After reading this & many news clips like it... It really makes me want to start back home schooling!!!!


http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/story.html?id=77c0fffd-a617-450f-acd8-34fbfcecda50&p=2

Gabriel Poirier seemed like any other 9-year-old boy. He watched cartoons, collected comic books and sang along to his favourite songs.

But Gabriel was autistic. He had problems communicating and interacting with people and would get frustrated.

His parents knew he could be difficult to handle and easily agitated. But nothing could prepare them for the tragic circumstances that led to their son's death two months ago.

A coroner's report made public yesterday pieces together the last moments of the boy's life.

In the early afternoon of April 17, Gabriel began to disturb his classmates at École Marie Rivier in St. Jean sur Richelieu with loud noises. The school specializes in teaching children with developmental difficulties.

His teachers gave him two warnings to calm down. When Gabriel continued to misbehave, one teacher took him to the corner of the classroom and rolled him in a weighted blanket, which is sometimes used to calm autistic children.

The heavy blanket was tightly wrapped around the 3-foot, 11-inch Gabriel at least four times, pinning his arms to his sides, the coroner's report said. With only the tips of his toes peeking out, the boy was left on his stomach, his head completely covered, for more than 20 minutes.

Gabriel eventually stopped making noise. The teacher went to check on him, turning him on his back. The boy appeared "listless and blue in the face," the coroner's report said.

The teacher called 911 and the school nurse tried to resuscitate Gabriel. He was already in a deep coma, however, and died the next day at Montreal's Ste. Justine Hospital.

The coroner's report cited suffocation as the probable cause of death.

"He was a very gentle boy," Gilles Poirier, Gabriel's father, said at a news conference yesterday in Montreal.

"He was only 53 pounds. He was so small," Poirier said of his son. "How can they wrap him up like that in a 40-pound blanket? How can this treatment be tolerated?"

His wife, Isabelle Lépine, tried to comfort him as he cried.

"Sometimes he was loud, but he was never aggressive or violent. I just don't understand how this happened," Poirier said, tears streaming down his face.

When used under the guidance of an occupational therapist, weighted blankets can be calming for autistic children, said Kathleen Provost, executive director of the Autism Society of Canada.

"They have a therapeutic use and can be relaxing," she said.

Many autistic children respond positively to sensory stimulation like touch, massage and weighted blankets.

Occupational therapists have found sensory stimulation is soothing to autistic kids and sometimes produces better results than medication.

Although teachers at Marie Rivier had received training and guidelines from occupational therapists about how to use weighted blankets, the rules were not followed the day Gabriel died, the coroner's report said.

Occupational therapists recommend blankets not be used as a form of punishment. They are not to cover a child's head and ought to be loose enough to be easily removed by the youngster.

In addition, the weight of the blanket should be in proportion to the weight of the child, and he or she should be monitored at all times.

The government needs to protect vulnerable children like Gabriel, said Jean-Pierre Ménard, the lawyer for the boy's parents.

"We're asking (Education) Minister (Michelle) Courchesne to implement a legal framework to regulate how these children are handled."

Gabriel's parents plan to sue the Commission scolaire des Hautes Rivières for compensation in the hope of preventing another tragedy, Ménard added.