The Great ABA Debate




A great storm is brewing around the topic of ABA therapy. Some autistic adults have spoken out about how traumatic their experiences in ABA were. I am in no way discounting their stories. But now there is a mounting movement against ABA claiming that it is harmful to children. As with any treatment, what works for some does not work for all.


From my book Autism Doesn't Own Us Anymore, here is our personal experience with ABA...

"The next week Leland had his first ABA appointment. I went back with him, and she explained that they were going to be spending time on appropriate uses of emotions. Leland ran around and pulled half the items off her shelf. I frantically tried to find something that wasn’t destructive for him to do while glancing over my shoulder at the woman, nodding, and saying, “Uh huh” over and over. I thought emotions seemed like a reasonable place to start, given his typical emotional chaos. I was wrong. The next few appointments were horrific. Remember when I said that once he gets wound up he’s really hard to get back down? Yeah . . .

The emotion they started with was anger. I wasn’t allowed to go back with him after the initial visit, so I sat in the lobby downstairs and pretended to read while I listened to the craziness going on above me. It sounded like he was pitching the worst fit ever combined with roid rage. I was fully expecting him to turn green and burst through the second floor as the Hulk. She walked him out to me, said he did fine, and we got in the car and left. He acted like a terrorist for the rest of the day. The next couple of visits went pretty much the same. The disastrous days brought on by ABA therapy, coupled with the fact that he wasn’t adjusting well to the change in his routine (checking him out regularly from school), made it an easy decision to end the therapy. I figured we could always revisit it later if we felt he needed it."



Even though we did not have a particularly good experience, that does not mean the treatment doesn't have value. The argument is that ABA works to get rid of the child's autism. You are ashamed of your child, so you are paying someone to rid them of their affliction. You will not love your child unless he can be made neurotypical. The whole thing is absurd.


When your neurotypical kid has trouble learning to read or is struggling in math, what do you do? You hire a tutor. Because no parent wants their child to struggle. Well, kids with autism struggle in areas like social interaction and self care. So essentially, ABA is just a tutor for kids with autism. Special needs families are isolated enough. Do we really need to be fighting over treatment options? Personally, I would never tell someone not to try something that might benefit their child. As a society we have to recognize that our journeys are different. We have to do better. We have to be better.



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