"First developed in California in the 1960s, ABA uses a system of rewards to change children's behaviour and teach them new skills. It has always been controversial – psychologist Ole Ivar Lovaas, who pioneered the use of ABA on children with autism, used "aversives", such as striking children or giving them a mild electric shock, when they did not comply. These punishments have long been abandoned, (though not in the USA it seems, where they shock children with electricity) but critics still warn the method is overly demanding – some programmes involve 40 hours a week of contact time – and have likened the approach to "dog training".
I saw Lovaas in person assault a child in a way that was so brutal that if he had struck an adult with the same force, he would have been serving a long prison sentence. That level of brutality may be frowned upon more now however the dehumanising philosophy that children can be trained like dogs has not changed, and his acolytes continue to defend coercive "therapy" which is not therapy in any true meaning of the word. Why did you choose ABA in the first place? Was it recommended to you? If so, by whom? What else have you considered?
09 Jul 2013, 4:01 pm
