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Autism Vox

School Aide Charged With Aggravated Child Abuse

by Kristina Chew, PhD on September 13th, 2008

A Venice, California, school aide, Richard Green, has been charged with aggravated child abuse after grabbing a 17-year-old autistic student and shoving his head into a wall last Monday, today’s Herald Tribune reports. Green had worked with special needs students for the past nine years, but this was the first time he had worked as an aide for autistic students, and he was not scheduled for training in crisis intervention procedures until next week. The father of the autistic student is quoted as saying, “”In general I don’t think that is the type of behavior they expect from a teacher’”—–yes indeed.

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POSTED IN: Education, Safety

5 opinions for School Aide Charged With Aggravated Child Abuse

  • CS
    Sep 13, 2008 at 2:24 pm

    This is the true issue affecting autistic children and more time and energy should be given to combat it.

  • Club 166
    Sep 13, 2008 at 2:30 pm

    “..Green, who is married and has two adult children, is the second school staff member in Sarasota County’s schools arrested this year and accused of abusing special education students. …”

    Well, I guess it’s good to see that in at least one place in Florida they’re starting to get the idea that it’s not good to abuse kids.

    Joe

  • Regan
    Sep 13, 2008 at 4:09 pm

    Well, thank Gosh for Ms. McNeil following and stopping Mr. Green. (Does anyone know how to say, “I am at a loss as to what to do–can you help me?”.) If after 9 years of experience, even without specific training, although with general training, the best he could figure was to smack a student’s head into a wall–twice–and yell so loudly in a closed room that it could be heard 50 feet away, it makes me wonder if this is the first time that something abusive has occurred.

    CS said,
    This is the true issue affecting autistic children and more time and energy should be given to combat it.

    Agreed. This is the thing that concerns me more than any issue offered by my daughter’s autism–that she might be mistreated or hurt or have negative behavior shaped or escalated in the interest of getting an “education” or “training”.

    In searching for a little more about this particular incident, a couple of somewhat related articles came up. Both eyebrow raising in their own way,

    Vicki Carr-Rodriguez: Injuries, class disruptions caused by unruly special ed students not isolated incidents
    (Carr-Rodriguez is vice president of the St. Lucie County [FL] Classroom Teachers Association and Classified Unit. )
    Friday, September 12, 2008

    in response to
    Colleen Wixon’s article, Mistreatment of autistic students is an ‘epidemic,’ some Treasure Coast [FL] parents sayAug. 22, which spoke of the epidemic of “abuses” of special education (specifically autistic) children that parents reported to the state’s hotline.

  • Bonnie Sayers
    Sep 13, 2008 at 9:40 pm

    This is CA news and first I have read of it, but way behind in my google alerts too. Now I will read the tribune story.

  • Bonnie Sayers
    Sep 13, 2008 at 9:43 pm

    It looks like this is in Florida and not CA.

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