disease-danger-darkness-silence:
Okay. Cool. Saying ABA is all bad is not false information and i am not going to condone it in any way
children often do like ABA. it’s designed so that they will. this post spells this out rather eloquently; positive reinforcement is a huge part of behaviour modification. if a child only has access to things they love within ABA therapy (as you will know, parents are discouraged from allowing engagement with interests outside of ABA), they are going to want to keep going, whether it’s good or not.
As you said, your son likes spending time with his therapist, and the therapist spent ages gaining his trust. This is similar to the above point, because children will love and trust people they look up to incredibly, to the extent where spending time with someone is positive enforcement. That’s why earning a person’s trust is so vital to make the ABA “work”. This touches on a really important point made in the linked post, about how this dynamic is a huge power imbalance being exploited:
“ABA programs give the therapist massive power over the person. That power in itself can cause people to look happy, through a more subtle reinforcement mechanism than takes place on a behavior plan:
– If you have power over someone in the way that behavior therapists do, they’re going to be highly motivated to please you
– If they figure out that you want to believe that they are happy, they are very likely to act like they are
– If you treat them better when they display the affect you want or praise you, they’re likely to act happy.
– It doesn’t mean they’re actually happy
– Or that what you’re doing is good for them”Importantly, children don’t always know what’s best for them. They have limited life experience and a lack of understanding of long term consequences, especially concerning mental health. It’s very common for someone to go through something traumatic as a child without even realising it is anything bad, only to realise when you unpack it in later life.
this is a good post on the matter
Children cannot always comprehend the long term effects of things. They cannot always understand or express more complex feelings such as “I like when my therapist does x thing but x thing makes me uncomfortable.” It is always the job of a parent to listen to those who have been through these treatments, use good judgement and consider how a treatment or lesson will affect their child in the long run. Not doing that is very much an aspect of emotional neglect and can leave children severely traumatized.
It should not be the childs responsibility to understand how something could affect their future, instead it falls on you, the parent, to look out for them. “But my son loves ABA, it isnt all bad or traumatising,” you say. Well, maybe not for everyone, but do you really want to take that chance with your son? and even if it isnt traumatising, it will still affect him – after all, that’s the goal of ABA.
- ABA is linked with PTSD. it’s very common for ABA to result in developing PTSD. yes, that includes children who liked it while they were going through it. This can be to do with the excercises and abuse they are forced through during sessions, or the effects on self worth and mental processing
- ABA affects self worth by teaching children that no one will like them how they are. that they must change even fundamental aspects of themselves to be respected or shown love/rewards. it teaches them that their autism is something to be ashamed of or hate (rather than teaching healthy coping mechanisms for the struggles that come with the disability). self hatred does awful things to a person. it haunts you for years and years, affecting your relationships and decisions. anyone who has had intense low self esteem will understand this, so why set your child up for it?
- ABA puts children at much higher risk of abuse. This is because ABA trains compliance with children; it is all about anticipating how people want you to react to things and doing that, regardless of what your instinct tells you. I’m going to focus on positive reinforcement ABA here, as i’m assuming this is what your son has.
- For autistic people, eye contact can be incredibly uncomfortable. that’s why lots of us avoid it. Rewarding someone for sustaining eye contact, even when it feels wrong or uncomfortable, encourages them to continue with it. This is especially true if the person withholding/giving affection is someone who has earned their trust.
- In the future, someone may want that child (maybe no longer a child by now) to do something they feel uncomfortable with. The person asking them to do it may have earned their trust; they could be a respected adult, a future partner, a friend; anyone they trust or value. This child has, from a young age, been taught that to please a person that they trust so much, they must do whatever is asked of them, even if it makes them uncomfortable. They might even be rewarded for it! They do not feel that they have the choice to say no and still be loved/shown affection. And this “something” they are uncomfortable with can be anything. It can be sex (although this inability to provide meaningful consent makes it rape), it can be physical, mental or emotional abuse.
You, as an adult, are far more capable of nuanced insight into the long term affects something (even something fun) might have on a child, in a way that they just cannot comprehend. Your child depends on you for this, as well as everything else. It is your job to listen to people who have been through this and lived through the consequences. Get educated. If, after reading up on why the community is so against ABA, you are still pro-ABA, then at least you’ll know more info for compassion which is never a bad thing.
- here are two articles, written by ex-ABA therapists, including one of the good ones. they are very comprehensive and i highly recommend reading them
- it is almost impossible to find people who have gone through ABA who haven’t developed PTSD. here are some good writings on the connection between ABA and ©PTSD (open letter part 1, part 2)
- i cannot link you to a scientific study, for reasons this article outlines very succinctly. additionally, a scientific study to draw a cause and effect conclusion would be completely unethical – aka, subjecting hundreds of children to ABA therapy to purposefully trigger PTSD, to establish a sufficient link – and therefore cannot be done.
- here is a master post of ABA related writings, articles, and resources. it’s worth reading as many as you can. like i said, the more informed you are, the better, whether this changes your opinion or not.
i hope you take my advice and read this all, as well as the linked information. i thank you for doing that
A friend of mine had a daughter going through what she said was ABA therapy and as an autistic person, I winced, so she started describing it to me.
And I was like
“I don’t think…that’s actually ABA. These specific therapists may be calling it that so that they can ACTUALLY help kids with autism, but it’s not ABA.”
First of all, they come to her house so that she has the right to tell them to leave and be on somewhat equal footing with them. “I feel sick today,” “I’m overstimulated,” “You have really upset me and I don’t want to be angry right now,” were all given as examples of why they would immediately pack up and leave. They encouraged her to inform them when she was uncomfortable with something so they could figure out what about the activity was making her uncomfortable and either unpack it or simply stop doing the thing.
Instead of focusing on conformity, they were deconstructing interpersonal behaviors so that the kid understood the WHY of why neurotypical people react in certain ways. Instead of forcing “good” behavior, they focused on what behavior is unacceptable (hurting people, hurting yourself, etc.) and why. Instead of teaching her not to stim, they were trying to help her find a method of stimming that didn’t hurt her or others. She told them that she did want to be able to make eye contact but that she didn’t know how long it was supposed to be for and people kept telling her she was creepy for staring at them for too long, and they broke it down into categories and explained to her that she doesn’t have to look at people if she doesn’t want to but if she does, five seconds is generally the creepy threshold, and this is why. They taught her that if her parents or teachers ask her to do something that she doesn’t want to do, instead of assuming that they’re doing it to be mean (because that’s the only reason SHE can think of for why she’d ban someone for doing something) to sit down and break the action down and what the possible consequences could be (and also that if it was something that made her deeply uncomfortable to immediately tell her parents, even if it was her parents making her uncomfortable). They are basically teaching her how to understand neurotypical people and not hurt herself in the process, and how to prevent abuse.
This is what ABA SHOULD be but isn’t. I just feel badly that these therapists needed to call it ABA to get taken seriously by autism specialists in her locale.
This is a good example of helpful therapy for autistic people – a really great alternative to ABA. unfortunately as it was named ABA for insurance purposes, i dont have a name for this approach. if anyone has it, PLEASE let me know: this is so important to popularise
Kids might well “like” ABA. Many kids who were molested over a number of years “liked” their “special” play time, too, at the time, and it wasn’t until years later that they found out how much it fucked them up. You can absolutely use bribery to make kids “like” being abused.
That, and of course, some things are called that only for fucked-up insurance reasons. Actual ABA is in and of itself, by definition, abuse.
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