From the Chicago Daily Herald, Chicago Tribune:

A substitute teacher has been sentenced to probation, a $1,500 fine and 80 hours of community service for taping an 8-year-old student to his chair when he would not sit still and then putting masking tape over his mouth.

Matthew Konetski had been convicted of aggravated battery and unlawful restraint in the March 2006 incident. A first-year substitute with no special education training, Konetski was left alone with special education students without the two aides normally assigned to the class.

“I was just trying to come up with a way to deal with a situation I didn’t know how to deal with,” he said.

From the New York Times:

One unfortunate result of including children with disabilities in regular classes, experts say, is the increasing use of physical restraints on vulnerable students. Takedowns, isolation rooms, restraining chairs with straps and more are being used — the same sort of practices that families had hoped to avoid by steering clear of institutionalized settings.

In April, a 9-year-old Montreal boy with autism died of suffocation when a special education teacher wrapped him in a weighted blanket to calm him, according to the coroner’s report. Two Michigan public school students with autism have died while being held on the ground in so-called prone restraint.

… “Behavior problems in school are way up, and there’s good reason to believe that the use of these procedures is up, too,” said Reece L. Peterson, a professor of special education at the University of Nebraska.

… The issue is politically sensitive at a time when schools have done a lot to accommodate students with special needs, and some have questioned whether mainstreaming has gone too far.

Tim Miller, above, has been repeatedly been restrained at his middle school in New York. His parents are suing the school district. He has Asperger’s syndrome.

(New York Times photo)

From the Montreal Gazette, Toronto Star,

A Quebec coroner’s report into the case of 9-year-old Gabriel Poirer, who died in his classroom in the Montreal area, concluded that the boy had smothered when teachers tried to restrain him with a weighted blanket.

The boy was wrapped in a heavy blanket and left on his stomach, his head completely covered, for more than 20 minutes. The coroner’s report said teachers had received training in using weighted blankets, but had not followed the rules on the day the boy died.

The coroner recommended stiffer safety guidelines concerning the weighted blankets, which often contain ball bearings or buckwheat seeds.

(Montreal Gazette photo)

From the Orange County Register:

Robert Velasquez claims that a face-down restraint technique caused emotional and physical damage in his 8-year-old son. His formal complaint, seeking at least $25,000, alleges negligence, civil rights violations and false imprisonment. He said the teachers did not have proper training to use the technique, and that the boy’s nose was broken in the incident.

District officials declined to comment on the case, but said all special education teachers were adequately trained for their jobs.

She files complaints, says boy with autism was isolated 78 times in 11 weeks

From the Louisville [Kentucky] Courier-Journal:

Jeanie Montgomery of Oldham County says the local school district violated the rights of her son when staff members repeatedly locked him in a 32-square-foot room. She has filed complaints with the Kentucky Department of Education and with child-protective-service officials over Crestwood Elementary School’s use of the time-out room.

“I am afraid for his safety,” said Montgomery, adding that her son has limited speech because of his autism and can’t describe what happened.

Oldham school officials deny any abuse and are cooperating fully with child-protective services, spokeswoman Rebecca DeSensi said.

… Department of Education guidelines, issued in 2000, state that placing a student in seclusion is a “drastic measure that should only be used as a last defense measure” and that schools should “never lock a student in a closed setting.”

From the BBC:

The human rights of people with learning disabilities are frequently breached, according to a report from the British Parliament.

The Joint Committee on Human Rights says vulnerable adults are particularly likely to be abused and neglected. The report highlights cases where people in care homes or hospitals were inappropriately restrained with straps or sedated with drugs.

The committee was shocked that even in cases of horrific abuse, staff did not know they were doing wrong.

Improvements are being made, the report says, but a culture based on outdated negative stereotypes needs changing.

“The evidence has shown us that the consequences of a lack of awareness of people’s rights can be devastating,” said Andrew Dismore, chairman of the committee.

New therapies sought for dementia sufferers; music and massages

From the Wall Street Journal: Some nursing homes are now experimenting with strategies to wean patients off antipsychotics.

Use of a new generation of antipsychotic drugs to control the behavior of dementia patients has surged in recent years, despite the Food and Drug Administration’s “black box” warning labels that these drugs can increase the risk of death for elderly dementia sufferers. About 30% of nursing-home residents are on antipsychotic drugs, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, most of them on newer ones called atypical antipsychotics.

… The challenge of caring for rising numbers of seniors who suffer from dementia and the behavior problems that can stem from it has provoked a wrenching debate among nursing-home operators, regulators and families.

The story follows one earlier in the month that detailed the breadth of the problem: Prescription abuse seen in U.S. nursing homes; Powerful antipsychotics used to subdue elderly; huge Medicaid expense.