This week’s People Magazine features a story of a diagnosed autistic boy, 12, that was killed after being tied down and abused by nursing home aides. Apparently he was put into the nursing home after a series of violent outbursts at home and trying to choke his little brother. Shortly before his death, he was heard talking to his sister about cartoons and telling his mother that he loved her.

People magazine also writes of a 13-year-old boy, also diagnosed autistic and also killed by a nursing home aide. After restraining the boy in a car because of unruly behavior, the aide went about, doing his errands and returned to the boy, who was dead upon discovery. The parents institutionalized”him because they were still unable to potty train him at 13 years old and he was continually throwing temper tantrums, much like a toddler would.

Admittedly, it’s extremely difficult for me to remain neutral on this subject as I am the mother of an extremely high functioning Asperger child, but I have to believe there must be more to these children being warehoused in nursing homes than People Magazine’s explanation.

My fear is that autism has been the soup de jour diagnosis in order to give parents and children social services and is so commonly diagnosed that we may be missing serious mental disorders in children by giving them a non-specific medical diagnosis. Although there are degrees of autism — hence ASD (autistic spectrum disorder) — landing certain behaviors on the spectrum of autistic disorders, the child in the first example was clearly able to communicate in his nightly phone calls home and express emotions, which is uncharacteristic of autism. Autism is not strictly defined by violent outbursts, as is the reason for this child’s “prison sentence” to a nursing home.

The second child, 13, might have been autistic, but I have to ask, is the lack of being able to potty train and acting like a 2-year old, reason enough to be institutionalized? Although it is difficult to put yourself in that situation and I’m sure most parents would like to think that they wouldn’t institutionalize their children for being difficult and unable to potty train, it still leaves me questioning, are nursing homes the new mental institutions?

What are the requirements in putting a child into a nursing home?? Why aren’t we giving parents the tools in order to facilitate treatment with psychotherapy, various behavioral therapy and/or medications? Are nursing homes really the answer to undesirable behaviors?

Has this become America’s dirty little secret? Typically nursing homes only require the ability to pay them in order to accept a resident, but children should be given more consideration, no? In this day and age, why are we warehousing kids in nursing homes, especially homes that are more qualified to take care of ailing elderly people than children. Why are parents allowing this?

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