Has the mainstreaming of children with severe behaviour problems gone too far? In April, a nine-year-old Montreal boy with autism died of suffocation when a special education teacher wrapped him in a weighted blanket to calm him. Two Michigan public school students with autism have died while being held on the ground in prone restraint. Several states have either tightened regulations on the use of restraints and seclusion in schools, or plan to do so. “Behaviour problems in school are way up, and there’s good reason to believe that the use of these procedures is up too,” says professor of education Reece L Peterson.

For more than a decade, parents of children with developmental and psychiatric problems have pushed to gain more access to mainstream schools and classrooms for their sons and daughters, says the New York Times. Last year the public system served 600,000 more… click here to read whole article and make comments