Since conversion therapy is looming in everyone’s consciousness right now:
This is your regular reminder that ABA, the generally-recommended therapy for autistic children, is literally conversion therapy with an extra dose of “auties aren’t even real people” thrown in for good measure. It was conceived by the same people, from the same research, for the same ends: To brutalize and torture children into a narrow range of “acceptable” behaviour.
And it is considered totally legitimate and valid and even preferred by the overwhelming majority of the medical industry.
Do not leave disabled people out of your activism
19 comments
Ah, fuck it, I already blew up more than was probably necessary at a post from the same comment chain as this one and the same points apply. Just because you had a bad experience, doesn't mean you have to condemn all the autistic children helped by genuinely good-natured therapy - me, for instance - to life as outcasts who can't handle a society which will always be mostly neurotypical. Heck, it's called being neurotypical for a reason!
ABA relies on positive reinforcement while conversion therapy relies on negitive reinforcement. The purpose of ABA when properly applied is to help someone with autism live a relatively normal life and be productive. It does not try to or claim to cure autism. Conversation theory is done with the intent to cure homosexuality.
They are two very different things.
"
And it is considered totally legitimate and valid and even preferred by the overwhelming majority of the medical industry. "
People who agree with you and are discredited do not make up the majority of medical industry
I think the submitter and commenters are thinking of different therapies. ABA is essentially bad dog training done to autistic children, and is similar to conversion torture. Other therapies can be fine (it really depends), but ABA isn't one of them.
So this is the problem when people don't actually understand how conditioning actually works and what you are helping the autistic children to do. ABA therapy do not EVER involve punishments because they are found not to be effective and mostly just cause problems. Positive reinforcement for the most part is used because it is easiest to use. For a really simple example lets say we have an autistic child who is non verbal uses banging his head against a wall as a way to get his mother's attention. A possible ABA treatment would be to show that pulling on his mother's hand would get her attention, so that he would not need to hang his head against the wall. You are showing that a replacement behavior (pulling on mothers hand) would get the same consequence as the previous behavior (head banging)
Its important to note that for non verbal autistic children this is one of only options to help someone learn everything from how to button their shirt to how to self sooth in a healthier way
Now "conversion therapy" attempts something completely different. First there is a large use of positive punishment in these camps, which are always going to cause trauma. Second one big part of the therapy is trying to use Classical conditioning attempt to make person attracted to the opposite sex. Third there is always a large component of religious guilt and societal pressures inflicted on the children, which has nothing to do with any kind of ABA treatment at all.
"Do not leave disabled people out of your activism"
Wait, I'm confused. Are you trying to teach autistic children that fur is murder?
A quick look at ABA reveals that there are underqualified people and outright frauds trying to earn a living this way. No surprise in the era of the diploma mill, and Liberty University. Caveat emptor.
From my understanding, ABA, when used properly, can help autistic people, especially children, a great deal, but there are some who use it improperly, or use highly questionable therapies and call them 'ABA'. However, to say that ABA should be banned because of this is like saying orphanages should be made illegal because there have been some that abuse the children in their care.
...Isn't...Isn't the correct term for Autism, "Autism Spectrum Disorder"? As in, "It's a spectrum of disorders, so no treatment will work for everyone?"
If anybody reading this has, or knows anyone with autism and is thinking about ABA, it is not at all like conversions therapy.
It does involve the use of Pavlovian conditioning to teach skills. That freaks people out, because it is the same method used to train animals. But the difference between using it to teach animals and using it to teach humans is that humans are human: teach a human to talk, and they will use the words to communicate and reason. It seems like a miracle when you see it working, but it does: a child who learns language through ABA can actually talk, and tell you how they feel. Then they can explain how the world looks to them, so the world can accept them for who they are, which has not changed.
The reason ABA uses Pavlovian conditioning is because you can use Pavlovian conditioning to teach somebody who has not learned to communicate. It works for any creature with a central nervous system. That makes it the solution to what used to be the great frustration of autism: a sentient human being, with all the human needs, cut off from anyone who wanted to help them by the communication barrier. Imagine the countless generations of people dismissed as fools and left in the gutter: that is the real tragedy. Now we can actually do something they allows them to achieve their potential.
As who they are. It is the opposite of "conversion therapy."
Demon Duck of Doom: no offense, but your impression of ABA is totally mistaken. If you want to put it the way you have, you could call it "good dog" training, since it functions by encouraging certain behaviors through positive reinforcement.
Imagine the problem: a child has never spoken. You want them to learn to speak, so they can function in society, learn to read, have a job, not depend on others, be able to report if they have been abused, etc. How do you teach them? They can't speak.
You teach them to speak using a form of instruction that does not require verbal communication. Can you think of a way to do that besides rewarding speech-like behavior until they develop the ability to speak? Because literally nobody has come up with anything that works better.
Not that ABA alone is the solution; it's the backbone of most successful therapy.
I wonder how many ABA apologists in these comments would be okay with going through it themselves.
Oh, and yes, ABA IS conversion therapy. It's what Lovaas initially developed it for.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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