Article: Violence in Aggressive Children & Youth

Excerpt from The Council of Exceptional Children & Youth

Author: Mary K. Fitzsimmons

November 1998

http://cec.sped.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Home&CONTENTID=2701&TEMPLATE=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm

A few of the key elements that emerge from much of this research include:

• Troubled students need habilitative services instead of haphazard punishment. A full continuum of educational, mental health, and other services should be available to them.
• Aggressive and violent behaviors do not develop overnight and cannot therefore be ameliorated or eradicated in short periods of time.
• The entire community is better off when troubled students are served more appropriately.
• Schoolwide discipline policies need to be formulated and taught to all students.

What to Look For

Aggressive students often exhibit deficits in social information processing; that is, they are likely to misinterpret social cues and misassign hostile intent to others, especially during times of stress. They are more likely than others to have some social skills deficits such as poor impulse control, low frustration tolerance, limited ability to generate alternative responses to stress, and limited insight into the feelings of self and others. Social skills training can be crucial to these students.

These students also may be frequently frustrated and yet have fewer skills than others to cope with the frustration. Additional sources of frustration for these students include:

• Disorganized or inconsistent teachers
• Failure
• Boredom
• Lack of positive reinforcement
• Irrelevant curriculum
• Overexposure to punishment
• Feelings of powerlessness

The Stages of Frustration and Appropriate Responses

1.Anxiety: Student sighs or uses other nonverbal cues. Teacher can respond by active listening and nonjudgmental talk.
2.Stress: Student exhibits minor behavior problems. Teacher can use proximity control, boost student interest, or provide assistance with assignments.
3.Defensiveness: Student argues and complains. Teacher can remind student of rules, use conflict resolution, and encourage student to ask for help.
4.Physical Aggression: Student has lost control and may hit, bite, kick, or throw objects. Teacher can escort the student from class, get help, restrain student if necessary, and protect the safety of the other children.
5.Tension Reduction: Student releases tension through crying or verbal venting, or student may become sullen and withdrawn. Teacher can decide whether to use supportive or punishment techniques (or both) and help the student gain insight into feelings and behavior.

How to Respond

A nurturing, caring environment is one antidote to frustration and aggression. Teachers who are therapeutic demonstrate a high level of self-awareness and self-confidence, realistic expectations of self, and the ability to exhibit and model self-control in managing stress and frustration. Therapeutic teachers can develop the type of nurturing environment needed to establish trust and rapport with their students.

Many specific strategies are available to educators to help troubled students. However, early intervention is by far the most important predictor for success. Experts agree that if comprehensive intervention is not provided by Grade 3 or 4, success in ameliorating aggression is unlikely.

How to Intervene

Once these children have been identified, there are three stages of prevention that influence the intervention strategies:

1.Primary prevention aims at keeping problems from emerging. First Step to Success and other commercially available curriculums can be used to divert antisocial young children from a path leading to adjustment problems.
2.Secondary prevention requires individually tailored interventions applied to students who show at risk status. Individual counseling and one-on-one behavior management plans are hallmarks of this stage of intervention. The Second Step is an example of a commercially available curriculum designed for these students.
3.Tertiary prevention involves intensive "wraparound" services that extend beyond the school building to encompass family and social support services. It is applied to the most severely at-risk students.

Article: An intervention that can reduce hostile perceptions in children with prenatal alcohol exposure

Posted on: november 19, 2009 - 9:30pm

http://www.sciencecodex.com/an_intervention_that_can_reduce_hostile_perceptions_in_children_with_prenatal_alcohol_exposure

• Prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) has been linked to significant impairments in social skills.
• Researchers have found that a social- skills intervention called Children's Friendship Training can lead to a decrease in hostile attributions or perceptions of children with PAE.

Prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) has been linked to a wide array of developmental deficits, including significant impairments in social skills. An examination of a social- skills intervention called Children's Friendship Training found that it led to a decrease in hostile attributions or perceptions of children with PAE.

Results will be published in the February 2010 issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research.

"Children with PAE have a hard time making and keeping friends," explained the study's corresponding author Vivien Keil, who was a staff research associate in the department of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA when the research was conducted.

