselves," he said.

Students who attend the school are required to have independent education plans that specify what kind of treatment the student may receive and those plans must be approved by parents and a medical doctor and submitted to a Probate and Family Court judge, Flammia said.

Some states have banned or severely restricted the use of electric shocks in mental health treatment. Besides Massachusetts, the states of California, Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, and the District of Columbia permit students in their states to be referred to the Judge Rotenberg Center.

In their September letter to the Justice Department, critics said students sometimes receive disciplinary shocks for behavior as minor as stopping work, getting out of their seats without permission, or interrupting others.

"I thought it was cruel and inhumane because they really tortured my son," said Evelyn Nicholson of Freeport, N.Y., whose son, Antwone, attended the school from 2003-2006.

Nicholson said her son, now 21, lives at home and attends a day program at a rehabilitation center.

But the school also has strong support from parents who say it's been an effective last resort for their children after medication and other types of treatment failed.

"It's a lifesaving treatment," said Peter Biscardi of Woburn, Mass., whose son, P.J., 43, has been a resident of the center since 1978.

Biscardi said his son is severely autistic and injured himself several times a day before he began living at the center.

"He would hit his head, bite his hand, he would bolt anywhere, run into traffic, run into walls, just about anything," said Biscardi.

The center has been the subject of past state inquiries. In 2007, two teenage students were awakened and wrongly given dozens of shocks after a prank call from a person posing as a supervisor. A state report determined that staff made mistakes and the school was required to prove that shocks were being used only for the most dangerous and self-destructive behaviors.