Did you know ABA is widely considered abuse?

[PennyRa]

I may be trying to kite a derailment a little bit but I also feel like it deserves its own thread?

Yes, I did know this. I did a Post Grad in Psychology and we learned all about the various autism “treatments”, including ABA.

I did know that, yes

I don't know what Aba is. Please expand

I had to google it.

What’s ABA?

@Merkins could you expand please? If you don’t mind, of course. I’m really interested as a mum with a little boy who is autistic. I sometimes feel, from the research I’ve done (which isn’t as extensive as I’d like it to be), that SaLT and OT use ABA methods at times and responds to some really well. Others not so much. Thank you.

It’s not the first time I’ve heard this, I don’t know much about it though.

I did know. Usually professionals will say ‘yes, but not OUR kind of ABA, that’s different’.

By whom?
There is a vast difference between ABA in the 60's and ABA now.
ABA is positive reinforcement of desired behaviours. I did it with my dd when she was aged 3. It changed her life. She learnt to use nouns, to imitate and to point amongst many things. She was nurtured and had lots of fun. It was as far from abuse as it is possible to be.

My son is very likely autistic, I’m aware it’s a type of therepy that aims to engineer behaviours. What do they actually do in sessions? Do you have experience with it?

My daughter has autism.

Although I have read some accounts of how it’s helped, I do think it is abusive. The whole thing implies that being autistic is wrong and the person needs fixing. I don’t view my daughter as needing fixing, she’s not broken.

Lots of things are abuse when practised in an abusive way. Disciplining children can be abusive or in their best interests depending on how you do it. Religion can be abusive or beneficial. Restrictive diets can be beneficial or abusive.

There are arguments against most forms of psychological treatments. aBA worked wonders for my non-verbal niece. It was in no way abusive to her. It was intensive and expensive , but not abusive. And she’s now 21 and very grateful.

Yes. And I agree with @ALotLikeYou

Yes it is very abusive. Its teaching autistic children to mask and act neurotypical. It's bribing them to suppress who they are.

Where I work they use and advocate for PBS, a proposed advancement on ABA. My main resrvation with PBS is how it's actually used which varies massively.

I’ve not used it myself but I’ve never heard of it being abusive and have only heard it’s built on positive reinforcement - when a child does something good they are praised, which is good for any child ND or NT.

Have you got any links for it being abusive OP?

Yup. Shouldn't need to train them to "act normal."

Chris Packhams recent videos are amazing. He talks about unmasking and being their true self. I love it so much

I think in his previous video I think he shows how problematic aba is.

I don’t think we should be posting links to potential abuse. 🤔

Theres plenty of info if you google, both for and against.

Like if you choose the bad apples of any programme you can call anything abusive

ABA teaches communication. If you want to see that as forcing kids to act normal that's up to you but I think it's a good thing to try to help people interact, ask for what they want etc

It’s interesting that people say that ABA is insistent upon autistic individuals masking and ‘acting neurotypical’. I don’t pertain to know a great deal about it, but my sister is an ABA therapist with a masters degree in ABA. She has always made it very clear that they only ‘work on’ behaviours that are unacceptable in general society. Not because they’re undesirable, I mean antisocial or violent things.

We work alongside eachother so often share information regarding specific individuals. She’s currently working with a boy who has sexually inappropriate tendencies, specifically towards younger children. Another child bangs his head against the wall so hard sometimes he’d knock himself unconscious. Her priority wasn’t making these children appear ‘normal’, it was keeping them safe and allowing them to integrate into society without causing harm.

I watched a documentary about it which said it was abuse, comparing it to fixing children. Then I had a friend who used it on her son and I saw a few sessions in action. It completely changed my outlook - it was brilliant. He started hitting goalposts, making friends and doing well at school. It changed the outcome for him. From what I saw it wasn't very different from good parenting - positive reinforcement for good behaviour and ignoring bad behaviour.

Yes I did

I can do it too. Look. Did you know that teaching is abusive? Some right vindictive teachers out there so let's call the whole thing off

Hmmm. I would still rather wok on reducing the stress and oveewhlem in the environment for the individual so the focus isn't on "undesirable behaviour" but "u desirable environment." Learn triggers, reduce overload etc.