The Quiet Room
Spoiler Alert. You’re probably going to cry at the end of today’s blog. So if you wear mascara, I hope it is the waterproof kind. If not, you may want to come back and read this later. (Unless you’re at home and smudging doesn’t matter.)
In my last blog I wrote that Travis’s first out of district placement was at a therapeutic residential treatment center and that Travis was one of four kids there that went home after the school day ended. I also wrote that according to their handbook this center combined therapy with a consistent behavior modification program.
Children were monitored on a level system. They were placed on the Introduction Level when they first arrived. Children remained on Intro for fourteen days and then could apply to move up to the next level.
On Travis’s first day they took away his shoes. This was part of being on Intro Level. He was told that he had to earn his shoes back. Staff explained that children were less likely to be runners (try to run away) without shoes. Travis responded, “What if there’s a fire”? (That’s my boy!)
Travis had three goals on this level. He had to learn the names of his peers and staff. Learn the rules. And follow directions. He came home each day with a score sheet. He was scored on each of the three goals every hour of the school day. The scores on each goal ranged from a zero to a four based on whether he needed help or prompts to complete his goals. For each goal, for each hour.
(When did the teacher have time to teach? A score sheet for every kid in the class?)
My first problem with this system is that if Travis started the day poorly then it was hard for him to recover. Once he saw a row of zeros or low scores then he figured he had already blown this day so why not go all out. (Kinda like cheating on a diet. I’ve already had a piece of candy so I may as well write this diet day off.)
Or he argued on each point. How in his mind he had done better than staff thought.
Travis did move up to the Cub Level after two weeks. His initial goals were not at all academic related, so not too much pushback from him.
The handbook is written with the residential kids in mind. As they move up levels it addresses the privileges that they can earn during their evening hours. I was saddened today as I reread the handbook. These kids started out with basic room possessions and as they moved up a level they could have their basic room possessions plus one toy. And then move up to two toys. They started with 100% staff directed free time. And at some point earn a bit of free time where they could choose what they were going to do.
At the Cub Level Travis received new goals. Remain focused and on task for ten minute periods of time. Take space when angry or upset to remain safe. And focus on his own needs without taking care of others.
(Sounds like they were getting to know our boy.)
This is where the trouble began. Because Travis had major issues with focus.
During his time at this center Travis had a notebook that went back and forth between school and home. The teacher shared details about his day with us. Once Travis made it to Cub Level we started to get these types of comments:
Travis is missing out on lots of privileges due to not working in class.
Teacher has decided to pick her battles.
Needs one on one attention to complete any work.
Continually needing to take space.
Staying at desk but not producing any work.
Travis is a tough little cookie, but we will get there with time, patience and perseverance.
Within two weeks Travis was given a level warning. If you receive three level warnings you move back down to the previous level.
There were several occasions the notes home described that Travis needed to be restrained or that he needed to take space in the QR (Quiet Room). But after a couple of months as a Cub, Travis had enough good days to move up a level. To the Turtle Level.
To move from Cubs to Turtles you had to have a specific score for 10 days. It took Travis two months to have the appropriate score ten times.
As a Turtle Travis had new goals. Remain focused and on task for fifteen minutes at a time. Tell staff each hour one thing that he had done independently in class. Focus on his own needs without taking care of others. And ignore the negative behaviors of others by not feeding into disruptions.
Within two weeks Travis received three level warnings and was downgraded to a Cub. At this point he has to show Turtle behavior for ten days to reapply to that level. (Deep sigh. I mean I actually just now took a deep sigh as I am explaining the level concept.)
And Travis went out the front door. So he lost the privilege of wearing his shoes. Travis lost access to his shoes on multiple occasions during his time at this center.
It took Travis two months to get back to Turtle Level. (Anybody want to guess what happened next?) Within a couple of weeks Travis was suspended from Turtles and back to being a Cub.
The teacher sent a note home saying that Travis was having trouble seeing the connection between his behavior and natural consequences. (You think?)
During his entire fourteen months at this program Travis went back and forth between these two levels. Again and again. He never made it to the next level up, Lions. And obviously not to the highest level, the Eagle Level.
During Travis’s time at the treatment center I would stop by unexpected regularly. If I had a cookie delivery in the vicinity I would make the delivery and then stop by. And each time I arrived I would check in with the receptionist.