"More specifically, they tend to have difficulty understanding social cues and common social norms," she said. "In order to make and keep friends, we must be able to read social cues such as facial expressions and other body language. If a child makes hostile attributions, this means that s/he is more likely to perceive that the people around them are hostile or negative and, as a result, s/he is likely to respond in a hostile manner, thus undermining successful social relationships."

"These social problems are due, in part, to the neurological and cognitive deficits known to be associated with prenatal exposure to alcohol," said Joseph M. Price, a research scientist in the Children and Adolescent Services Research Center at Rady Children's Hospital in San Diego.

"However, children prenatally exposed to alcohol are also more likely to be exposed to negative early-life experiences – such as unresponsive caregivers, maltreatment, disruptions in early parent-child interactions, and out-of-home placements – all of which are known to contribute to behavior and social problems during childhood and adolescence."

Price also said, given that these social problems may eventually lead to school problems, emotional and behavior problems, early school dropout, delinquency, and drug and alcohol use, that children who were prenatally exposed to alcohol will likely benefit from intervention efforts designed to improve their social skills and their relationships with peers and adults.

Researchers assigned 100 children (51 boys, 49 girls) with PAE, between 6 to 12 years of age, to one of two groups: Children's Friendship Training or a Delayed Treatment Control condition.

"The Children's Friendship Training decreased the level of hostile attributions made by children with PAE in group- entry scenarios, or those situations in which they were asked to join a group of similarly aged children in play activities," said Keil. "This means that when the children were asked about other children's intentions, they made fewer hostile attributions after the intervention. These findings are encouraging because hostile attributions were not the focus or target of the intervention. Rather, the intervention sought to improve children's social skills more broadly; decreased hostile attributions were merely a positive side-effect of the intervention and perhaps a mechanism of change."

"In short," added Price, "it appears that children's hostile interpretations of peers' social intentions, which have been found to be associated with aggressive behavior and peer rejection, can be modified by intervention efforts. What will be exciting to see is if the Children's Friendship Training procedure also improves other aspects of children's social information-processing patterns, such as social problem-solving skills or their evaluation of behavior outcomes, and improves the social behavior and peer relationships of children who have been exposed to alcohol during prenatal development."

"There are many reasons to be hopeful that children with PAE can overcome their weaknesses and reach their full potential," said Keil. "It is encouraging that a psychological intervention such as social-skills training seems to have resulted in improvements in more objective measures of child functioning such as social information-processing like hostile attributions rather than relying on more subjective parent reports of child functioning. These findings suggest that although there are neurocognitive deficits associated with prenatal alcohol exposure, children with PAE can make meaningful improvements in their social skills and overall functioning with the use of effective evidence-based treatments."

Article: Seclusion to inclusion

NOTE: Although this article references techniques that were used in a psychiatric facility, some of the same techniques can be adapted for use in other locations, such as public schools...

Friday, 20 November 2009

Genevieve Costigan

http://www.sciencealert.com.au/features/20092011-20269.html

A School of Nursing and Social Work pilot project in an inner city Melbourne hospital has seen the practice of locking up extremely unwell psychiatric patients in isolation reduced by more than 50 per cent.

The practice, commonly called seclusion, involves placing acutely unwell psychiatric patients in a confined space to prevent immediate harm to the patient and other people and is considered a measure of last resort.

It is, however, a relatively common practice in acute psychiatric settings in Australia with thousands of people being secluded each year.

The project, Translating Evidence to Practice: Seclusion Reduction in Acute Psychiatry, was led by Dr Bridget Hamilton, Director of Nursing for Mental Health at St Vincent’s and senior lecturer in the School of Nursing and Social Work.

“Seclusion is an issue that people often won’t want to think about or address, without significant support to do so – in some ways it’s treated like a dirty work practice and this is part of what stigmatises mental health practices,” Dr Hamilton says.

Involuntary psychiatric patients often come through the emergency departments of hospitals and are commonly people who are having a psychotic episode as a result of schizophrenia, hypermania or drug-induced psychosis and sometimes they are people in crisis with borderline personality disorder.

“It is challenging for even highly skilled staff to communicate effectively with people when they are acutely unwell,” Dr Hamilton says.

“Patients may express their fear and frustration being surrounded by unfamiliar people and places, they may be given directives they do not understand or may argue with, and the rising sense of injustice and distress can all lead to conflict situations where patients are manhandled into a seclusion room.

