School Board Listens to Psychic
The Simcoe County District School Board suspected that an 11-year-old girl, Victoria Nolet, had been sexually abused based on the prediction of a psychic. Today’s Times Transcript reports that Victoria’s educational assistant had visited a psychic “who said a youngster whose name started with the letter “V” was being sexually abused by a man between 23 and 26 years old.” Victoria’s mother, Colleen Leduc, wants an apology from the school district — I think that’s just the start.
Tags: asd, asperger, autism, autism blog, disabilities blog, disability, Family, family blog, Parenting, pdd-nos, psychic, sexual abuse, toronto
23 opinions for School Board Listens to Psychic
Melody
Jun 18, 2008 at 1:11 pm
Wow.. Hmm.
Janice
Jun 18, 2008 at 2:14 pm
It was fortunate for the mother that she’d already set up her daughter with a recording GPS monitor. That was used to quickly refute the charges from what the CITY-TV website reported.
I’m still gobsmacked that anyone would take a psychic’s word as credible grounds on which to launch an investigation!
Tara
Jun 18, 2008 at 2:59 pm
I am lost for words. “Reasonable grounds”, indeed…
Kristina Chew, PhD
Jun 18, 2008 at 3:23 pm
From CTV.ca, Colleen LeDuc said that
Also,
No kidding……..
Regan
Jun 18, 2008 at 4:05 pm
Did these Sherlock Jr.s pause to…uh…think?
If the school was concerned about behavior, have they heard of a process known as an FBA, or are they conducting their assessments via psychic hotline and Ouija boards?
I hope Mrs. Leduc mops the floor with these folks.
Bonnie Sayers
Jun 18, 2008 at 4:44 pm
At first I thought this was in Florida, but it appears to be a school board in Canada. My ex is from Canada and all his family is there. Probably not going there any time soon with my kids.
VAB
Jun 18, 2008 at 5:47 pm
The principal of the moronic school in question is Mr. Tremain 705-727-4267, btremain@scdsb.on.ca.
CS
Jun 18, 2008 at 6:22 pm
I’m glad that the school is at least concerned, unlike the so many unfortunate cases of hiding abuse that occurs routinely in schools. While it was regrettable that they may have used a psychic, at least they were concerned for the child. VAB, please don’t use moronic, and why does the principal need to be called?
Regan
Jun 18, 2008 at 6:33 pm
CS,
Generally I think you are right on, but I disagree somewhat in this case. In essence the catalyst for explaining the behaviors (were they assessed using accepted methods and procedure?) was, in essence, a confabulation, and hearsay at that, if media reports are accurate.
The ease of the concern might have been because the presumed cause was outside of the setting (did they go on a hunt for 23-24 year old men within the school setting?).
The problem is that making assertions on this kind of basis and evidence is that it could have as easily been applied to a member of the family, and then you have the situation as was seen in the FC case in Michigan.
CS
Jun 18, 2008 at 7:20 pm
Regan,
I admit to not understanding the situation (mostly from a lack of interest), but with so many abuses going on in school systems, like this one: http://tinyurl.com/6xf72e
I think a little perspective is needed. Perhaps I just don’t get it (entirely possible). Other than entertainment value the story presents, I don’t see any interest. I would hope that any magistrate would reject a warrant based partially on “evidence” from a psychic (thus no danger to local young men). Not familiar with the Michigan case. I’ll bow out of this one because I may not understand the seriousness of the issues involved.
VAB
Jun 18, 2008 at 8:34 pm
Oh, for goodness sake, CS, may I use “foolish” or would that risk offending some group of people who were once classified as “fools”? They need to be called because it is grossly irresponsible and out of keeping with the mandate of an education institute to give credence to psychics. The CSA was not investigating anything happening in the school, they were investigating her home life. In other words, because some — how shall I put this — person not well suited to evaluating the reliability of information listened to a psychic, and the school listened to that not-well-suited person, the family had to deal with the disruption of being investigated for neglect.
It has transpired in the past that such investigations have resulted in autistic children being taken from their families, place in inappropriate care, involuntarily medicated, etc., etc.
Kristina Chew, PhD
Jun 18, 2008 at 9:02 pm
This is about the Michigan case, which involved a 14 year old autistic girl who used FC. There were some very interesting comments about FC, too, in regard to this case.
I cited what Colleen LeDuc said about her daughter being pre-pubescent and behaviors resulting from this because it’s been a topic on my mind, as the mother of an 11-year-old autistic boy who is physically developing. I can see very easily how things could be misconstrued, even by well-meaning parties.
CS
Jun 18, 2008 at 9:12 pm
VAB,
People were gassed to death, marginalized and treated as non-persons by that ugly label (moronic). Language evolves and is always being modified. Why is it an imposition to modify how one uses language with such a brutal history as moron?
