George Muniz Gund
August 27th 2022
Hello and Welcome!
I wanted to start this post by saying that I do not represent the viewpoints of all Autistics. Autism is a spectrum and each one of us has their own specific personality and viewpoints. With all that said, let’s get to it.
Recent online polling done within the Autistic community has shown that over 92% of Autistics feel that ABA Therapy is not safe for Autistics, below I will explain the reasons why. If you know someone who is going through ABA therapy and legitimately enjoys it, then good for you and them, I have nothing against you. In this post I am simply trying to point out the major systemic issues with this kind of therapy.
I want to first give a brief introduction on the history of ABA (Applied Behavior Analysis), there is a lot of history when it comes to ABA Therapy, so I will just give a quick summary of what ABA essentially is and represents.
ABA Therapy was created by Ivar Lovaas in 1965 while he was teaching at UCLA. Lovaas viewed the behaviors of Autistic children as foreign (of course, because Lovaas was neurotypical) and “problematic”, so he decided to create sort of a “treatment” method to try and “correct” these behaviors, if you will. We have to understand that if an Autistic child is committing self harm there is a reason behind that. It would be unfair to say that the child is just doing that to be obnoxious (that there is no emotional or sensory trigger behind that behavior) wouldn’t you agree? Lovaas, however, considered self harming stims (I will later explain what stimming is for us Autistics) to be merely a behavior issue and developed a style of therapy where certain punishments (some as inhumane as electrical shocks) would be used against autistic children when they presented these “problem behaviors”. This eventually came to be called Applied Behavior Analysis, or ABA Therapy. Many Autistic Adults that went through ABA as a child have ended up developing PTSD later in life, as a result of being put through these abusive “treatments”.
ABA Therapy has changed somewhat in the last few decades. Today, punishment for certain Autistic behaviors is no longer as widely used. Positive reinforcement is used for “good behaviors” (aka forced masking/supressing of our natural Autistic traits and trying to behave in a “more appropriate” neurotypical manner). To many Autistics like myself, this still resembles dog training, and makes us feel like Autistic people are being treated like animals. ABA may of become somewhat less inhumaine in recent days, but the Ableist Lovaas core is still there.
The concept of ABA Therapy revolves around the idea that Autism is some sort of pathology that needs to be eliminated and that Autistic people represent no benefit to society, so they must be put through “treatments” where they are demanded to suppress their Autistic traits and forced to learn neurotypical social communication skills, which are not aligned with their neurology, while most therapists (and neurotypicals in general) make zero effort to try to understand Autistic ways of communication. The Autistic way of doing things has been constantly viewed as the incorrect way, while the Neurotypical way of doing things has been viewed as the “correct” way. Many Autistic Adults that went through ABA Therapy as children report suffering from long term mental exhaustion, burnout, depression and trauma, due to being essentially trained to feel like the way their brain works is incorrect and if they don’t fix themselves, they are a problem to society. This is also a big part of the reason suicide rates are so high among Autistic people.
To give an example of how cruel ABA Therapy can be, let’s talk a little about what stimming is and how ABA prohibits it, which can be problematic.
Stimming is something us Autistics do to regulate our brains from sensory input that we receive from the outside world. We stim in many different situations. One of the situations where we can sometimes engage in “hard” or potentially harmful stimming is when we are highly stimulated, either emotionally or perhaps from experiencing sensory overload due to a loud noise, flashing lights or any other intense sensory stimuli. Some stims can be harmful, such as banging your hands on a table or attempting to eat objects. But here is the thing, these behaviors are essentially a fire alarm. The Autistic person that is doing this is trying to communicate that something is overwhelming them (the “fire”). What needs to be done in this situation is the sensory trigger needs to be removed (the fire needs to be put out). We can’t just silence the alarm (prohibit stimming) and scold the child while not doing anything about the sensory overload they are suffering pain from, that is unethical and inhumane! Another solution for this could be providing alternate stims, fidget tools, or things that won’t cause harm to the Autistic person or others around them. Stimming is a really helpful regulatory tool for us, and we don’t only do it when we are in distress. If an Autistic person needs to stim and they are doing so in a way that isn’t harming any humans (or pets), then they should be allowed to stim freely.
Because a lot of medical professionals unfortunately think of Autism as a pathology, they view stimming solely as a behavior that needs to be “corrected”, they don’t understand that it is just a manifestation of one of the many ways our brains regulate themselves.
I do want to make it very clear that there are many well intentioned ABA therapists out there who actually defer from the ableist norms and provide more Neurodiversity affirming practices for their clients, even if that means risking their jobs and/or licenses. We should all be truly grateful to those practicioners. The major problem though is that there are still too many Autistic people out there that don’t have access to good Neurodiversity affirming providers and can only enroll in standard ABA therapy, if anything at all.
All of this is not to say that Autistic people don’t need support, they certainly do, but those supports should be based on the individual person and what goals they want to work on, what accommodations are helpful for them, rather than whatever Neuronormative molds that a group of Neurotypicals decided they need to fit in to.
Let’s also remember that non-speaking autistics can still communicate through writing, sign language, AAC, etc… and should be involved in the decision making when it comes to their supports and therapies as well. Neurotypicals have no right to speak over (“for”) a non-speaking autistic person just because they do not communicate vocally. I see so many Ableist Neurotypical caretakers out there online arguing with Autistic people and saying that they speak for their Autistic client because the Autistic person “has no voice”. This is as pathetic as saying that someone has nowhere to go because they don’t own a car. As if walking or taking public transportation were fantasy things that don’t exist. I must also acknowledge that even some Autistic people with generally lower support needs tend to speak over high support needs Autistics. We too need to be mindful of not hogging the mic too much, and allow black, transgender, high support needs and nonspeaking autistics to express their voices as well.
Sadly, in the United States, the only support options that many families with high support needs autistic children can afford even with insurance is ABA therapy, which, as we now know, is essentially a method that was entirely created by Neurotypicals with an emphasis on essentially converting Autistic people into Neurotypicals, which is extremely unfair to the Autistic people’s brains, because they are being forced to work in a way that they were not designed to.
*It is important to acknowledge that despite it’s serious problems, ABA is still the only support therapy available to many families and many ABA practicioners do not follow the traditional style of ABA and have come to learn how to apply more neurodiversity affirming practices in their work.
We need all the help we can get advocating and pushing for more Neurodiversity Affirming styles of therapy that are not harmful to Autistics, and of course, in the bigger picture, spreading awareness and attempting to dissolve the many negative stigmas about Autism that still stand today.
Until next time 🙂
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