Comments

These walls remind me of the many military hospitals I visited as a child. Definately NOT fond memories!

That damn spider can't even let her rest in death! LOL

Looks like my bed after my favorite bag of potato chips! LOL

Lynne,

I just wanted to thank you for your posts! Maybe some of the people that think padded rooms were used as cruel and unusual punishment will finally realize that that is, in fact, not the case at all! I just visited my friends dad (he's a teacher in an elementary school) and he was telling me about a boy that would become so violent with other students, teachers, and himself that they decided to put a padded room into the school for his safety. I was at the school so he showed me the room and he was explaining how the boy would start beating his head against the walls before they had the room padded and he said that he knew he needed to take action to be sure this boy would be safe in school, even if it was to be safe from himself. I just say, "Thank goodness!" for people like him because ever since they put in that room, it takes the boy much less time to cool down than it did previously. So, that room with the help of the psychiatrist the school brought in has helped that boy so much and that is HUGE! It has, I'm sure, changed the course this boys life will take because of the way people cared for him. And I think that that is what counts the most!

WOW! What a neat, neat, neat, neat room! I love the colour of the ceiling with the colour of the skylight and chandeliers...beautiful!

LoL! For some BIG feet! LoL!

It probably wasn't always room 666. The six in the middle looks like it's been tampered with. I think it may have been possibly a nine... And if it really was room 666...well, then that is just odd!

Gosh. I thought we had already covered this territory. I've worked in 5 different places similar to this and there are good ones and there are bad ones and their quality revolves totally and exclusively around how much money the community votes to let a facility have. They give no money, the facilities don't do such a hot job. They give a lot of money, the facilities do a great job. But even without money some of the staff in these places have made it a true home and have kept many of these very fragile folks alive and happy, so please don't automatically assume that every single place was a snake pit and every single client went through hell, because that's just not true. Put off the black-and-white viewpoint and come visit us sometime, because "we" are still out there. I work in one of "these places" and I can tell you a whole lot about the good and bad. Get out there and volunteer along side us and push your congresspeople for increased taxes for folks with handicaps; then we'll be happy to listen after you've experienced the good and the bad.

You guys can go back and forth all you want about how this place was great/awful but I say to those who claim it wasn't, would YOU volunteer to stay there as a random patient when it was in operation? Hell no you wouldn't. These places are not shiny happy establishments and i think we all know that! Give me a break!

That book was one of the classics in the field. It was written in 1980 by McClennen, Hoekstra & Bryan, and was a curriculum for teaching social skills to people with severe intellectual disabilities. You could do an inventory to assess the person's current social skills and then there were actual programs to help teach and develop any needed skills. This started with basic skills, such as how to make eye contact, social smiling, etc., and then moved up the ladder of basic interaction skills that most of us learn naturally but many folks need help learning.

This pic makes you realize that real people were here! This is literally a part of them that is left behind!

OMG! I LOVE ART DECO!
I WANT THIS!!

I was in traction when I was 13...that was in 1981. In my mind the machine I had was just as scary! Looking at this is NOT making me happy!

Mona,
i am certain that even "severly retarded adults" ( ugh, i loathe that wording.) are capable of reading, or at the least being read to.

Wow. I was at that park several times a year from Birth till I left RI at the age of 20. Now I have been working at Disney World for the last 15+ years. But that park will always be special to me. Thank you for those photo's, I am amazed the Haunted house still has anything in it at all.