“Nurses don’t want to initiate physical restraint but as they are usually working within a constrained space in a psychiatric unit, they experience chaos, noise and verbal abuse and they work hard to meet the needs of the distressed patient but they are also trying to keep the other patients and staff safe,” she says.

International focus on seclusion policies began in the United States in the early 1990s following a newspaper expose of a series of deaths in seclusion rooms in US mental health facilities. Enquiries into seclusion rates went to Congress which led to changes to legislation and practice.

Yet, Dr Hamilton says, in 2006 when this project was planned the idea of seclusion reduction wasn’t on the radar in clinical settings in Victoria.

“We need to think about seclusion from the point of view of the unintended harm it can do to the patients and not just from the perspective of safety,” she says.

Dr Hamilton established a partnership with St Vincent’s Mental Health and sought support from the National Institute of Clinical Studies (NICS) and the Victorian State government to undertake the project.

Based on the US research Dr Hamilton used six core strategies to reduce the use of seclusion and restraint. The US strategies were adapted for the different mental health service structures and laws in Victoria.

Changes were made in St Vincent’s organisation and practice to reduce reliance on seclusion, including getting senior managers engaged in the goal of seclusion reduction, revising policy, focusing on available seclusion data and surveying staff attitudes to seclusion. Clinicians participated in training and senior clinicians reviewed all seclusion events.

Dr Hamilton believes examining the data was essential as it confronted clinicians and managers with the detail of seclusion, for example how some patients had been secluded many times and it raised the question of why this was so and how it could be changed.

“It was a difficult project for any organisation to take on and needed leadership but with the backing of the University, NICS, many colleagues at the hospital and state government we managed to get it going.

“Patients who are secluded often experience terrible shame, a sense of a loss of control and dignity and it can also re-traumatise people who have been abused, neglected and isolated and putting them in a confined space can reignite memories of abuse,” Dr Hamilton says.

“At the coalface we need nurses to be thinking hard and differently about what you can do in these situations, what you can do earlier, what you can do to address patients’ needs, concerns and fears which may help avert seclusion.

“We need to look at how we can orientate people to the ward, explain what the different spaces are and we need to expect that people are going to find it very difficult and so spend more time with them on admission to the unit.”

Dr Hamilton says some of the things wards can do to support patients are to directly address patients’ concerns which may revolve around their domestic situations, for example they may need to make phone calls to check on family members or arrange for the care of their pets.

“If you see a patient getting upset, behaving erratically, you can speak to the patient and try to find out why they are upset; it may be something you can deal with and can be a better way of handling a situation rather than waiting until the situation escalates,” she says.

Changes in attitudes can be crucial in reducing seclusion rates and Dr Hamilton suggests that the tendency to think that the person who is behaving badly does not deserve more attention needs to change to the idea that intensive work actually needs to be done with this person.p>

Article: Resilience Matters in Traumatized Children's Lives--and Sensory Activities Make the Difference

Enhancing resilience is a matter of engaging the senses.

July 14, 2009

Psychology Today

By: Cathy Malchiodi

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-healing-arts/200907/resilience-matters-in-traumatized-childrens-lives-and-sensory-activitie

The capacity to bounce back - more commonly known as resilience - enhances trauma recovery in children. But what about children who do not have the innate capacity to bounce back? Or those whose lives have been compromised by abuse, neglect, fetal alcohol syndrome, or exposure to multiple traumas? There's good news--sensory activities, along with positive relationships and a positive environment, can make all the difference.

(Snip)

According to John Micsak, symposium keynote and director of a resiliency outreach program for youth, addressing three regions of the brain can help. These regions are defined as 1) the thinking brain[cortex] responsible for abstract reasoning; 2) the emotional brain [limbic] responsible for affect regulation, empathy, affiliation, and tolerance; and 3) the survival brain [brain stem or reptilian] responsible for fight or flight, heartbeat, and other body regulation functions.

From an expressive therapies perspective, it's promising that mental health is beginning to realize that the arts, play, and imagination address the whole brain and support what Bruce Perry calls "neurosequential therapeutics"--a method of working with severely traumatized children using body reactions [survival brain] as a starting place and eventually addressing other brain functions through progressive interventions that focus on refining neural pathways in other regions. The NT process essentially tries to match specific interventions to the developmental stage and specific parts of the brain that mediate presenting neuropsychiatric problems. Application of sensory interventions are key to helping meet the needs of the child and to the development of resilience.

