I am not disputing the fact that there is a ton of misinformation about Autism on TikTok (and the internet as a whole), because there absolutely is and it’s dangerous. But it gives me pause that the researcher behind this study developed and promotes a treatment method that is essentially a cousin of ABA. That makes me incredibly skeptical of what his rubric might be for filtering the claims as factual or not.
ABA, for those that don’t know, is based on Skinner’s operant conditioning and was created by the man who developed “gay conversion therapy.” He once said this:
“You see, you start pretty much from scratch when you work with an autistic child. You have a person in the physical sense – they have hair, a nose and a mouth – but they are not people in the psychological sense. One way to look at the job of helping autistic kids is to see it as a matter of constructing a person. You have the raw materials, but you have to build the person.”
If “operant conditioning” makes you think of dog training, you’re right. ABA is dog training for Autistic people. It is conversion therapy. It does not “intervene” in their Autism so much as it forces them to appear more neurotypical, and a study from 2018 suggests that it actually creates PTSD symptoms in the patients–that it is traumatic–which is in-line with many firsthand accounts of people that have been through ABA.
So the guy behind this analysis developed his own practice which is rooted in ABA and centers around operant conditioning. I’m sure a lot of what he finds to be false is probably false and not scientifically-supported, but I would def be skeptical of what he considers to be misinformation in some instances since ABA is technically scientifically-supported for autism intervention, due to it’s effectiveness in making Autistic people appear more neurotypical (without regard for their psychological wellbeing in many cases).
But with that said, I’m just some schmuck on the internet. I highly recommend reading Autistic people’s perspectives on it and seeing what verified smart people have to say.
Here are some pieces I find enlightening:
- https://fortune.com/2022/05/13/autistic-community-reckoning-aba-therapy-rights-autism-insurance-private-equity-ariana-cernius/
- https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/nurturing-self-esteem-in-autistic-children/202209/does-applied-behavior-analysis-aba-cause
- https://whyy.org/segments/how-a-therapy-once-seen-as-a-victory-for-autistic-kids-has-come-under-fire-as-abuse/
If “operant conditioning” makes you think of dog training, you’re right.
This isn’t the bad part. Operant conditioning is how all behaviours are formed, if something gives a positive feeling or takes away a bad one the behaviour increases, if it adds negative feeling or takes away a positive one the behaviour decreases.
The issue with ABA is firstly trying to take a persons personhood away, teaching someone that who they are is bad, and secondly the mad schedules they impose. It might be that a person doesn’t feel comfortable with eye contact, the ideal situation is we go “cool, don’t do that” and everyone is just cool with it, a middle ground that is a good idea is to help the person get used to using intermittent eye contact or using little tricks like looking at someones nose or forehead. The ABA solution is we force the person to make eye contact for an hour a day, regardless of comfort, and witholding a comfort item, like a tablet, until they have completed that hour. It’s treating a child (or sometimes an adult) as a non-entity, just an issue that needs to be fixed, needs to be ‘normal’.
The writer of that psychology today article put her son in ABA, and actually endsup advocating for it (as long as the ABA therapist used a modern, child first approach.) I agree with her.
My son has been in modern ABA since he was two after his developmental pediatrician recommended it. (I have aspergers myself, as does my kid’s father - both of us never required ABA as kids though I had speech therapy/saw a psychologist about my “acting out” etc) So I had no reason to be suspicious of ABA, or knew about how it used to be. However my son’s experience been so positive I never considered that it might have (pretty horrible) origins or were started by a person like that.
I’ve seen many sessions at two different practises, and from what I’ve experienced, the modern version is VERY divorced from the old methods you are describing.
The place my son attends (he still goes there twice a week) they teach kids to be proud of being autistic, and to understand themselves as well as advocate for what they want using group-play based activities. Stimming and other typical ASD behaviours are not ever discouraged, though communication is (however they prefer to do it.) It’s not about forcing them to act like normies. It’s about giving them the tools to understand themselves and others. They also have parent classes to help understanding and acceptance of ASD behaviours, and how to advocate for your kid in school and other settings.
My son used to be basically non-verbal, he would headbutt and bite us frequently as a result of his frustrations. So had we tried putting our son in speech therapy, however we took him out of that since the methods were very repetitive and frustrating for him. It was much harsher than what he’s experienced in ABA. ABA had my kid actually asking for what he wanted, didn’t want, enaging in play… also the biting and headbutting us stopped. I’m not sure why seeking out some kind of therapy to help him communicate better is seen as “forcing him to conform”…
After seven years of ABA, my kid is happy as hell. He loves his therapy group and his therapists. He’s still going twice a week, he’s learning about online safety, multiplayer gaming (taking turns and playing as a team) and how to deal with bullies. They have a video game playing league.
It’s important for people who experienced the horrific side of ABA to voice their experiences and advocate for acceptance of neurodiversity in all its forms. I in no way want to dismiss the trauma of someone who had to experience ABA the way it used to be.
But call ALL forms of modern ABA or other behavioural therapies for kids ‘coersive’ or ‘abusive’ - or to compare them to something like conversion therapy? …I don’t know even know how to describe it. But it is very, very very off base and misinformed at the very least.
I’m not going to argue, since it seems like you have a pretty strong opinion about this. (As do I)
But I wanted to put it out there that doctors tend to recommend modern ABA for a reason. Evidence-based methods matter. I recommend it myself, provided you investigate the clinic first to see what their approach is.
As someone who grew up with a (quite) younger sibling in the most disabling end of the spectrum, witnessing all the development from infancy to adulthood, I am very reluctant to recommend for/against any specific approach, because I think that what matters most is the people who actually practice it. So, I absolutely agree with the last sentence of your comment.
The negative aspects of ABA are not entirely in the past. I am not in a position to verify the information I will quote, but this is mentioned in the third of the linked articles:
Mandell says ABA needs to renounce that history — especially the early reliance on punishments like yelling, hitting, and most controversially electroshocks, which are still used in a notorious residential school in Massachusetts called the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center.
To be clear: I am not arguing with your experience here. Rather, I am pointing out how important is the kind of practice of whatever theory and what the focus of the practice actually is. It’s really very difficult to find professionals who are actually both able and willing to care properly for autistic people. At least in the place I live.
Beyond that, I have to say that there are many things that now have positive effects on people’s lives that weren’t exactly positive in their original forms.
Oh so you mean people on the internet tell lies?
Who looks for facts on social media?
Many people do unfortunately.
