False Labeling & Parental Consent
Children are being placed in “Special Education” under a number of different categories. The Federal regulation, that determines who gets placed in Special Education classes and what type of education they are entitled to, is the Individuals Disabilities Education Act. (IDEA).
The IDEA was originally enacted by Congress in 1975 to make sure that children with disabilities had the opportunity to receive a free appropriate public education, just like other children. When one thinks of “disabilities”, one may think of a physical handicap or impairment that requires more Teacher/Student supervision in order to ensure a full education for the student. Yet, over the last few decades, “disabilities”, has grown to mean a lot more than that.
The definition of a child with a disability is “with mental retardation, hearing impairments (including deafness), speech or language impairments, visual impairments (including blindness), serious emotional disturbance (referred to in this chapter as “emotional disturbance”), orthopedic impairments, autism, traumatic brain injury, other health impairments, or specific learning disabilities”. ( TITLE 20 , CHAPTER 33 , SUBCHAPTER I , § 1400 ) Each of the “other health impairments or learning disabilities”, carry with them, a label that is placed on the child. Labels that are there to follow your child into adulthood and have scientific or medical criteria to back them up.
The intention of IDEA is to help ensure that all children have a good education. This is something that most parents would agree with. Unfortunately, the categories of “other health impairments, or specific learning disabilities” have opened the door to the bogus diagnoses that are voted into existence and itemized in the “Diagnostic Statistical Manual” (psychiatry’s bible).
Federal Regulation
To read about Prohibition on mandatory medication click here.
Over-diagnosing
With the categories of “other health impairments, or specific learning disabilities” we have walked ourselves into an age in which children (as young as toddlers) can be diagnosed, without medical evidence of having any disorder, and labeled and placed in the Special Education classes. Once, a bright, creative, intelligent and independent child, who perhaps is “too much of a handful” for most teachers and school counselors, is now considered “other health impaired”.
Following the diagnosing and labeling of the child, is the referral to a psychiatrist for the prescribing of psychiatric drugs. These psychiatric drugs are at the height of controversy in the newspapers across the nation. FDA warnings placed on these drugs include side effects of hallucinations, mania, suicidal ideation, aggression, heart attacks and sudden death.
Child & Parental Rights
IDEA has been revised many times over the years. The most recent amendments were passed by Congress in December 2004, with final regulations published in August 2006. So, in some senses, the law is very new, even as it has a long, detailed, and powerful history.
IDEA guides how states and school districts provide special education and related services to more than six million eligible children with disabilities. The changes that were made in 2004, address the issue of Parental Consent. For any parent who has gotten a “permission slip” from their child, you will understand that these permission slips or parental consent forms, are typically given to you by your child, for a field trip, a special event at school, or for disciplinary reasons, and is something you usually get when you are running around at home, trying to make dinner, get the kids to school, get yourself to work, etc. Permission slips or parental consent forms are something that should be read, thoroughly, and at times, with a magnifying glass. Do not skip through these forms, as often they are a parental consent form for an “intervention program”, mental health questionnaire, or for special education. You, as a parent, need to be fully informed about your child’s education. Your basic human right of being fully informed is vital to the future of your child’s education, their future jobs and their overall well-being. Times have changed, and mental health is a factor in public education.
Pseudo Science – ADHD Myth
“There has been no objective criteria established for any disorder listed in the Diagnostic Statistical Manual IV and the National Institute of Mental Health Consensus Conference on ADHD acknowledged that as of yet there is no diagnostic test that is objective and the conception of this being a neurological entity has not been delineated. However, 6,000,000 American children and received this diagnosis and are given Schedule II amphetamine drugs to ‘treat’ this highly subjective ‘disorder’. There has been the argument that providing parental informed consent will lead to children not being properly ‘diagnosed.’ We should then ask- who is then to assume control over the lives of children? Who intends to usurp the parental role? In addition, it has often been psychiatric intervention which has actually led to more harm than good.
All psychiatric drugs have serious side effects, and we are now finding that stimulants can lead to psychosis and mania and anti-depressants now carry black box warnings about the potential for suicidal thought. By informed consent, parents can know the necessary information to make an appropriate choice about their children’s well being.” Dan Edmunds, D.ED, Psychologist
Informed Parental Consent
The changes made in 2004 to the Individuals Disability Education Act, essentially, address informed parental consent. This is an important change and parents will only benefit by reading up on these changes. If a parent gets a parental consent form, regarding special education, they need to know, per the 2004 changes, that the school needs to make “reasonable” efforts to obtain the parents consent.
Regarding parental consent for reevaluations (translated, this means if the school wants to re-evaluate your child for Special Education): “if a parent refuses to consent to a reevaluation, the public agency may, but is not required to, pursue the reevaluation by using the consent override procedures”. This emphasizes the reasons why it is important for the parents to take an active role in their child’s education. Stay involved, stay in touch with the teachers and counselors and see how your child is progressing. This will prevent any type of override of your own intentions for your child’s education.
Also, that in order for a public agency “to meet the reasonable efforts requirement to obtain informed parental consent for an initial evaluation, initial services, or a reevaluation, a public agency must document its attempts to obtain parental consent…”
The schools have the open door to watch out for disciplinary problems on campus, tardiness, skipped classes, or generally, “insufficient” progress by the student. You, as the parent, can watch over your child’s progress and understand what the school is looking at. For instance, per the 2004 changes in IDEA “…a child has a specific learning disability if the child does not achieve adequately for the child’s age or to meet State-approved grade-level standards in one or more of eight areas (e.g., oral expression, basic reading skill, etc.)
Destructive Labeling
“From a psychiatric standpoint this labeling may be permanent and may adversely affect the child’s subsequent academic and social progress. For instance, access to psychiatric diagnoses by college admission departments may result in individuals being rejected for college admission on the basis of prior abnormal evaluations. This effect may also apply to private high schools.
Who is there to protect the information obtained in psychiatric tests, and guarantee confidentiality? Such confidentiality will be very difficult to maintain.
Permanent stigmatization of a child with a psychiatric diagnosis may occur. This label will follow the child throughout his life. Even if the problem is addressed, treated and cured (for example, through physical and medical testing that reveals a bona-fide medical condition), the stigma of the diagnosis is likely to remain indefinitely. Such is the case throughout the world of medicine with diagnoses such as manic depressive disorder, diabetes mellitus, coronary artery disease, and hypertension.”Allan Sosin, MD
Florida schools must be required to comply to IDEA and fully inform parents of all of the consequences, risks and alternatives to exceptional student evaluation for emotional, behavioral and learning disabilities and “other impairments”, including the predictable outcome of that evaluation – psychotropic medication.
“Without question the testing will lead to a recommendation or insistence on drug therapy for many children. This would be a dangerous situation. Therefore there is no control whatsoever on the use of drugs for emotional or psychiatric abnormalities. It is well known that children initiated on psychiatric medications are maintained on those medications indefinitely, and children may be subject to such drug use, possibly compelled to such drug use, in adult life.
Allan Sosin, M.D.
Citizens Commission on Human Rights of Florida is a non-profit watchdog organization dedicated to eradicating psychiatric abuse and raising public awareness of the facts about the field of mental health. For more information about your rights or the harmful effects of psychiatric drugs, call our Hotline at 800-782-2878.