In brief, using this approach distills down to addressing the traumatized brain from an arts therapies perspective as follows:

1) The survival brain needs modulation through rhythmic and patterned sensory input, such as activities like drumming, singing and music at the resting rate of the human heartbeat, basic movement and rocking, breathing techniques, and massage;

2) The emotional brain needs the self-soothing reinforcement through tactile experiences of art and play as well as the relational aspects of mutual engagement between adult and child using creative arts, imagination, and play as means to establish and reinforce positive attachment;

3) The thinking brain needs the opportunity to engage in storytelling through all the creative arts, relating not only the trauma story, but also as a means to express the self and practicecognitive-behavioral skills used in long-term self-regulation.

Click here to read the full article.

The ABCs of Social Skill Development

The ABCs of Social Skill Development
Encouraging children with autism spectrum disorder to socialize.

by Jennifer and Laurie Jacobs, MA, CCC-SLP

http://parentguidenews.com/Catalog/view_227

PARENTGUIDE News April 2007

When a child has an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), you know how hard he or she
has to work to achieve academic success in school. But is this child given a
chance to practice social skills, which are also affected by ASD?

Children with ASD sometimes have a great deal of difficulty understanding social
behaviors and interactions, and these skills are usually not taught directly in
school. On the playground and other places at school, there are large amounts of
unstructured time that leave them to sink or swim in a complex social
environment.
They often have trouble:

.opening and closing a conversation.
.initiating peer interaction and joining play.
.decoding facial expressions and body language.
.observing and imitating appropriate social behavior in specific situations.
.predicting and understanding the emotions and reactions of others.

Children with ASD don't automatically acquire social skills that come to others
naturally through repeated exposure in social situations. Instead, they need to
be taught explicitly and given the opportunity to practice, practice, practice.

The first step is to identify the child's unique social skills deficit. Some
children may find it impossible to interact with peers one-on-one; others may
have difficulty in an informal group setting. A professional speech pathologist
or psychologist is critical in determining the child's specific difficulties.

Once the specific problems are determined, a customized program featuring
observation, modeling, rehearsal and reinforcement are the most effective
methods for them to learn and sustain long-term social skills.

Make Play Time Count
Parents and caregivers are encouraged to make the most of child-friendly play
time activities that allow children to teach and practice social skills. Here
are some easy, "low-tech" suggestions.

1. Scrapbooking, today's craze for young and old, is a fun activity through
which you can teach children about emotions. You can help a child with ASD
recognize the feelings and thoughts of others by creating an emotional
scrapbook, featuring magazine pictures and photographs that show people
participating in social situations while expressing their feelings. Talk with
the child about how the people in the pictures are feeling based on their facial
expressions and body language.

2. Fun books and board games, such as Do Watch Listen Say (Quill) and Boardmaker
(Mayer-Johnson), provide social skill development activities in workbook format
that are disguised as play. They encourage the development of skills essential
to social functioning, including reciprocity, imitation and conversation.

3. Charades is a fun game for young children. Have your child with ASD engage in
role-playing that involves acting out social interactions that he or she would
typically encounter in an unstructured school situation. For example, ask the
child to respond to a peer who has invited him to play kickball during recess.
Through this "game," the child can learn the proper social interaction.

4. Read-aloud stories, particularly those that are written in the first person
perspective of a child, can show how someone thinks and acts in different social
situations. For example, if the child has trouble on the swing set, a social
story might explore this situation in detail, introducing the concepts of taking
turns and asking a classmate to play. Difficult situations are expressed, and
the child can learn the correct way to act. For example, if the child in the
story says "It's hard to wait my turn when I want to ride on the swing now," you
can practice appropriate responses and actions with your child.

Electronics are Educational, Too
There are also "high-tech" methods for practicing social situations that
encourage skill development, improve skill performance and reduce ineffective
behaviors by allowing the child to learn through personal experiences. Because
they provide opportunities to pause and discuss information, to replay scenarios
for greater recall and understanding, and to repeat exercises as many times as
necessary, high-tech methods are typically very effective. Specific exercises
include:

1. Voice-recording systems can help children with ASD to identify topic
maintenance, intonation and perseveration. When children are allowed to listen
to themselves speak, it is easier for them to understand and respond to the
specific difficulties they may have in communicating with peers.

