From the Sarasota Herald-Tribune in Florida:SARASOTA, Fla. - No one involved with the court case against Diana O'Neill (pictured) disagrees that the teacher hit her severely developmentally disabled students in the head with water bottles, boards and binders.
Two classroom aides who say they witnessed her do it call it abuse.
But O'Neill's attorneys say she was trying to get her students' attention and condition them to know when they answered questions incorrectly.
The question of whether O'Neill's actions qualify as abuse has become one of the central issues in the trial against the former Venice Elementary School special education teacher.
O'Neill, 46, faces four counts of child abuse.
And the arguments from both sides underscore a debate happening across the country: Is there a gray area between abuse and appropriate teaching techniques for students with disabilities? Special education classrooms have a lot of physical contact, and teachers must often use atypical techniques to teach their students basic skills like speaking and walking.
Some educators say that people unfamiliar with these classes may mistake accepted practices for abusive behavior.
Six current and former Sarasota school employees who testified in court this week said they saw no problem with what O'Neill is accused of doing.
Yet other educators, experts and advocates say there should be no confusion, and if the techniques are done properly students should never get injured. Prosecutors say O'Neill's students often came home with bruises and injuries.
Advocates in Florida have been pushing for state agencies and the Legislature to set strict rules for how teachers treat special education students.
They say the O'Neill case highlights problems seen in every school district.
"You do not need special training to identify abuse," said Phyllis Musumeci, a parent of a developmentally disabled child and advocate based in Palm Beach County. "Just because the witnesses don't have training doesn't mean they don't know what child abuse is.
"Who needs training to know that hurting a child is wrong?" Musumeci said.
The charges against O'Neill are based on eyewitness accounts describing how she hit, pushed and kicked her profoundly disabled students on a regular basis.
Her defense attorneys have gone through each of the accusations in an effort to explain the acts by saying they were either accidents or acceptable teaching techniques O'Neill used to help her students.
A half-dozen school employees called by the defense, including some who said they were friends with O'Neill, testified that it is not unusual to hit children on the head with objects to get them to pay attention.
"When you have kids like this, they are all over the place," said former Venice Elementary employee Penny Dell'Armi. "It's not to hurt them. It's to get their attention."
They said that O'Neill used common therapy tools, including a weighted blanket and belt that teaches children to walk, to help her students -- not punish them.
Defense attorneys also said O'Neill was merely using "dark humor" to explain earlier testimony from witnesses who said she called the students names like "retards," "idiots" and a "waste of air."
The defense also called neurosurgeon Dr. Stephen Padar to testify that the things O'Neill is accused of doing would not injure them.
Prosecutor Dawn Buff countered by arguing that Padar was not familiar with the medical histories of the individual victims, which could make a difference in whether they were injured or not.
She produced her own group of witnesses, also Sarasota educators who worked with O'Neill at Venice Elementary, who testified that what O'Neill is accused of doing was unnecessary and would not benefit her students.
These witnesses, including occupational and speech therapists, said that teachers should not use objects or hit students on the head to try and prompt them. Instead they should just place their hand on their arm or on their back.
The prosecution witnesses also said O'Neill used the therapy tools improperly, and that she could have choked them when she plugged their nose so they could not breath when she fed them."You can expose a child to things, but to keep trying when she becomes afraid isn't going to help her," said Elaine Longobardi, an occupational therapist at Venice Elementary.
The defense is expected to finish calling witnesses today, and then both sides will make their closing arguments. The six-person jury will then have to make its decision on each of the charges.
The trial was briefly halted Thursday when Judge Deno Economou ordered two parents of children O'Neill is accused of abusing to leave the courtroom after they let out sighs during witness testimony.
Economou then issued a warning to everyone in the audience.
"I'm not going to have this turned into a circus," he said. "The next time it happens, someone may go to jail."
