I just saw a post talking about aba and what kind of harmful practices that are widely used in it that is traumatizing and harmful to autistic ppl and I just want to give a scenario to NTs that they might be able to understand, specifically around sensory tolerance exercises and stimming.
You’re forced to be in a room, you can’t leave this room and someone takes something that is very important to you. Maybe it’s your phone, a childhood comfort item, a treasured gift, or an important picture of someone or a pet that you’ve lost, something that is emotionally important to you.
They say you can have it back when you complete a task. The task is to listen to the screech of microphone feedback for a certain amount of time. They play it at a low volume, it’s annoying but okay. “Good job!” They give your item back for minute or so, before taking it away again. That’s not fair, the item is yours, you’re bothered now. They play it louder this time. It’s uncomfortable, you wince a little. “Good job, you’re a super star!” They give your item back for a little longer, before taking it away again.” You’re getting irritated.
The screech is louder now, it’s startling and painful. You instinctually cover your ears to mitigate how loud it is. (Stimming) this time you don’t get your item back. “Can you do quiet hands?” You have to listen to this god awful sound without covering your ears. You’re starting to get really angry. How are you supposed to do that? You don’t have almost any control of that because your body’s natural reaction is to protect your eardrums. They want you to fight your natural instinct in order to tolerate something really painful!
They play it again and you can’t stop yourself from naturally covering your ears. You get so upset that now you are crying and yelling and demanding they give your item back! (Meltdown) maybe, you can’t even tell them how much this is hurting and upsetting you, you don’t know how to say the words. (Nonverbal) This goes on for maybe an hour as they work on your “tolerance”. And again the next day. And the next. Maybe for a week or even two. Until you’ve “made progress” (masking) on being able to push yourself to do what they want.
The reason for this? Everyone else naturally has noise cancelling headphones. This sound doesn’t bother them. They want it to not bother you either, but you shouldn’t cover your ears to act as noise canceling headphones to be able to function like they can. They want you to be able to listen to the sound exactly the way they do without any way to do that other than pretending it doesn’t hurt you.
Aba practitioners commonly ask parents to provide their child’s favorite things, toys, comfort items, special interests, food and treats to use as “positive reinforcement”, what that really is, is weaponizing those things to force compliance to the point where many aba survivors develop trauma surrounding those things. Imagine everything that makes you happy being used to cause you emotional and physical harm. They make this look like a fun activity! Look how much we’re learning! Parents trust this therapy, practitioners believe it’s for the well-being of autistic children. It’s not. Not to the autistic child. This is just one of many abusive tactics involved in aba. At the very least, be wary and learn what you could be getting involved in and what you are involving your child in. This is an ugly truth many people don’t want to recognize.