2. Television programs and videos that feature dramatic emotions and social
scenarios can be effective in showing appropriate behavior for the child with
ASD. If a caregiver, educator or practitioner takes the time to discuss the
characters' actions and reactions with the child, age-appropriate television
shows and videos can be a cost-effective and risk-free method for analyzing
social interactions.

3. Social training software programs are appealing to children who love playing
on the computer. Games that depict social scenarios and ask children with ASD to
determine what should be said or done next are highly motivating. Available
social training software includes the CD-ROM series from Social Skill Builder,
which teaches children the rules of social communication. In particular, School
Rules! Volumes 1 and 2, like their other programs, use interactive video
sequences to imitate scenarios where children commonly interact with peers in an
unstructured school environment. Programs like School Rules! allow children to
practice everything from the right amount of social behaviors in the locker room
to appropriate lunchtime interaction in a safe, non-threatening environment.

Without the social skills they need, children with ASD may dread unstructured
play periods. But, that is only the beginning of what could be a downward spiral
to anxiety and depression. If they carry their deficits into adulthood, they may
spend their lives feeling lonely and rejected.

There is great hope for these children with the various methods and tools now
available to teach social skill development. By working together to determine
what is the best strategy for each child, parents, educators and professionals
will see that children with ASD can achieve social as well as academic success.

Jennifer Jacobs, MS, CCC-SLP, is co-founder of Social Skill Builder, a company
launched in 1999 to provide computer-based tools for teaching social skills to
children affected by autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Jacobs, along with her
sister and co-founder Laurie, MA, CCC-SLP, developed the software line when she
recognized a deficit in quality products for children and adolescents with
social competence issues.

Sample Letter re Bullying & Harrassment

From Our Children Left Behind: http://ourchildrenleftbehind.yuku.com/topic/1608/t/Sample-Letter-re-Bullying-amp-Harrassment.html

Date:

To: (Principal and School)

Re:



To (Principal),

This letter is to immediately request that my son,_______, be afforded all the protections under state and federal law to protect him from physical harassment, discrimination, and verbal abuse. It is my understanding that he has a right to learn in a safe and harm-free educational environment.

I have read information at the following link and I understand what our rights are and what the school's duties are: www.ed.gov/about/offices/...ssltr.html . It is also my understanding that school personnel have a duty to facilitate his protection and fully investigate all allegations of discrimination he and others report. I am now requesting that you protect my child from the various forms of physical and verbal abuse he has suffered at your school.

I am requesting that this protection begin immediately. Please place a copy of this letter in my child's educational records. I will assume you are taking the appropriate action from this date forward. If I am incorrect, I request you immediately notify me at the following address:

Advocate/Parent name

address

city, state, zip

phone #

I trust my child's protection to you; please do not let me down.

Sincerely,

(Parents)

ABUSE IN SCHOOLS IS OUT!

By Jordan Riak 1998
Reprinted with permission from Project No Spank

www.nospank.net

Abusive treatment of schoolchildren, often misrepresented as discipline, punishment or chastisement, is wrong and dangerous. Informed and responsible educators have known for a long time that both physical and non-physical mistreatment of children by their teachers is unprofessional behavior; that it can destroy children's enthusiasm for learning and set the stage for serious emotional and behavioral problems. For that reason, no college or university teacher training program instructs undergraduates how to frighten, hit, manhandle, scream at, berate, humiliate or otherwise hurt children.

The large majority of teachers are competent and caring professionals who do not mistreat children physically or emotionally, and most school administrators set high standards for teacher behavior within their schools. Sadly, however, in some schools there are teachers who are
unsuited to their profession and who habitually hurt children, and some school administrators who lack the will or ability to maintain high professional standards in their schools. Some administrators are themselves abusive toward children and therefore are incapable of setting a good standard for teachers.

Parents and Teachers Against Violence in Education (PTAVE) continually receives complaints about abuse to schoolchildren and the list that follows has been compiled from those complaints.

