Piece in the Guardian today about ABA

[theDudesmummy]

www.theguardian.com/education/2013/oct/29/specialeducationneeds-autism

Thanks, will read at once!

Good article, though this stuff about "ABA is trying to normalise the child's autism" drives me titless.

No-one accuses me of trying to "normalise" ny nf DD if I teach her not to scream in the supermarket if she wants chocolate. Or to poo in the toilet. Or read and write. It is just teaching.

Looking forward to the TV prog though

Yes I thought the article was helpful on the whole but a few problems. One is the idea that it is a "controversial" American treatment. More emphasis needed on the extensive evidence base. And the other is the discussion, as you say sickof, about the "normalising" being a potential problem. Learning to live harmoniously in society and get your needs met is hardly a potential problem.

A) Sickof teaches her normally-functioning DD how to talk, read, write, use a toilet, not hit people, not punch own head in frustration etc etc - Society gives me a big "well done"

B) Sickof, via ABA, teaches her severely autistic DS the above list - autism establishment rentaquotes say "tut tut, she us trying to normalise that poor autistic child, and deny his true autistic nature"

Patronising, illogical guff! Grrrrr!

I'm afraid my experience with it with an older child with AS was that it was very 'normalising' - the drive was to be the same as everyone else and 'iron out' reasonable adjustments for anxiety etc

I have just written a letter to the Guardian in reply to this article. It may not reflect everyone's viewpoint of course, but I felt I had to say something. Hope they print it!

Good on you tbedudes, I found zero normalising, just helping

"Normal" is better than three hundred head bangs a day, in our house....

Why try to "normalise" a person with, let's say, irritable bowel syndrome, or migraines, by giving them treatment? Why not just let them be who they are, with all their discomfort? It's who they are after all!

I don't mean to offend anyone but I think it depends on the child, their age etc and I do not mean to undermine anyone else's experience by sharing mine.

'Normalising' is not the same as 'treating' Dudes. Yes, obviously you treat someone with a medical problem with drugs.

But we are talking about behaviour and a neurological difference. I completely understand and accept that there are children whose communication skills or behavioural stims etc create an extreme barrier to their daily function and so stop them achieving their potential.

I wholly accept the great gains that can be made with ABA for children, particularly, young children who can be taught and can learn skills which seemed wholly impossible without such intervention.

I wholly accept that. I really do.

However, for a ten year old, able Aspie who is able to communicate how he feels and why things are difficult to him, I found the model very 'normalising'.

So, for example, when being in the classroom was extremely difficult for him, and he wanted to sit outside but a little out of sight of the group, he had a consultant (ex Tree House) tell him he was being 'controlling' and that he had to do what his teacher said. This consultant said 'anxiety' was just a word and they did not use such judgments but he was equally happy to talk of DS as 'tantrumming' or being 'non-compliant' which are value laden.

He had no strategy to deal with this and spent no time talking to DS about what was happening. His drive was - what did the teachers want to happen and that is what DS must do. If he didn't like it, he was 'tantrumming' or being controlling and this needed to be stamped out.

I can't tell you how damaging to a highly anxious child this approach is as it takes no account of the emotional or cognitive side of a child's development.

It just seemed too easy to gloss over the reasons for the problems by forcing behavioural change irrespective of the consequences. But why? Compliance isn't an end in itself, it is a state of being which allows other things to happen, e.g. learning. But if a child can't learn because he can't cope with school (and some can't) forcing compliance leads straight to one type of change in behaviour - school refusal.

There are other ways to skin a cat.

This is the second ABA consultant I have used and both have been very similar and unable to vary an approach which may be effective on a young child with one for an older one.

This may not be your experience but it was mine.

Yes that is very different from my experience inapp, but very useful to hear, thank you

Yes I do get that of course. The treatment, whatever it is and whatever it is for, needs to be appropriate and individualised to the person. My DS is four years old, totally non verbal, history of extreme behavioural problems. Very different from your DS! You can't talk to my DS about what is happening in the same way.

What ABA has done for my DS is give him some of the skills that may make it possible for him to learn. He had precisely none before.

I have to say that we have a particularly excellent, flexible and intuitive consultant, and we are by no means running anything like a typical /standard/Lovaas type programme.

'However, for a ten year old, able Aspie who is able to communicate how he feels and why things are difficult to him, I found the model very 'normalising'.'

I doubt many people mean 10yr olds when they talk about ABA at the moment. The provision available, including ABA provision is inadequate to levels beyond the inadequacy of early intervention models.

ABA shouldn't be about normalising anyone, but giving them the skills to choose their own paths, making sure options are not closed down to them due to any insular aspects of their behaviour, be it caused by ASD, Anxiety, Fear, apathy, laziness whatever.

I wish I could find our ABA videos from when ds was first on a programme. I think people would be very surprised by what they see, as well as 'get' why I'm so pissed off about ds' current attainment levels.

Now we are settled in new house I'm on a mission to find them if they still exist. I'll put a link here if I ever do find them.

The Guardian did not publish my letter, but there is some lively debate (some quite annoying so take care if you are feeling fragile) in the comments after the article.

Perhaps the letter will go in tomorrow or next day, yiu never know. Yes some of the comments are v annoying

I got in a bit of a state by yesterday evening after partaking in that thread during the day! But some really good points/stories on there too....

The idea that anyone using AbA is somehow less accepting of the autistic child is especially offensive, though I am used to it by now and just think such views are pure ignorance of what ABA is like nowadays

I have also told some of the autism rights campaigners that they should not say they speak for my son - the fact that they are hf enough to contribute to online debates, or take a masters in psychology, means that their experience of autism is just chalk and cheese with my boy's low-functioning autism

Exactly!They are in fact undermining their own argument regarding individuality and disability rights by assuming that their own needs/experience/functioning/responses etc has to have anything to do with my son's just because they are both on the autistic spectrum.

The constant going on about Lovaas and decades-old literature also particularly gets to me. I work in mental health. We use medication and psychotherapeutic interventions to treat illnesses. So did they forty years ago, but there have been enormous changes in these types of treatment, their efficacy, their ethics etc etc...even though they of course still fall into the same categories as they did then.

My own hf DSD tells me she wouldn't dream of saying that what worked for her would work for her brother, as she can clearly see that they might as well have different names for her condition and his (she: currently doing 4 A levels, he : still reading "cat" and "big " at 10!)

It is total anachronism - I got hit by a ruler in state primary school in the 70s, but I don't now call all state primaries cruel! Times change

Yes. Another example. Twenty years ago I used medications to treat my patients that is no longer allowed to be used now because of the side effects, lack of efficacy, risk profile etc. . It was not great but it was what we had, and used then, as it was the best we could do at that stage. What I use to treat people now still has the same overarching label ("antipsychotic medication"), but is a different type of stuff, more effective, less side-effects etc. That does not mean that I should not be using the treatments that are available now because earlier incarnations of the treatment had their problems and have now been bettered....

Good parallel