Moron was originally an English scientific term, coined in 1910 by psychologist Henry H. Goddard from the Greek word moros, which meant “dull” (as opposed to “sharp”), and used to describe a person with a mental age located between 8 and 12 on the Binet scale. It was once applied to people with an IQ of 51-70, being superior in one degree to “imbecile” (IQ of 26-50) and superior in two degrees to “idiot” (IQ of 0-25). The word moron, along with others including “retarded”, “idiotic”, “imbecilic”, “stupid”, and “feeble-minded”, was formerly considered a valid descriptor in the psychological community, though these words have all now passed into common slang use, exclusively in a derogatory context.
In his later years, starting from the 1920s, Goddard recanted his previous theories.
P.S. I don’t care for the word fool either. Nor do I care for the N word, the F word and many others. You can certainly use them and I can certainly object to their use.
VAB
Jun 18, 2008 at 9:34 pm
CS, I know the history of the word “moron” though I don’t know what event you a referring to when you say that people were gassed to death with the label “moron”. Did that happen in England, or are you referring to the use of equivalent terms in other languages?
“You can certainly use them and I can certainly object to their use.”
True.
Regan
Jun 18, 2008 at 9:38 pm
CS,
Thanks for the link. I agree with you about the abusive use of timeout rooms without parental notification under the guise of behavior management or even framed as a therapeutic use.
I think that I see these kinds of cases as independent; schools already carry a granted differential of power against the students and the families.
Mandated reporting was created for good intention, so I do not want it to be misused based on supposition based on such as “psychic” information because it diminishes confidence in the process, can be damaging when misused and is not helpful to those for whom it was intended.
My basic question was if there were concerns about behaviors sufficient to lead to this line of thinking, did they go through accepted practice to try and find out what was up?
Anecdotal: I once was in a discussion with paraprofessionals where they were absolutely sure that a child was being abused, and at home. In fact, the more they talked about it, the surer they became. No FBA, no doctor’s visit–NADA. As it turned out, some of the behavior was being socially reinforced at school to escape some disliked schoolwork, and a medical reason was that there was the start of a bladder infection, which was interpreted as “inappropriate sex play”.
CS
Jun 18, 2008 at 9:56 pm
VAB:
Event I’m referring to:
http://tinyurl.com/6gm6ec
I also made a couple of videos about T4.
Here is one: http://www.vimeo.com/767985
CS
Jun 18, 2008 at 10:08 pm
VAB, tried to answer you but my comment is held up in moderation.
Kristina Chew, PhD
Jun 18, 2008 at 11:30 pm
@CS, I checked for other comments from you—-did the comment that was in moderation go through?
@Regan, thanks for noting that—it’s a concern that I think is part of raising a child who is in puberty, though not the easiest to discuss, especially in a public forum on the internet.
Regarding the behavior of the school officials—-seems to me they could have had some more foresight about what people would think of school/educational professionals listening to a psychic.
Marc
Jun 19, 2008 at 10:28 am
Will there be any consequences for that truly idiotic teaching assistant? Are there not any standards or educational requirements for these people?
Eleanor
Jun 19, 2008 at 3:05 pm
Yes, it is hard to believe that a school district makes reports based on input from psychics, but am I the only one that is a little wierded out by the fact that this girls apparently is GPSed and wired for sound at all times?
HCN
Jun 19, 2008 at 4:18 pm
Eleanor, I read somewhere that the child had a tendency to wander. Since there are often reports around here of autistic children disappearing (some being found miles away, others not), I guess I am not so creeped out. Like this one in Wisconsin:
http://www.startribune.com/local/north/20550984.html?location_refer=urlTrackSectionName
Many years ago when my 19 year old son was younger I was on an email based support group. There was often discussion of ID-tags, locators and what-not for children who wandered off. As they get bigger the fences don’t often work.
My son was not a wanderer, so that was not an issue. A hyperlexic child in his preschool was a climber though. It was not unusual for him to go missing and then be found 30 feet up in a tree.
A device like this would have been very helpful for my husband’s grandfather. He was in a home with dementia and more than once wandered off. One time he was found lying very close to a canal with hypothermia due to the cold.
CS
Jun 19, 2008 at 6:36 pm
Eleanor,
I’ve read a little more about this story to try and understand it. The mother says she put the audio GPS tracking on her because of abuse she felt was going on at the school.
ps
Jun 20, 2008 at 8:24 pm
Everyone needs to remember the media is one sided. Have we had a chance to hear the other side of the story. I’d say not! Read the whole news articles people. There were sexualized behaviours. Should school staf just ignore this just because the child has special needs. Do you all truly believe they should have not reported the behaviours to CAS? Should they have ignored the fact that a child could have been getting hurt? Just because a child has special needs does not mean the behaviours are not stemming from a different root!
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