Variety of mistreatment of schoolchildren:

[ ] Paddling
[ ] Spanking
[ ] Slapping
[ ] Cuffing
[ ] Grabbing
[ ] Shaking
[ ] Dragging
[ ] Shoving
[ ] Pinching
[ ] Pulling a child's hair or ear
[ ] Finger jabbing a child's face or ribs
[ ] Squeezing a child's cheeks
[ ] Lifting a child up by the clothing or by the neck
[ ] Banging a child against the wall
[ ] Hurling objects at a child
[ ] Striking a desk top with a book or ruler in order to
startle children
[ ] Shutting a child in a box or closet

[ ] Forcing noxious substances into a child's mouth
[ ] Forcing a child to remain motionless or maintain a
stress position for an extended period of time
[ ] Denying the child the use of the lavatory
[ ] Allowing or encouraging bullies to torment a child
[ ] Turning a blind eye to hazing
[ ] Delegating the right to a student, sometimes called a
"prefect” or "captain," to physically punish other
students
[ ] Provoking, taunting or challenging a child to
violence
[ ] Taping a child's mouth shut
[ ] Tying a child to the desk
[ ] Forcing a child to do push-ups or run laps
[ ] Denying adequate free time for recess or lunch
[ ] Threatening, cursing or screaming at a child or at a
group of children
[ ] Using fear of punishment to motivate a child to
complete tasks
[ ] Insulting a child about poor performance,
appearance, choice of friends, etc.
[ ] Confiscating or damaging a child's personal
property
[ ] Labeling or spreading malicious gossip about a child
or a child's family
[ ] Proclaiming to the whole class that a particular child
is headed for no good–that he or she will become a
delinquent or a failure
[ ] Setting unrealistic standards of performance in order
to guarantee a child's failure
[ ] Deliberately ignoring a child who needs help
[ ] Refusing to acknowledge or reward a child's
improvement
[ ] Using sarcasm and put-downs when addressing a
child
[ ] Badgering or taunting a child to the point of an
outburst and then punishing the child for loss of
control
[ ] Punishing a group of children for the misbehavior of
an individual
[ ] Punishing an individual as an example to the group
[ ] Causing a child to be humiliated in front of peers
[ ] Calling into question a boy's masculinity because of
late development, lack of interest or ability in sports,
reluctance to fight with other boys
[ ] Calling into question a girl's morals because of early
development


[ ] Impugning a girl’s femininity because she excels at
traditionally male activities
[ ] Leading a child into inappropriately intimate or
sexually suggestive conversation or acts
[ ] Setting up a child to be scapegoated
[ ] Making a child the butt of the teacher's humor
[ ] Pitting child against child, group against group
[ ] Having children spy on each other
[ ] Isolating a child from the group for a protracted
period
[ ] Undermining a child's social status and encouraging
the group to ostracize the child
[ ] Undermining trust and communication
between child and parent(s)
[ ] Misrepresenting a child's learning disability as a
"discipline problem"
[ ] Blaming a child's family situation for school-caused
emotional problems
[ ] Persuading a family to administer personalityaltering
drugs to the child so as to make the child
more placid and tractable while at school
[ ] Retaliating against a child because of a dispute with
the parent(s)
[ ] Creating a dossier or "criminal record" of a child in
order to undermine the child's credibility or to hold
over the child's head as a threat or bargaining chip
[ ] Coercing a child to make false statements about
others or remain silent about witnessed events
[ ] Coercing a child to make a written confession
[ ] Preventing a child who is in a state of distress from
telephoning home

The preceding is by no means a complete list. It is important for all parents to know that they have a fundamental right–a moral obligation, in fact–to protect their children from mistreatment by anybody. Let your child's teachers and your school principal know that no one has your permission, nor the moral right, to hit, threaten, humiliate, degrade or otherwise abuse your child. Instruct your child never to submit to any act of aggression by any adult. Your failure to ensure a safe, nurturing, joyful environment for your schoolchild, particularly in the earliest
years, may have painful and costly consequences later. If your child is physically abused by any adult, including a school principal, teacher, coach, bus driver or ANYBODY, immediately remove the child from the abusive environment, assure the child of your full support and seek medical
treatment for any bruise or injury even if it appears minor. Obtain a copy of the examining physician's report. You have a right to it. Report the incident to the appropriate public health authority and to the police. Injuries that are visible should be professionally photographed without delay and the prints kept by you for future possible legal action.

