Big sigh. This is going to be long.
ABA is an approach to teaching and there is an enormous amount of misinformation and ignorance about it - which sadly were reinforced in this otherwise excellent program. Discussions about the "punishment" aspect of it are as irrelevant as stating that typical education approaches are "barbaric" because back in the day corporal punishment was used. Punishment and "aversives" have no place in any education approach for any child - particularly a child with disabilities and, thankfully, this archaic practice is just that. My son is autistic and on the more "severe" end of the spectrum and was in a home-based ABA program for 3 years and is now in an ABA school. The main elements of the approach are as follows:
1.) All behaviour exists for a reason. We - all people - do things to either gain something (concrete things, such as food, water, entertainment, our pay cheque etc or abstract things, such as sense of accomplishment, information, acceptance, love, companionship etc) or to avoid something (e.g. pain, discomfort).
2.) Understanding what motivates an individual child is key to both respecting that child and subsequently teaching them. Many children with ASD are motivated by activities that are different from their typically developing peers and therefore the "typical" education approach is in fact at best ineffective and at worst punitive (for example, my son finds the noise of other children extremely distressing and playing in the midst of a group of children intolerable. Offering him "playtime" as a "reward" is completely misguided.)
3.) By understanding an individual child's motivation AND by breaking learning targets down into parts that are manageable for the child, that child will be able to learn. An example is the core learning skill of matching. This is a foundation skill, upon which most other learning is based. Typically developing children learn this almost organically in early childhood. My son did not. It had to be consciously, painstakingly taught. Ditto imitation skills - also a foundation skill and also organically learned in typical children. Did this require repetition? Of course. Would this have been possible without his program supervisor understanding what engages and motivates him to learn? Of course not.
4.) Core to an ABA approach is data collection and analysis by a BCABA (Board Certified Applied Behaviour Analyst) in order ensure that the program is individualised for the child and is leading to generalised learning/skills acquisition in the natural environment.
5.) A good special education program - and the programs my son has received both at home and now in school are very good programs - is a team approach, and includes occupational therapy (especially with regards to sensory issues), physiotherapy, speech and language therapy and educational psychologist input.
6.) The principles of ABA are in fact used in mainstream education (i.e. motivation to learn is provided to children and "rewards" include playtime, gold stars, positive feedback etc, leading to - hopefully - the learning becoming self-motivated). This is little different from a well-run ABA program - except an ABA program needs to be much more individually tailored both in terms of pace and learning rewards and the data collection process is much more structured as there are complex factors at play.
7.) My son learns differently from typical children but he does learn. And, just as typical children do not always wish to practice their spelling lessons or multiplication tables, he enjoys some activities more than others. However, I would be doing him a grave disservice if I did not push him to learn to the best of his ability - opening our children's world's to a variety of possibilities is a primary function as a parent. Did we initially use primary reinforcers (i.e. food - in my son's case, grapes)? Yes. He had not acquired play skills. Do we now? No. In most cases, his learning is now self-reinforcing (i.e. he loves to learn and acquire new skills and he loves the activities themselves because his highly skilled teachers know how to make learning fun for him) and he now has the play skills that make toys fun so "playtime" is a genuine reward.
8.) In terms of using an ABA approach to assist with dealing with what is termed "challenging behaviour", the standard is to look at the ABCs (i.e. Antecedent, Behaviour, Consequence) of any behaviour before addressing it. Therefore, there is by definition, an imperative for the CAUSE of a behaviour to be understood and addressed. For example, my son finds the noise of other children crying very upsetting, and this has led to self-hurting behaviour (head banging, biting his own hand). Once we understood that it was not crowds or even children in general - only distressed children - that upset him (he is non-verbal so cannot say what specifically bothers him), we have been able to help him (he always has easy access to ear defenders and a sign to request "time out", which is always respected). This means that he is now able to be with other children - something he indicated he wanted - without experiencing undue stress. In general, the only "behaviours" that a good therapist will look to manage are those that pose a safety/health risk (for example, we had to address my son's propensity to try to bolt or to drop to the ground on his hands and knees randomly as these are safety issues - the latter was determined to be a sensory issue so by providing him with a "sensory diet" to ensure that he had the chance to explore different textures safely, he no longer needed to do this while out walking and the safety issue was resolved while still honouring his very valid needs) or those that are blockers to the child's well-being. By this, I mean that we are not looking to block stimming behaviour that poses no risk - and stimming behaviour that is harmful (such as pulling his own hair) has been redirected to something that satisfies the need for the behaviour in a way that doesn't hurt him.
9.) The goal of my son's programs has always been to help him reach his potential - not to make him "less" this or "more" that. We want him to be his wonderful amazing self and that includes finding a way to help him learn and grow. To dismiss the approach that works for him and many, many other children is both disrespectful to him and to the teams of dedicated professionals in this field who devote their lives to developing "ways in" to the worlds these children in order to develop the highly individual, and profoundly caring approaches to learning that help them to flourish.