They were not used to a parent stopping by to check on their child during the school day. But I wanted to see for myself how the program worked. I did have daily notes home, but they did not always match up with the words I was hearing from Travis.
And when I did stop by I would oftentimes have to wait for twenty or thirty minutes before I could go back and see Travis in his classroom. The receptionist sat at a desk in the middle of the waiting area. To the left of her was a door to the residential facility. The school facility was on the right.
One day when I arrived the receptionist was not at her desk. And the school door was propped open by a book. So (in good Glenda form) I walked in. I heard Travis sobbing and screaming.
He was in a room pounding on the door from the inside. On the outside was a large male staff member holding the door closed.
I demanded that he open the door. He said no. I told him that I was Travis’s mom and again demanded that he open the door. He said no, that Travis was violent. I asked him if he wanted to see me get violent.
He opened the door and Travis fell into my arms. He was crying so hard that he was unable to catch his breath. And he was soaking wet with sweat.
When I did the tour of the school I was not shown this room. All the times I saw on Travis’s point sheet that he spent hours of time in the QR, I imagined it as a quiet room with furniture, maybe some books. The type of room that you would choose to go to if you needed to take space to stay safe. A place to pull himself together when he was overstimulated.
What I did not expect was a room the size of a small closet with cement walls and a cement floor. And nothing else. A room that clearly no one would voluntarily choose to go. I could suddenly picture why restraints and quiet room were mentioned on the same day’s point sheets.
Because if he was not behaving in class and they decided he needed the quiet room, they would have to drag him there kicking and screaming. And since they could not put a day treatment kiddo in a locked room, the staff member stood there and held the door closed. (They were allowed to put residential kids in a locked room.)
I took Travis’s hand, collected his backpack from his classroom, and we walked out the front door together. That was Travis’s last day.
I notified our school district that Travis would no longer be attending that school and they needed to come up with a new plan. The special education director told me that I was not allowed to remove Travis from his current setting until we had a change of placement IEP (Individual Education Plan) meeting. (Not allowed? Seriously.)
The center had a full time therapist on staff. Travis met with him, we also visited with him. I shared with him early on that I did not believe their behavior modification plan would work with Travis. I had already tried reward charts at home. And the therapist knew that we believed Travis was on the autism spectrum.
You already read in a previous blog, “The belief that children with ADHD/Autism type disorders can learn to diffuse explosive behavior by applying the time and consequence theory assumes that the child can create goal-directed behavior, shift attention easily, regulate impulsive responses and use reasoning, foresight and premeditation to solve problems”.
Researchers in autism assert that children with impairments in executive functioning have the inability to plan and prioritize; the inability to assign attention to competing stimuli; poor judgement; and weak organizational skills.
Can you imagine how frustrating the level system must have been for Travis? Work two months to move up a level, and then get three level warnings in one day resulting in suspension back down to the previous level. Again and again.
Scoring on the ability to stay on task. To ignore the negative behaviors of others. All of this when he is unable to tune out background noise.
Even at home it was difficult for him to complete a task. I finally figured out that I could not just tell him to clean his room. That was overwhelming for him. He didn’t know where to start. So he would stay in his room and play.
But after reading some books about autism I tried a different approach. I would give him one direction at a time. Put your books on this shelf. Put your toys in this bin. Put your dirty clothes in the hamper. A new instruction after he completed his previous task. And it worked.
A setting such as this center should have been educated in the difference between trauma related behavior and other diagnoses such as autism. There is simply no excuse for the professionals at this center to not have recognized the symptoms and waste fourteen months. Especially when the parents give you the clue that they believe their child is on the autism spectrum.
Is it possible that our district told the center staff that we were difficult parents? So they chose not listen?
There is simply no excuse to lock a child in a cement closet and call it the quiet room in the notes home to parents.
In my research to write this particular blog I googled the center. You’ll be glad to know that I could not find any evidence that it still existed.
“For those professionals who can’t be emotionally there, they can at least just listen. I don’t think we expect that there will be an emotional rapport or connection with every professional. But you still expect to be heard. The professional can at least hear. It doesn’t require superhuman power, it just requires attention.” - Ruth Pease