Human Children

Question: Why would rules to restrain a special needs child be different from rules to restrain ANY child? Though obviously more rare, typical kids can get physically combative too. Dare any school district claim that the children with special needs should receive particularly torturous or even lethal restraint procedures, over and above what is given to a typical child? Punishing the child for having a disability is patently illegal and immoral. Imagine a teacher suffocating the school's young football star, because he got in a scrape with a peer or teacher, and became combative. Should the child be pinned to suffocation? Would the teacher just have been "doing his job?" There would be an outcry and lynching bar none for this teacher. But a child with autism ? Our society thinks these are disposable human beings. They are not. As a health professional who has met and worked with hundreds of children with autism over the last 10 years, I have never met a single one who was not thinking, feeling, and endeavoring like any other child is compelled to do. Their disability in no way lessens their right to endeavor, to feel safe, be loved, or exist. This kind of treatment makes children with autism - and their families - the biblical lepers of the 21st century. Evolve, people!