"Her brain doesn't work". Four teachers have been reported for constantly and cruelly mocking a 7-year-old autistic girl
Bullying, unfortunately, is a phenomenon that shows no sign of abating - being mean and nasty seems to be an integral part of the type of people who, without distinction, make fun of those who have "different" behaviors or even if they have a disability.
The places where bullying is rampant are at school, especially during the period of junior high (middle school), where the highest instances are revealed to be among pre-adolescent children, but also in the workplace, among adults where the phenomenon is better known as mobbing.
There are, fortunately, many parents who try to teach their children respect and understanding towards any kind of disability or diversity.
However, when in some cases, it is the teachers who also make fun of children (and, especially if the children in question have some disabilities!), well, in that case, hope for the human race seem to really fade more and more every day.
And speaking of bad educators, the malice that four teachers at the Dos Hermanas (Seville) elementary school showed towards a seven-year-old autistic girl is truly disturbing. "Her brain doesn't work", they said in class during a lesson - and continued with other offensive comments that are really hard to stomach.
The girl, who suffers from Generalized Developmental Disorder (DGS), Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), Language Specific Disorders and epilepsy, had even been assigned to a class with several other children with cognitive disabilities like hers, but this did not serve to ensure the presence of good teachers who are prepared to face and resolve positively such situations.
In any case, the child's parents began to notice some very significant changes in their daughter's mood and behavior. In fact, during the week, she said she did not want to go to school, that she was afraid and had also started demonstrating self-destructive behavior.
Furthermore, the young girl had two epileptic seizures within a short time. The situation only improved during the weekends. At the parent-teacher meetings, the teachers said they had not noticed anything strange in their daughter's behavior.
But the parents, faced with their own evidence, thought that the opinion of the teachers concerning the matter was rather strange! So, the parents decided to investigate more and better by hiding a tape recorder in their daughter's backpack.
The more than six hours of audio recordings, in which the humiliating verbal attacks against the child are clearly heard, were used to nail the four teachers at the Dos Hermanas elementary school.
The young girl's family is legally represented by Javier Jaenes, a lawyer from the Antonio Guerrero Foundation, who assured the local media that this type of behavior towards a child, especially in a special education class for students with learning difficulties is "intolerable" in which "the staff must have specific technical skills for dealing with these children".
The lawyer believes that there are grounds for accusing the four teachers of verbal and psychological abuse with sentences in prison that could range from six months to three years.
We hope that episodes like this can serve as an example, to ensure that more and more parents, if they are suspicious that their child is being bullied at school, have the courage to report such reprehensible behavior.
