…the “Lovaas” method of the 70’s has been discredited for more than 30 years.

It depends on what you mean by discredited. If you mean that the effectiveness of behavioral (not the same as aversive) methods have been confirmed over and over and over again, then I agree.

Simply put, there is absolutely no proof that “electro-torture” works.

I’ve never seen the term “electro-torture” in the literature but I’m sure you’re right. However, there are many example of the effective use of punishment procedures, such as time out, in the literature.

Or are you in favor of a Guantanamo for kids with autism?

Where the hell did that come from? What in my previous post suggested that I’m in favor of such a thing? What I’m in favor of is effective treatment that improves the lives of children with all sorts of developmental disabilities.

We’ve been down this road before…

The Milgram Experiment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment

Authoritarian followers do not question orders from their superiors.

Your’s is not to question why…yada, yada, yada!

The Milgram Experiment showed almost NO ONE questions orders from authority figures…especially when the latter accepts responsibility. It’s not just “authoritarian followers”.

That was what was thought PRIOR TO the Milgram Experiment…that one could sort out certain pesonality types from positions of responsibility, or that there some psychological type would be more likely to abuse others. The power of the Milgram Experiment is that almost 98% of the population will not resist authority, and that it often takes an equally authoritarian source to resist.

Sadly no follow up on the psychological backgrounds of the small number of resistors, or those that resisted EARLIER than others was found. There was a little bit of this done by Phil Zimbardo at Stanford University (and creator of the famous Stanford Prison Experiment). But because of experimental subjects laws we are unlikely to find out what we can do to avert future cases other than to prevent the manipulation of people by fostering things like “immunity” and “amnesty”. Zimbardo has a book out called “The Lucifer Effect” in which he discusses all of this research, and places it in a historical context with Abu Ghraib, waterboarding, and other acts of abuse.

You are so full of shit that I don’t know where to begin. I am the father of a teenage son with autism. Fortunately, he is not self-injurious. Applying electro-shock treatment is still what is normally called “torture.” These people have no right to treat these children with autism as cattle to be prodded. There are many other more effective ways to reach these kids (the “Lovaas” method of the 70’s has been discredited for more than 30 years).

Simply put, there is absolutely no proof that “electro-torture” works.

Or are you in favor of a Guantanamo for kids with autism?

But then again this is the culture that has a Death Penalty, 180,000 people in prison in California alone, and treats the elderly, and animals (and veterans) as if they were disposable and ‘problems’.

While my heart goes out to the parents, they do need to investigate other less dehumanizing interventions rather than push their kids into this Black Hole of Canton.

Maybe he could use this vid as a campaign commercial on his lack of talents for leadership?

no way that’s “effective treatment”