Students Suffer Abusive Restraint, GAO Says

Roger Pierangelo, executive director of the National Association of Special Education Teachers, attributes teachers' abuse of restraint and seclusion techniques to a combination of inexperience, stress, and the lack of proper training. Though his students in the special education and literacy department at Long Island University are taught not to use the techniques under any circumstances, some teachers in programs at other universities are given no formal guidance on the dangers of the techniques yet still will use them in moments of frustration with students. Although such moments can come frequently for special education teachers, stress is not an excuse for abusing a student, Pierangelo says. And many of the teachers who use the most dangerous restraints, ones that restrict students' breathing, often fail to try other, less harmful techniques first, he added. "[Teachers'] use of the restraint is often a reactive response, an impulse, not a decision made using logic."

There are alternatives teachers can use to handle classroom confrontations with students. George Sugai teaches at the University of Connecticut's Neag School of Education and is one of the country's leading advocates for policies that promote the encouragement of positive student behaviors. For example, teachers following such policies will go out of their way to compliment students who succeed at minor tasks like walking down the hall quietly or raising their hands in class to get permission to talk. When students misbehave or become unruly, teachers calmly explain what the students are doing wrong and what they should do to correct their behavior, a simple approach that teaches positive behavior through encouragement and can quell bad behavior without the use of force, Sugai says. While restraint and seclusion should be among schools' emergency procedures, Sugai says he does not condone use of the techniques on a regular basis because no research exists to suggest they can effectively alter student behavior. A long history of research does, however, validate the worth of policies that promote positive student behavior. Some of this research has been conducted by the Center for Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports, a research and training facility affiliated with the Office of Special Education Policy that Sugai codirects.   

Data from the approximately 9,000 schools whose faculty and staff members have been trained by the center to teach and encourage positive student behavior show decreased numbers of office referrals, suspensions, and students needing specialized instruction among the school's special education students. The data also show improved student attendance and increased time spent on academic instruction, while teachers, students, and parents affiliated with the schools' special education programs report an improved school climate and stronger relationships between students and staff.

One Pennsylvania school for severely disabled and emotionally disturbed students that began using positive reinforcement techniques exclusively about 10 years ago appears to be reaping the benefits. When Michael George accepted a new job as director of Lehigh University's Centennial School in 1998, he stepped into the most violent environment he says he has ever encountered at work or in his personal life. Centennial students often behaved aggressively, and teachers routinely responded in turn—sometimes two or three at a time—by holding down the kicking, thrashing, screaming students in dangerous physical restraints, according a 2005 article published in Psychology in the Schools by University of Albany psychology professor David Miller, Centennial School psychologist Julie Fogt, and George. Though the school had a population of just about 80 students, teachers performed 1,064 physical restraints during the academic year before George arrived—an average of about 13 restraints per student throughout the year, the article states. When teachers used more than 100 restraints in the first 20 days of George's first school year at Centennial, he decided to put an end to the conflict.