A lawsuit filed Monday alleges a therapist threw a 7-year-old non-verbal autistic boy against a wall at a North Richland Hills behavioral center, resulting in a large scratch and several bruises on his face.
The boy's parents allegedly noticed the injuries after picking him up from ABA Interactive in June.
KERA News reached out to ABA Interactive’s founder Kiara Henry and will update this story with any comment.
According to the lawsuit, the parents were told different versions of the story. Initially they were told the boy scratched himself during a behavioral episode. They were also denied permission to see surveillance video, but were later provided a copy by another therapist.
The video shows the boy patting a behavior therapist’s lap to get her attention, according to court documents. After the therapist walked away to tend to another matter, another employee allegedly lifted him from his collar and slammed him against a wall with her hands around his neck, stepping on another autistic child in the process, according to the suit.
The lawsuit was filed in Tarrant County by attorneys with Firouzbakht Law Firm.
“It’s every parent’s worst nightmare,” trial lawyer Wesley Gould said in a statement. “This child doesn’t have the ability to vocalize what was happening to him at that place. Someone has to speak for him and that’s what we’re determined to do.”
Firouzbakht Law Firm founder Eric Firouzbakht said in a statement that this case is not the only incident at ABA Interactive his firm will look into.
“We’re going to investigate to see whether there may be other instances of abuse against autistic children at ABA Interactive that have been unreported to authorities,” he said.
The alleged incident at ABA Interactive comes months after Fort Behavioral Health shut down following a Star-Telegram investigation into years of abuse and neglect reports. The Star-Telegram previously reported that the Fort Behavioral adolescent programs were repeatedly cited by the state for incidents where children were harmed or abused.
The center shut down its adolescent programming two weeks after the Star-Telegram's investigation was published.
The adult program lasted until the facility's last day, which was Jan. 31.
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