(6 votes, average: 4.67 out of 5)
Loading ...Just before Christmas, the story of a 9-year-old autistic boy from Kentucky began to gain attention both on and offline. The interest was sparked when Christopher Baker’s mother, Sandra Baker, found her son immersed in a bag at school.
“It wasn’t just his body down in it and his head out, his whole body was down inside the bag,” she told WebProNews.
As she explained, the school had called and asked her to come and get her son because he was “bouncing off the walls.” When she arrived and saw what had happened, she was outraged and took the story to local news outlets.
Lydia Brown, an autistic college student at Georgetown University, saw the story and decided to create a petition on Change.org. The petition, which has received over 180,000 signatures already, calls for the school to take action against the teacher involved as well as comprehensive training for all school personnel.
However, as with many viral stories, the Christopher Baker case has generated a fair share of controversy. Some people from the autism community have spoken out in defense of the school saying that therapy bags are often used for treating autistic individuals.
Another debatable issue is in regards to how the bag was used. Christopher’s mother says he was put into the bag for misbehaving, which raises concerns over the use of seclusion and restraint in the treatment of individuals with disabilities.
Amy Dawson, the Founder of the Autism Advocacy & Law Center LLC, told us that seclusion or restraint could be harmful to any child but especially those with disabilities since he or she may not be able to fully understand what is happening.
At this time, the school board has said that it has concluded its investigation and is moving on. Sandra Baker, who now has legal support from The Gallini Group in Alabama and Chevalier Ginn Shirooni & Kruer in Kentucky, is continuing to fight the incident.
How do you feel about this story and its rapid spread? Let us know.
Excellent coverage – thanks for doing such in-depth reporting on this important issue.
Thank you for participating!
Autistic children aren’t crazy they just need more than some people can give them but to put any child into a bag is cruel and the teacher should herself be put into a bag for an entire day just so she can see how it feels.
the teacher might have mental health problems which is no excuse but she needs reevaluation as a teacher…
She needs re-evaluation? she needs to be FIRED NOW!!!
That’s not only inappropriate, it’s outrageous. Someone deserves to be discharged, or, if merely stupid, then educated.
They used to use shock treatment & ice cold baths to calm mentally impaired children! Are we not more humane then this!?!
what do you mean? dont call him “mentally impaired”, hes only autistic! dont misunderstand him, hes just different! if everyone in that school were like him it would have been fine. they arent crazy at all, they just think in a different way, and i know some really nice autistic people. its sometimes hard to relate to them, but they are good people. im not saying they are all good, just like non-autistic people, there are bad people with autism too, but dont argue about things you dont understand!
>> “They used to use shock treatment & ice cold baths to calm mentally impaired children! Are we not more humane then this!?!”
Of course we’re more humane than this. Duffle bags aren’t nearly as bad as shock treatment.
Great coverage of this story. This shows that the smaller school boards are not ready for or do not care about the special needs of all students. This problem is a Department of Kentucky problem in that it has not already stepped in to help with the steps of punishment for the staff or help with the future steps in more education and better systems for the ever growing special needs children. Autism is ever growing and is not really a new problem, but schools, districts, and states should have strict guidelines to help those students, and if those guidelines are not followed, then staff and leadership should face harsh punishment. People who take advantage of those who can not take care of themselves are the bottom of society that keeps us down.
Would love to see this story continue on what the outcome is for the assistant, teacher, leadership and board of education. Once again great coverage!!!
I remember reading about both of these cases. I also signed both of these petitions for these kids. Both of these kids were done wrong. Media in cases like this is great because the public needs to know this is going on in our schools today. I know first hand schools keep many things hush hush and behind closed doors and if the public knows then the next child that comes along maybe safer because we the public stood up for them.
GROW UP YOU TARDS.
He wasnt hurt and it was a PUNISHMENT, he wasnt supposed to enjoy it.
Nobody seems to be asking what it was that the kid did wrong that warranted punishment… Everyones talking about how inhumane it is that he’s being put into a bag?
People are starving to death in third world countries and these people are moaning that a kid got put in a bag.
You sound real mature calling people tards. The child involved in this case suffers from autism which happens to be a neurological problem that I’m guessing YOU know very little if anything about.
He probably didn’t understand why he was being punished in the first place. Some people with autism function mentally at higher levels than others, and it sounds to me like this school district wasn’t properly equipped to handle a child with this diagnosis.
As far as what you ask (that nobody else bothered to ask because they are OBVIOUSLY a hell of a lot more educated than you are on the topic) what the boy did wrong to warrant his punishment? Some autistic people have certain impulses they can’t control. Would you punish someone for having Tourette Syndrome too? Probably.
