More than 200,000 schoolchildren are paddled, spanked or subjected to other physical punishment each year, and disabled students get a disproportionate share of the treatment, according to a new study.

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Among the cases cited in the report was that of a 6-year-old, first-grade boy with autism, who was paddled at his Mississippi elementary school. An assistant principal who the report described as weighing 300 pounds “picked up an inch-thick paddle and paddled him” on the buttocks, the report said.

“It just devastated him,” the report cited the boy’s grandmother as saying. “When a child with autism has something like that happen, they don’t forget it. It’s always fresh in their minds.”

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'see http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/11/education/11punish.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss