Fwd: Aversive-Punishment Interventions

[Guest guest]

Heres a letter I received and I agree with some of it. I am hoping this is what

our state is doing but oh it worries me. Any opinions?

" dr.jhughes " wrote: Date: Thu, 03 Aug 2006 04:16:44

-0000

To: " Laurie Drago "

Subject: Aversive-Punishment Interventions

Laurie-

I can identify w/ your concerns re: the ethical and humane treatment

of individuals w/ disabilities. This is a very heated and political

topic in the field currently. As a psychologist and behavior

analyst, I don't agree that aversive types of punishment should be

outlawed entirely. There are many individuals out there that have

been able to achieve a better quality of life as a result of a

punishment procedure decreasing a challenging behavior in their

repertoire (ex: individuals engaging in life threatening self-

injurious behavior that with each day is resulting in increased

levels of brain damage or severely aggressive behavior). I

definitely agree that positive approaches need to be employed as a

first line of treatment for most cases but then there are those rare

cases in which the behavior is so severe that time is of the

essence. Punishment procedures must be monitored significantly by

trained, qualified, licensed professionals with extensive data

collection to measure treatment effectiveness. I guess on the flip

side, is it fair or even ethical for us to take away an intervention

that leaves no other options but for the individual to continue to

experience a poor quality life given their social lives and the

safety of themselves or others are at jeopardy? I've worked with

incredibly gifted & high functioning austistic children that have

severe aggressive behaviors. They don't stand a chance to be an

active contributing member in society as they age and to hold a real

job if they continue to be aggressive. No one will hire them.

Without the option of punishment, if deemed necessary, the lives of

these children will FOREVER be limited. Is that fair? I realize

that these procedures have been abused or poorly supervised at

times, but we must not take those unfortunate instances and outlaw

the use of punishment entirely. Rather, we need to get better at

enforcing laws for monitoring the safe implementation of these types

of procedures. We also need to get better at educating people on

how to prevent challenging behaviors from developing into serious

problems. If we focus on the antecedent end, we can decrease the

need for punishment all together without outlawing it. I realize

this is not the answer you wanted but I understand also where you

are coming from in wanting to protect these individuals given their

vulnerability. I hope we can all find a ground to be in agreement

on. Thansk for your time. Jami