Agreed, in the professional world, that is assault. You can't just assault someone because they are a bit spastic, everyone learns differently and the instructional technique needs to be dynamically modified for all learning types.
I know a guy that runs a forum that has some psychiatric issues however no amount of rolled up newspaper floggings will ever fix him, you'd be wasting your time. In the military (and the professional civilian world) the answer these days would be just to kick him out or sack him.
Had an Army instructor once that used to throw the duster at Privates (as in their rank). Managed to draw blood from one of their noses once. No one usually cared because they were being smart-ars-es and he recipient knew it.