If the abuse is non-physical, have the child assessed by a psychologist who is qualified in matters of child abuse, but NOT one who is associated with your school district or has been recommended by the school.

When you discuss these matters with the child, listen closely and patiently to what the child says. Your trust in your child will inspire openness and frankness from your child. Do
not be surprised if the school's account of events differs from the child's. Do not be surprised if the school seems more intent on shielding an abusive, incompetent teacher than in protecting children who are under the control of that teacher. Do not allow yourself to be worn down by
bureaucratic stalling or to be derailed by diversionary tactics. If you are told that you are the only parent who ever complained about that teacher, or that your child is “making it up,” don’t accept that. Keep focused on these three points: 1) your child was mistreated, 2) your child
should not have been mistreated and 3) you absolutely will not permit your child to be mistreated again. Period. End of discussion.

One day, all schools in the United States will be places in which children thrive and develop in safety and all teachers will adhere to high standards of professional conduct. No pupil will be mistreated. You can help make that day come sooner. Share copies of this publication with other
concerned people in your community. Spread the word: ABUSE IN SCHOOLS IS OUT!

Childhood Trauma Contributes To Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

http://smartabouthealth.net/diseases/2009/01/06/childhood-trauma-contributes-to-chronic-fatigue-syndrome/

Washington (SmartAboutHealth) - Researchers have found that childhood trauma contributes to the development of chronic fatigue syndrome.


The study was carried out by researchers from Emory University School of Medicine, with the study being supported by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

They looked at a total of 113 adults who had chronic fatigue syndrome, and 124 who did not.

They then looked into the history of these adults to see who went through any type of childhood trauma such as sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, neglect, etc.

What they found was that adults who went through childhood trauma were six times more likely to develop chronic fatigue syndrome later in life.


The study has been published in the Archives of General Psychiatry.

No Restraint Sample Letter

NO RESTRAINT LETTER

Drafted by Calvin and Tricia Luker of the Respect ABILITY Law Center (248) 544-7223. Copied from Bridges4Kids.org

PARENTS NAME
ADDRESS
CITY, STATE ZIP CODE
TELEPHONE NUMBER

Date


(Name of Special Education Director)
(Name of School District)
(Address of School)

Re: child’s name and birth date (DOB 8-11-75)

Dear (Name of Special Education Director):

My child, child’s name, is a ________ grade student at ______ school. (Insert child’s name) has (autism or other disability) and has been receiving special education services since s/he started school.

We are concerned that (insert child’s name) behavior challenges now are being or might be addressed in part through the use of physical management and restraint. I have not authorized and will not consent to any activity that involves physically or mechanically restraining my child while at school or going to and from school. I know that special education law requires the use of functional assessments of behavior and positive behavior support plans to address behavior challenges. If the school feels (insert child’s name) behavior is such that physical management or restraints are being considered or used, it is obvious to me that we need to follow the law, do the assessment and develop a positive behavior support plan.

I am sure you are aware of the number of news reports in recent years highlighting the death of children with disabilities during or after having been physically managed or restrained. Given that special education law requires the development of behavior plans, and given the known risks to children – and to (insert child’s name) – of the use of restraint, I need for you to be clear that I will weigh all legal options if restraint activities against (insert child’s name) are not terminated immediately.

You may consider this letter a request to convene a behavior support team meeting to discuss (insert child’s name) behavior and possible approaches to address his/her particular needs. You also may consider this letter my request and consent for the performance of a functional assessment of behavior across environments and across time, provided that I am informed in advance that the functional assessment of behavior is going to be conducted and am permitted to participate in the development and implementation of the assessment.

I want to work with you and with (insert child’s name) teachers and professionals at _____ school to be sure that (insert child’s name) learns to develop positive behavioral skills in an environment that is safe for him/her, for his/her peers and for school personnel. I am certain that you also share my concern for student safety where physical intervention has the potential to result in the student’s death. I, like you, want my child’s school to be a safe and secure environment where all students can learn. I want to work with you to help create that environment for (insert child’s name.)


Sincerely,



(Your name)
(Your address)
(Your telephone number)