@bdkdkens , I happened to see your reply to a comic from @autball asking about what ABA is, and it doesn’t look like you have had an answer yet.
I studied ABA as part of my Community Psychology degree, and am happy to give you a rundown.
ABA = Applied Behavioral Analysis
It is a specific school of psychology with an emphasis on changing the behaviors of people - “Applied” means the focus on change (and not just accumulation of data), Behavior is obvious, and “Analysis” is an indication of the intention to be “scientific.”
On it’s own, everything in ABA is neutral to good: understanding the situations in which people do behaviors, and the forces that can either cause them to do behaviors more (reinforce) or less (punish in a very scientific sense of ‘make less desirable’).
The issue is two fold:
ABA focuses only on the observable, as part of their “scientific” obsession. I phrase it that way because the choice of “observable” means that internal thoughts, memories, etc….. If the Analysis themselves can’t prove they exist? They are literally ignored as irrelevant. If they happen to interfere with the Analyst’s work? They are actively suppressed - punished out until they stop being a “problem.” Instead of, you know, addressed as part of the individual.
This is because the most important person in the equation of ABA is the Analyst. Not the client, and not even the patient - which may be two different people, in the case of working with children. The Analyst is the be all, end all expert, and everyone else needs to acknowledge that or, well, be punished for interfering with the Analyst’s work.
Point 1 is baked into ABA; if you want to include beliefs, memories of past experiences, and even intrusive thoughts as things that influence behavior and are important, you’re going to go into Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. I, myself, align strongly with CBT as a therapy philosophy.
Point 2 is technically avoidable, but having studied under old-school supporters of ABA it’s almost impossible to avoid in practice.
One of my courses in college was taught by an adjunct - that is, someone who works in the field and teacher part time as a service for people entering into the field.
He was humane, reasonable, and respectful of the clients (adults with moderate to severe mental or intellectual disabilities) and teaching them life skills.
He convinced me behavioral principles worked, even in situations where explaining necessary things to people was not possible.
My other classes????
The most recent textbook actively told the students to prevent Autistic patients from stimming because it would interfere with teaching them.
The core issue with using ABA to “correct” Autistic children is the culture of ABA is that you have to force the child to act Neurotypical/Allistic, no matter the cost to the child.
(I use both NT and Allistic because an ABA will use the same principles on trauma symptoms, depression symptoms, etc.)
The goal is to either make the child act NT - explicitly to conform to the societal majority - or else at least not act Autistic and therefore bother the Allistics.
Because conforming to society - as defined by the Analyst - is the end goal of the majority of ABA
Not learning life skills - life skills are a means towards conformity - not mental health - because remember the internal mind doesn’t matter - and definitely not what the patient wants.
The patient is a problem to be fixed. To be cured, or hidden.
And that is why ABA needs to be stopped, burned to ashes, and a new field of applied behavior technicians put in its place for situations where straight CBT is not able to be applied (because I admit there are levels of mental and intellectual disability that prevent CBT from being as effective as pure Behavioralism).
Unfortunately…..
Guess what’s easiest for parents for parents of Autistic children to find, and get insurance to cover????
😣 😣 😣