YOU GROW UP, EDUCATE YOURSELF, AND MAYBE LEARN SOME COMPASSION WHILE YOU’RE AT IT!
yeah being put in a bag is just cruel he could have suffocated
Ok lol_interntes, first things first. You need to go get some maturity and respect. Second, the kid wasn’t hurt
physically, but he was hurt mentally. Autistic children, depending on how Autistic they are, have a problem in
their digestive system that disallows the digestion of wheat. Some people don’t know this, and the wheat from
foods causes bad behavior, and sometimes loss of speech. It also hampers their ability to communicate as well,
so they act on impulse. Third, the kid was bouncing off the walls because Autism is something like A.D.D….
Add to that a 4th graders energy levels and you have one hyper kid. However, that didn’t merit being stuffed
into a bag for 15-30 minutes.
Lastly, people in 3rd world countries have nothing to do with this.
lol_internet that was not cool. how would you feel if ur child was put into a bag? but, u probably wouldnt care cuz u dont seem like a very kind-hearted person.
POWER TO THE MELLE AND CHICHI
hey chichi, lol_internet might not be that bad i take back my reply to his/her comment a bag isnt really that horrible, but that teacher really should just be fired for physically punishing an innocent student in a bag. And I’m calling him innocent, even if he did something bad, because he is autistic, and he deserves a break because this stupid school isn’t dealing right with people who are different. but i kind of have to agree with lol_internet about starving people and a kid being put into a bag. it may have been wrong, but we have bigger problems. we have to do something about it, but at least hes not getting whipped or anything. this isnt really much compared to those starving, thirsty, diseased, nutrition-deprived children in africa, if youve ever seen those videos and pictures and biographies. you should start worrying about people in worse conditions.
I have seen autistic children totally change from ‘climbing the walls’ to sitting attentively after being fitted with a vest, or having a chance to be in a similar bag-like environment that gave them sensory input. In the pre-K classroom I work in several of our students use them and even ask for them, before sitting down for our teaching times.
I would suggest people watch the movie “Temple Grandin” to see how pressure/ sensory integration was an important part of her ability to function as an autistic person.It would be sad if that very effective tools like these bags, pressure vests, weighted vests, etc would be restricted in helping our Autistic and other disabled children and adults, because of this case. Sounds to me like a lot of people bounce into a media frenzy, on little information. Given we are not given much information on how it was applied or even how it affected Christopher. It sounded to me like the child was not upset or struggling when the parent came. She didn’t say he was thrashing about, yelling etc. It is implied it was done as a punishment. One would think helping a child to calm down is not a punishment…
I do believe we need to have training on how to use these tools, as we do with any type of tools. It also sounded like the board had investigated and found that they were satisfied with the investigation. I guess there could be issues, but maybe a media frenzy is not the way to do it. And, getting lawyers involved will most likely just take money away from the often scant resources available to the educational systems in the first place. They get their cut from anything that may be awarded, they don’t work for free, even if they don’t take money from the family suing. Taxpayers foot the bill eventually.
As a side note…I noticed that Christopher was playing with what looked like wrestling action figures,…? Don’t they promote a very violent and ‘bouncing off the wall” type role-model. I often wish parents would look at what their children watch on TV and what violent video-games they are exposed to, when they question why their children get involved in ‘too active ” behaviour in school! Most of our autistic children learn by “social stories” and adding fantasy violence sure does not make it easier for teachers and even their own families to help them them overcome their socially inappropriate behavior.
I am a fan of a functional plan with proper tools, effective training, and common sense, when teaching disabled citizens of all ages.
in middle school im 25 now i was in a anger management class it was basical where they shoved all the kids who didnt fit into their idea of normal into one main class where we spent most of the day they even hired a fat para (a para is a person who isnt a teacher but has just enough qualifacations to be a teachers helper usely having some sorta degree in psychology) just to sit on us if we we got angry or misbehaved then they stick us into the supply closet (decent size could fit a queen sized bed and a desk and a table in it and still have some room) then shut the door when i had come back a few years later to pick up some stuff i left there they had halfed that room and put one of those doors with a veiw window that had its own little door and then lock the kids in there this door looked like it had come right out of a juvi hall isolation room
I think the point of the report has little to do with the actual case of a kid being put in a bag, the fact that we’re watching it on webpronews and not on some ladies forum, I think the point is that it’s how such a small thing in a small town can become big news (news being heard by many people globally) can be acheived if someone makes the effort to make the news heard. I’m in the UK and I’m aware of it, so the goal has been acheived, I personally care very little for the kids here, Kentucky?
Thanks for the full coverage of this story.
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