Inclusion Daily Express -- New York Mom Sues JRC Over Son's Skin Shocks

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New York Mom Sues JRC Over Son's Skin Shocks
By Dave Reynolds, Inclusion Daily Express
July 31, 2006

FREEPORT, NEW YORK--The mother of a teenager who attended a Massachusetts residential school has sued the facility for causing her son emotional trauma, Newsday reported.

In her suit filed July 20, Evelyn Nicholson named as defendants the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center and her local school district, which sent 17-year-old Antwone to the Massachusetts facility in August 2004.

Over the next 18 months, JRC used a device to deliver electric skin shocks to the boy -- on 79 different occasions -- to change behavior related to his attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Nicholson has said that the institution's aversive therapy amounted to corporal punishment, which is banned in New York and at least 26 other states.

At her request, the facility stopped using the shock treatments on Antwone in February. In April, he was transferred back to New York, but to a different school district.

Nicholson's attorney told Newsday that he had intended to just sue the Freemont school district, but changed his mind after a former JRC staff told him the facility smelled of burning flesh.

JRC, which houses about 150 youths from New York, has come under scrutiny from education officials in both New York and Massachusetts over allegations that its aversive treatments of students -- most of which have disabilities -- are abusive and amount in some situations to torture.

Related:
"Mom sues over electric shock" (Newsday)
http://www.inclusiondaily.com/news/06/red/0731c.htm

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