Things I have been reading:
- This story from The 74 on how Boulder, Colorado parents worked with their district to change (very much in process) how students with autism are worked with in the district.:
Modern practitioners defend the intervention, saying ABA no longer subjects children to physical punishment. Yet documentation of its harms is mounting, as researchers — including autistic adults who underwent ABA as youngsters — gather evidence that the therapy has caused widespread PTSD. Autistic children may no longer be subjected to electric shocks or slaps to the face — and the word “aversive” may sound kinder than “punishment” — but they are routinely denied food, toys and comfort items, as well as adult attention, a strategy practitioners industrywide call “planned ignoring.” ABA providers still frequently restrain children or confine them in isolation — practices recognized as so dangerous and traumatic as to be illegal in most circumstances in Colorado schools.
I learned from this that the person who created ABA, Ole Ivar Lovaas, also created conversion therapy, which is of course banned many places.
The Boston Globe looks at parents who are organizing for more recess in schools. From this I learned that there is a national "Say Yes to Recess" group.
I will say, though, that I'm a little tired of the Globe doing this "in a bill pending before the state legislature" coverage when the Legislature is done with formal sessions.In the state ballot questions campaigns here in Massachusetts, it's Smith and Wesson bankrolling the "no" vote on question 9 (which would repeal some gun control measures), with the largest funding for "yes," which keeps the legal language, seeing its biggest funding from the teachers' union. You can find that reporting here.
not hard, eh? Vote yes on 9. - Connecticut, which is among the states that allows no religious exemption to school vaccine requirements, just had that requirement upheld in the courts.
