Our administrators include a PhD board certified behavior analyst, another board certified behavior analyst and a speech and language pathologist. We also have occupational and physical therapists to provide information. We plan to provide information on effective treatment for individuals with special needs and stop the overuse of medication as a substitute for applied behavior analysis and inappropriate placements.
My Brother Matthew: From Life-threatening Behavior to a Life without Medication
Last week, I went to visit Matthew. I last saw him with my husband in October when I ran the Bay State Marathon. This time I was with my 17 year old daughter. I was the only driver and as always, the drive seems like it's never going to end. My daughter fell asleep during the ride and I could not play any music, lest I wake her up. So boring. I wish he did not have to live so far away and I could see him more often than three times a year, not have to take that long boring drive up I-95.
I remember when Matthew went there the first time, when I was a teenager myself. Judge Rotenberg Center (known as BRI) back then, the only school in the US that would accept him, told my mother they could pick him up three days after he obtained Board of Education funding, but my mother did not want him to miss even one day of school, so she drove him from the hospital, what Matthew considered home for over five months, to BRI, with my uncle in the back seat to manage any problem behavior. He was obese. drooling, and barely able to be heard from all those medications he was taking. During the ride, he was anxious where he was going, and for once he went a few hours without sleeping from all those medications.
When Matthew got there, Matthew cried he wanted to go back to the hospital. My mother told him, "You're a boy and boys go to school." A lady gave him a toy school bus and told him he would be riding one later that evening. He finally got distracted watching Wheel of Fortune, and then we left him there. My mother then paid for me to go to driving school so she could have a second driver. We visited him every three weeks.
Fast forward 29 years later. I am now a mother of a child of autism myself and in the car with my now teenage daughter. I go see Matthew, alert, medication free, all excited to see me, go out to dinner and look all the maps I brought him. After dinner he enjoyed a piece of the chocolate brownies I baked for him and his housemates and staff. The next two days we go to museums, he knows all his bird sounds. He is so happy.
The next day, I am on a long drive home, 5 1/2 hours, going on city streets to avoid traffic on the interstate. I am fed up driving at night and holding myself back to drive faster than the speed limit, just wanting to get home. Again I wish, he could live near me, but then I realize, he's happy, content, and that is what really matters.
Police Officer Impersonator aka NY State Senator Sponsors Bill to Cut My Brother's Funding
Recently, NYS Senator Martin Golden sponsored S 3655-A, a bill which would prohibit any student from receiving funding for the Judge Rotenberg Center, as if even one student receives an aversive, even students without aversives cannot receive funding. Aversives saved my brother's life. According to articles in the NY Post, NY Daily News and NY Times, Senator Golden was a passenger in a car. The car drove in a bike lane to get around traffic, and Senator Golden wanted to pull over a bicyclist, Mr. Brian Howard, who was blocking him, so stated he was a police officer, displayed a fake placard and threatened to take him to the precinct. When the bicyclist tried to film him, the car drove onto oncoming traffic and passed a traffic light. That car has a history of more than 30 traffic violations including running red lights and speeding in school zones. In 2005, Senator Golden ran over a 74 year old woman. Just as he faked being a police officer, in this proposed legislation, he fakes he is doing this out of concern for individuals with special needs.
Studies Examining Antidepressants and Diabetes
A literature analysis of 20 studies showed an increased risk of type 2 diabetes in individuals taking antidepressants, (Virginio Salvi, Ilaria Grua, Giancarlo Cerveri, Claudio Mencacci, and Francesco Barone-Adesi, "The Risk of New-onset Diabetes in Antidepressant Users- A Systemic Review and Meta-analysis, PLoS One 12, no. 7 (July 2017): e0182088, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0182088). According to another study of 199,608 youth aged 5-20 years, taking antidepressants at least 150 days almost doubled the risk of type 2 diabetes, (Mehmet Burcu, Julie M. Zito, Daniel J. Safer, Laurence S. Magder, Susan dosReis, Fadia T. Shaya, and Geoffrey L. Rosenthal, "Association of Antidepressant Medications With Incident Type 2 Diabetes among Medicaid-Insured Youths," JAMA Pediatrics 171, no. 12 (October 2017): 1200-1207, doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2017.2896. Antidepressants are used for other reasons besides depression, such as anxiety and obsessive compulsive behaviors. As discussed in my book, diabetes can be harmful to the brain, cause insomnia and changes in blood sugars are linked directly to anger, anxiety, sadness and frustration, which may increase problem behaviors in autism or other individuals with communication impairments. Furthermore, my book discussed a literature analysis which showed one class of antidepressants, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors had limited utility in autism. This is another reason why we need more availability of applied behavior analysis, psychotherapies and use diet and exercise to decrease the use of medication.
I'VE BEEN CENSORED
I have recently been banned on a local Facebook page from posting that I am giving a lecture on January 31, 2018 at the Elija School on treatments for dangerous behaviors, due to some of my views, which by some are considered controversial. I was also accused of supporting "putative" treatment, even after I informed the administrator about my brother Stuart, who now has osteoporosis, multiple fractures and may be crippled for life, after taking years of medications which weaken bones to control his behavior and that this would not have occurred if he was at the Judge Rotenberg Center.
At first I felt hurt, that this person instead of being judgmental, should be grateful not to ever have to go to sleep, or not being able to sleep at night, worrying if her child would be dead in the morning due to a life-threatening behavior, as my family had to go through.
I always feel that if it isn't one of my brothers (Stuart and Matthew) I have to fight a battle for effective treatment, then it is my daughter, Talia. I sometimes joke that I became a doctor, not to take nice trips or go out to eat, but to pay for autism treatment for her. When I had no school bus, I drove her to school from Queens, dropped her off at 9AM in Long Island, then went to Manhattan to do my autism research fellowship, and got home at 8:30 PM. Even though my husband is a lawyer and I am a doctor, we have worn second hand clothes and my husband collected cans at work. The fear is always there, that I will lose a hearing, and work like I did in residency training again to pay for her school and other therapy expenses. I do not understand how someone can think I would send my brother Matthew to a school to be abused.
Matthew is obsessed with and collects maps. Every time he calls the family he asks us for maps. At school when he behaves well, he gets 15 minute breaks to look at his maps. Recently JRC had Santa come. My brother excitedly told me that Santa gave him a new NYC map and the 2018 World Atlas. So thoughtful! He works a job, such a contrast to Stuart. I wrote my book because I felt I had to do everything I could for my family and I am disgusted with the status quo. While some individuals need psychiatric medication, for others, including Stuart in the present and Matthew in the past, it has become a chemical prison. I certainly could have been spending my time earning money seeing patients instead.
When I gave continuing medical education lectures on autism diagnosis and treatment in communist China, I never was censored. What irony I am censored here in the US!
What really infuriated me, was when the same person who censored me, considering me controversial, posted something from the Autism Self Advocacy Network, which promotes facilitated communication stating it "should be more widely available" despite the fact that it has been scientifically disproven and innocent parents have been jailed over this. I can't imagine what it must be like to be in prison, being unable to care for your child with autism. The Autism Self Advocacy Network also states "research suggests that the evidence base for ABA is relatively weak," despite thousands of published studies. Although I am considered to be controversial, I do not endorse any scientifically disproven treatments that have put innocent people in prison, and whatever I recommend is based on research evidence. My book has 361 footnotes.
I feel the bigger problem is a relection of today's society as a whole. Instead of civil debate and dialogue, we become self-righteous, close minded and judgmental. We need to listen to each other, not silence each other.