So-called scream rooms or seclusion rooms took center stage in a Hartford hearing room Tuesday.
Lawmakers are taking up a bill that would require schools to report to the state when children are being in placed in the rooms.
"There's really been no official documentation about how extensive it is and where it's being practiced," Republican Senator Len Suzio said.
With a trembling voice, Robert Blackmore of Hebron told lawmakers about the horrors a five year old family friend went through inside a scream room.
"He was held in there for twenty minutes and the results of that, he tried to commit suicide," Blackmore said.
The use of scream rooms came to light after allegations surface in January that a Middletown Elementary School was improperly using the rooms to put certain students in time out.
Jim McGaughey, the Director of the Office of Protection and Advocacy for Persons with Disabilities said that seclusion rooms should not be used.
"It's always best to look at it as a failure and go back to the drawing board and try and figure out, what did we do wrong," he said.
