Regarding Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) Therapy

queeranarchism:

Disabled people need to earn their right
to exist by performing less disabled, and ABA will train them to perform
as a less disabled person. At its core, ABA is rooted in the hatred and
denial of the humanity of disabled people. Even with the most generous
interpretation, it is about pathologizing and rejecting disabled ways of
being and holding up non-disabled ways of being as the only right way
and the only way to be correctly human.
It doesn’t matter that it may seem like
fun, it doesn’t matter that your “Behavior Technician” seems like a
really nice person. It doesn’t matter that you read a study that ABA
“works,” because what it “works” at is wrong. It is compliance training at its core.

Of all the demographics, one of the groups most at risk of experiencing physical, sexual,
emotional, verbal, institutional, financial, and educational abuse is
the demographic of people with developmental disabilities. You can
double, triple, and quadruple those risks according to how many other
marginalized groups they fall in.

Parents and therapists often use an
ends-justify-the-means approach to therapy for their disabled children,
believing that acquiring skills is the most important thing and that it
is worth the child having negative experiences if it means that they
will have a “better life.” In this context, what is considered better is
what is most “normal,” or non-disabled.

Survivors of ABA have come forward to say that they have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Complex-PTSD (C-PTSD) as a result of their experiences in ABA. This is not an acceptable trade-off.
This is not an acceptable trade-off. Suicide is dramatically shortening the life-expectancy of autistic people and autistic people are saying it is because they are not being accepted.

Autistic writer Max Sparrow, “All
those years of ABA therapy will have taught them that they are
fundamentally wrong and broken; that they are required to do everything
authority demands of them (whether it’s right or wrong for them); that
they are always the one at fault when anything social goes wrong; that
they get love, praise, and their basic survival needs met so long as
they can hide any trace of autism from others; that what they want
doesn’t matter.”

Another former ABA therapist writes,
“I thought that because I cared about the kids’ well-being, because I
had a strong desire to help them, everything I did must therefore be in
their best interest. In my mind, it gave me a special immunity to making
mistakes. Caring meant there was no way I could be hurting them. I now realize how dangerous this idea really is.
I’ve hurt many people I care deeply about. Just because you care about
someone or have good intentions does not guarantee you’re doing the best
thing for them.”

Regarding Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) Therapy