Michael Shields, 51, sits quietly eating lunch with his parents, James, 83, and Phyllis, 85, who have come for their monthly visit. Michael has been a resident at the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center, a school for mentally disabled and autistic children and adults in a quiet Boston suburb, for 25 years.
As he shoves potato chips into his mouth and guzzles root beer, a staff member stands solemnly behind him with a box the size of a deck of cards that allows him to send as many as 45.5 milliamps of electricity remotely into Michael’s body through bands that are strapped to Michael’s wrist and leg.
