What experiences have you had w/this???

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My Position on ABA (Applied Behavioral Analysis) Warning: I made no effort to subdue my autistic bluntness on this one. Some people are going to be offended. If you read on despite this warning, please remember that you have been warned. Any abusive email sent to me based on this article will be passed around and goofed upon. ABA is a type of intervention strategy (I am reluctant to call it 'therapy') used to assist some autistic children to overcome their impairments. In this paper, I intend to discuss my opinions of this strategy, when I think it may be appropriate, and (more importantly) when it should not be used. I will not go into any in-depth description of ABA; such information is readily available on the net, and can be easily found with any search engine. ABA, in

connection with autism, is often associated with Dr. O. Ivar Lovaas, the originator behind the notorious Lovaas method. Lovaas has claimed that autistic children that successfully undergo his treatment will be "indistinguishable from their peers." His pioneer work included the use of aversives, which is a euphemistic way of saying punishments, for "undesirable" behaviors. Most ABA today supposedly does not use aversives, but it is still morally questionable in my mind. For one thing, I don't see most autistic behaviors as being particularly "undesirable." The use of that term as such implies that normality is good, and that all else is pathological; all that is not normal has no right to exist and must be extinguished immediately, in other words. I find that reprehensible, and I am personally insulted that Dr. Lovaas and his minions find me and some of my behaviors as "undesirable." One of the things that the ABA folks

consider undesirable is stimming, which is short for self-stimulation. This can take the form of hand-flapping, uttering noises, running a blanket or piece of cloth between the fingers, et cetera. These things serve to give the autistic person a specific kind of sensory stimulus that he needs at that moment. The complaint about stimming that ABA people have is that it is abnormal (and therefore bad), and also that it detracts from the person's need to relate to others, by providing sensory stimulus that normal people presumably get from socializing. The implication of the latter point is that an unusual means to get the necessary stimulus is incorrect, and the child must be forced to use more conventional means. In practice, this is precisely what they intend to do. They will often withhold a favorite stimulatory object, and not allow the child access to it until he has showed some "desirable" behaviors. Anyone thinking of a

trained seal with a ball balanced on his nose? I am. By denying the child his most efficient means to get the needed sensory input, they are in effect coercing the "desirable" behaviors out of him. I do not see this as morally defensible at all! It's no different than denying a prisoner of sleep, while he sits in a darkened room with a light in his face, until he gives in and confesses. We generally hold coercion to be unacceptable in this society, even if the desired end is socially acceptable, but the general populace is unconcerned about such things when they are done to "abnormal" people, who presumably deserve such treatment. Stimming may be unsightly to the NT hordes that seem to think that their majority allows them to arbitrarily define which harmless behaviors are acceptable and which are not, but it is a part of what makes autistics what we are, and no one has the moral right to force us to stop, or to use our needs as a tool

to force us act more like them. I question the motives of any person that thinks that a cure or an amelioration of a child's autism is a good thing. This includes the parents that wish for a cure for their child. What that says to me is that they wish that their child would go away, and be replaced with a new, better, improved, less defective child-- one that that acts and thinks more like they do. Such a parent may answer by telling me of the extreme difficulty their autistic child is having, and a cure would eliminate that strife. My response? Sure it would, and so would killing the child. Is an end to the difficulty all that is desired? Perhaps more cogently, WHOSE difficulty, precisely, are we talking about? That of the child, or that of the parent that is unable to accept that he/she has a child very different than was expected? Is the child having difficulty in general, or is he having difficulty

because he is forced to live in your world, which is foreign to him? That said, I am not against giving the child the tools to live in this world. I am not against teaching the child to communicate his needs when he cannot. I am not against helping the child! That does not mean that I am in favor of molding the child in your own image, just so you can deal with his presence more easily. There is nothing wrong with being autistic, and there is nothing wrong with having an autistic child. There is something wrong, though, with trying to quash the unique individuality and purity that autistic children have, and carry into adulthood IF you let them. Teach the child to live in the world, just as you would teach a normal child to live in the world. The methods you must use to do so may be different than those you would use with a normal child, but that is OK. Do that, but do not try to make the child into something he

is not. There are all sorts of "success" stories floating around on the net, about parents that have "cured" their child's autism by means of early and intense intervention, but don't believe everything you hear. The parents may be happier with their trained seal, NT clone children, but I have serious doubts about whether such a child will remain happy as the social demands on him increase. I received no intervention at all, and I was quite happy being autistic (highly functioning, undiagnosed until adulthood) until I was in the seventh grade. That's when it all "hit the fan" for me. Don't fool yourself-- an autistic child that is trained to act normally is still autistic. Some people will still try to justify trying to normalize the child. They may state, correctly, that it will be tough to grow up being different. They may observe that normal people won't accept someone that is different. Well, that is

certainly true; look at what the child's parents, who are supposed to love the child as he is, are willing to do to him because he is different! They are asking him to suppress his natural self and to take on a persona much more acceptable to themselves. Autism is a neurological difference; you are not going to teach it all away. ABA does not change the physical differences in the autistic brain, which are now starting to be documented in the literature. Your child can learn to seem more normal, but much of it is just going to be an act. The neurological differences that caused those behaviors initially are still there. You're asking the child to live his whole life acting against his neurological makeup. It's like training a cat to be a dog. Cats (like autistics) are not pack animals; dogs (like NTs) are. It's unreasonable to expect a cat to become what he is not. Humans, being much smarter than cats, can

learn to act like that which they are not, but the key point is that it is an ACT. I think it takes a lot of contempt for what a person is to ask him to bury his true self, to bury it so deeply that no one will ever know the real person inside. I would not wish that on my worst enemy. Please do not buy the sales pitch that the autism is "overcome," "cured," or anything like that. It cannot be cured; it can only be hidden. Please don't make your child live a lie just so his existence is more acceptable to you. There is no normal child hidden inside of an autistic child. The autism goes all the way to the center; it affects every experience, every thought, every feeling the autistic person has. Appearing normal and being normal are not the same thing! The autism is intrinsic; inextricable and permanently bound to who the autistic person is. To remove the autism would be to eliminate the person and to replace

him with someone else. The majority of autistic people with whom I have communicated do not wish to be cured, and that includes the ones that have had a rather horrible life because of their autism. Not every autistic child has to suffer because of his condition, though, as they generally did in years past. It is up to the parents to advocate for their child, and to make sure that the child's needs are met. There will be many people from whom the child must be protected, including a number of them that pose as people that are trying to help. Jealously guard the child's well-being, and never forget that there is nothing wrong with being what he is. Now allow me to surprise you. I am not against the use of ABA techniques in general (although I am no fan of aversives). I am against any attempt to make the child into that which he is not. There is no need to suppress the child's autism... once again, there is nothing

wrong with being autistic. It's a difference, not a disability. Yes, even in the lower-functioning cases of autism, this is true. The sensory problems can be disabilities; the self-injurious or aggressive behavior can be a disability; the mental retardation that comes with low-functioning autism is a disability. Some of the things associated with autism are disabilities, but that is not what autism is. I am all for helping the child to overcome those things! I am not at all opposed to the child learning how people act, how they think, what they expect, or anything like that. Give the child the tools to live in this world... as an able autistic person, not as a phony-baloney normal person. That may mean using ABA techniques. Teaching the child is fine; just do not coerce or force the child to be what he is not. Have a look at these articles for a slightly different view than you may have already seen (external

links; not my works):

http://myspace.com/diegowench

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