ABA- What It Is, And My Opinions On It

This week, I want to talk about ABA, or applied behavioral analysis, and share how the autistic community views this therapy modality. I want to give a couple of caveats for this blog. My first disclaimer is that many autistic people have opinions on ABA, and some might not mirror my own. Secondly, I highly encourage people to listen to autistic people who have gone through ABA therapy to learn the personal impacts. Lastly, I want to say that if you work with an ABA professional and want to learn more, please feel free to reach out. I am open to conversation around this topic, but please do not attack my experiences.

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ABA, or applied behavioral analysis, is a therapy provided to autistic children to address negative behaviors by identifying environmental behavioral factors, creating interventions to address the negative behaviors, and testing the interventions to prove their efficacy (Stevenson & Correa, 2018). Rather than being one therapy modality, ABA uses a variety of methods to address behaviors that are viewed in neurotypical society as negative (Trump et al., 2018). ABA is unique because it is one of the few therapies that employs purely behavioral principles, rather than a combination of cognitive therapy and behaviorism (Kirkham, 2017). The success of ABA in the 80s led to a push for its inclusion in the education system for autistic students (Odom et al., 2021). Today, many autistic adults who went through ABA consider it to be an abusive practice (Anderson, 2022; Kirkham, 2017). Other purely behavioral therapy techniques today are seen as inhumane, such as conversion therapy for members of the LGBTQ+ community (Kirkham, 2017). However, we still use purely behavioral methodologies centered on punishment/reward models for autistic students (Kirkham, 2017).

My own experience reflects the increasing autism community's dislike of ABA-centered models. I was exposed to stimuli that was painful for my brain, such as grass and shaving cream, as a child at around 3 years old until I no longer reacted. I also was forced to attend social skills therapy in elementary and middle school, where I was put in situations that were manipulated to be as challenging as possible, and verbally scolded for reacting "badly" to the stimuli that were purposely chosen for me to be difficult. In one example, if the group was playing a game, I was forced to be partners with the person I got along with the least. If I got upset due to the environment, I was scolded. I was only able to leave this environment, according to the therapist, because I was not fully participating in group dynamics to avoid getting scolded. In individual social skills therapy, I was scolded in therapy for wanting connection and to talk about myself. On a lesson about inclusion, I was kicked out of the room, told I was not allowed to be included, and scolded for asking what was said about me when I was forced to leave the room.

These lessons impacted my mental health afterwards. Once I eventually learned some of the basic social skills that were asked of me, I felt like I could not talk about myself or things I was interested in without being scolded by a therapist. To this day, I carry doubt in myself and value in social situations. I felt isolated and lonely during my time in middle and high school, and went through multiple phases of how I presented myself to my peers. I have done a lot of work in cognitive therapy to unlearn the self-doubt and self-hatred I learned in ABA. Now, as an adult, I wish I could have been approached as a child who needed help finding a connection, instead of a child who was purposely performing unsatisfactory behaviors who needed discipline by a medical professional. When I was a kid, these methods were recommended by medical practitioners since the 80s (Odom et al., 2021).

While many public health initiatives still support ABA models, I encourage anyone working with ABA as a parent, teacher, or therapist to listen to autistic people and call for ABA environments that are autism affirming and safe. It is not bad to be autistic, and I wish more than anything that I was seen as a child seeking connection with my peers instead of someone deserving of punishment by a therapist for not correctly applying social techniques or adapting to sensory stimuli.

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Thank you for reading about my opinions on ABA therapy. If you have any questions or comments, please comment on the blog, reach out at @Anniekrollblog on Instagram or Facebook, or email me at Anniekrollblog@gmail.com. I hope to see you next week!

References:

Anderson, L. K. (2022). Autistic experiences of applied behavior analysis. Autism, 27(3), 737–750. https://doi.org/10.1177/13623613221118216

Kirkham, P. (2017). ‘The line between intervention and abuse’ – Autism and applied behaviour analysis. History of the Human Sciences, 30(2), 107–126. https://doi.org/10.1177/0952695117702571

Odom, S. L., Hall, L. J., Morin, K. L., Kraemer, B. R., Hume, K. A., McIntyre, N. S., Nowell, S. W., Steinbrenner, J. R., Tomaszewski, B., Sam, A. M., & DaWalt, L. (2021). Educational interventions for children and youth with autism: A 40-year perspective. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 51(12), 4354–4369. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-021-04990-1

Stevenson, B. S., & Correa, V. I. (2018). Applied Behavior Analysis, students with autism, and the requirement to provide a free appropriate public education. Journal of Disability Policy Studies, 29(4), 206–215. https://doi.org/10.1177/1044207318799644

Trump, C. E., Pennington, R. C., Travers, J. C., Ringdahl, J. E., Whiteside, E. E., & Ayres, K. M. (2018). Applied behavior analysis in special education: Misconceptions and guidelines for use. TEACHING Exceptional Children, 50(6), 381–393. https://doi.org/10.1177/0040059918775020