Danielle -
I worked very briefly as a ABA aide. I had some idea of ABA but hadn’t really seen it “in action”. I met with the kid twice without the BCBA and had a pleasant time with him, just following his lead and enjoying fun play without demands. When the BCBA came the third day, the child had just woken up from a nap and was crying (right at the start of the 3:30 pm session; he attends school 8-3 and had been sick that week). The BCBA very seriously informed me I needed to “set a timer on this protesting behavior, this is an unacceptable behavior we are looking to extinguish.” When I commented about it being a long day for a sick and tired 5 year old, she told me to not let him “play me”. This child doesn’t speak, and one of his goals is to “tact”, or label things. After witnessing the BCBA screech “drum! Say, drum! Drum! Drum!” 10 times in his face to no response, she directed me to mark them as “incorrect” responses. When I asked “how can he answer correctly when he doesn’t speak?”, she told me “he can, he just won’t” (I observed nothing to support that). The BCBA was upset I was unwilling and unable to work 330-730 a day and when I said “when does he have time to be a kid if he’s expected to be working with teachers/therapists more than 11 hours a day?”, she said “he NEEDS this therapy, he’s very disabled.” I left the session and just never went back. The final straw was when the kid was pulling her hair and glasses (normal response to someone yelling in your face!), she said “it’s because I keep the demand on and you let it go”. Just ... wow lady, you’re an asshole! There was “parent training” during her supervision of me, and I just cringed at how she talked to the mother about the kid, as though he has some awful and incurable disease. I felt terrible for even being involved for 3 days. It was a mess and goes against everything I as a teacher believe in.
Kaitlin Walker -
I was an ABA tech in high school, which is absurd in and of itself. It was excruciatingly boring. I remember sitting there thinking, I sure hope these kids learn these things by growing up because they're not learning anything from this. Now I have an autistic daughter. My experience made me avoid ABA and autistic self-advocacy blogs and videos reinforced that decision. But we've still considered it several times because there is so much pressure. Literally every time we go to the doctor we get interrogated about not doing ABA and our insurance won't cover anything else (Kaiser in the US). But I do write about why we don't do it. And as an answer to your question it would take so much personal work for parents who believed in ABA to speak against it later. If you've practiced not listening to your kid for 16 years why would you listen to and respect them now as an adult?
Courtney -
Several years ago, I used to be an ABA provider. I did both in-home early intervention, as well as in school for "moderate to severely" ASD kids. I thought I knew everything then, and that what I was doing was the only way we could teach these kids. I mean, it was evidence-based, right?
Then after having my own child, I started reading more from folks on the neurodiversity side, and it really started to change my perspective. Flash forward to my own son's diagn or subject my son to it.
I don't know if I'd describe it as cult-like, but I can see where other people may say that. It's just a system that thumps the science. There's data and if it supports what we think then that's all that matters and nothing else. If you don't have data, you have nothing. So, if you were to say "I don't think this is an effective method for _____," you better be prepared with data to support why you think that, as well as what data-supported method you propose to replace it. Having feelings about it or "projecting" feelings into the students/clients isn't acceptable. 🙄
My biggest issue now falls on the compliance and consent, as well as basically the entire foundation on which it's based lol. It's assumed that our children can't learn in any other way, so this is what we have to do. But it's presumed based on asking a fish to climb a tree. If our kids don't have a way to communicate or demonstrate their knowledge and intelligence, then the "data" we're gathering is inherently flawed and false.
I'd sound like a heretic amongst ABA-ers, and I'm ok with that. 😊"
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This blog is associated with the Autistic Allies group on Facebook, and is a portal to useful online content. We primarily support the principle of acceptance, which exclusively involves the use of interventions that assist an autistic individual to reach their potential best selves, rather than trying to "fix" or "cure" them. We maintain a positive outlook about autism and actively work to dispel negative myths and stereotypes.
