Hi. In comment you had made on a post Kelli Stapleton you stated “ABA is torture and abuse in medically acceptable forms.” I want to ask how you have come to that conclusion. I have worked as an ABA therapist for over three years and have never done anything approaching abuse, much less torture, in fact I am impressed by how useful, successful and overall kind the techniques are. I believe that anything negative from ABA is the fault of the people involved being cruel. The system itself is not.

goldenheartedrose:

Oooh boy.

The system itself is beyond flawed. It has nothing to do with “good” therapists and “bad” ones. The very system itself is set up to harm autistic people.

I’m not talk about “oh, the insurance codes it as ABA even though it’s not because that’s the only way the insurance/the government will pay for it”. I’m talking about actual Applied Behavior Analysis, which has its roots in therapy that lauds aversives, whose founder is Ivar Lovaas, the same man who worked with the Feminine Boys Project, which you can read about here:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1311956/

He is the one responsible for the behavioral therapy that is so predominant in the autism world today.

This is a really good blog post (with some great outside links) about ABA and why it’s troublesome.

http://emmashopebook.com/2012/10/10/tackling-that-troublesome-issue-of-aba-and-ethics/

And if you had taken a few seconds to scroll through my links, you would have also found this post, which I find is the #1 most relatable and understandable source of information on why I personally hesitate when it comes to ABA:

http://loveexplosions.net/2013/01/30/the-cost-of-compliance-is-unreasonable/

That post is almost 2 years old, and it still makes me feel a bit nauseated when I think of the implications of ABA.

And if you are to understand the link above, you need to also read this, which is very difficult to read but necessary.

http://unstrangemind.wordpress.com/2013/01/27/no-you-dont/

ABA teaches autistic people a lot of different things. It can be used as a tool to teach skills. That’s fine – and I think that’s where we get into some murky waters where y’all are calling something ABA that is not for insurance purposes. If you’re sitting there and teaching actual skills with no aversives and very little reward/punishment? Then it’s probably not really ABA. If you are using aversives and rewarding kids (and withholding rewards) for asinine requests that are just not logical, well, then it’s probably ABA and it probably isn’t anything good.

ABA is training your child like a dog. It’s literally not any different from obedience training with animals. And if you fucking wouldn’t do it with a neurotypical typical child, what gives you the BRILLIANT idea that you should do it to an autistic one?

Right, I know. Because we’re not really altogether human. That’s the answer, isn’t it? Because I can never quite y’all to give me a direct answer. Why do I or my kids need to submit to this crap, but my neurotypical counterparts don’t need to? And I’m about 99.99% sure that it’s because you consider autistic people to be inherently flawed and in need of being fixed. Not to adapt, but to be fixed.

Here, I think you should also read this:

http://timetolisten.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-tyranny-of-indistinguishability.html

If you want autistic kids to be indistinguishable from our NT peers, you are HURTING US.

And this, THIS is why ABA is so fucked up in so many ways:

http://timetolisten.blogspot.com/2011/10/advocacy-everyone-can-do-it.html

So, stop trying to prove that you’re a good ally and actually BE one.

Stop trying to hurt us. Stop trying to prove that you’re “one of the good ones”. Read and learn and don’t come back at me with tone policing arguments and that I wasn’t nice enough or that I was too harsh or “you’re not all like that” (how many times have marginalized people heard THAT ONE?).

Prove it. Fucking prove it. Prove that you’re not like all the rest and get out of the soul sucking business that is ABA. Find something to actually help autistic people. Maybe find an anti-bullying campaign to lobby for. Or start one. That would help autistic people.