Can Someone Explain ABA To Me?

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I'm a little hazy on it, since I don't have any personal experience with it . . . and from what I've heard from others, that's probably a good thing.

It a very artificial and rather cruel way of teaching autistic children the "proper" way to act. It is based on a system of reward and consequences, which of course, the child does not understand, usually because the child is too young. So these desirable beahviors are not acquired skills, but conditioned responses from coercion and fear of punishment/denial of reward. Because of that coercion, fear and the lack of intergrated understanding as to why these behaviors are desireable beyond "That's what the therapist wants," the child actually becomes more psychologically and emotionally isolated. And since many austistics lack the same psychological resilience as their NT peers, such psychologically stressful and confusing experiences, especially when repeated, can result in PTSD, depression and anxiety disorders.

Precise methods vary from "therapist" to "therapist." Some aren't as cruel as others. Often times it's portrayed as a very innocous practice - a child does what is ask, he gets a treat or verbal praise. If not, he doesn't get the reward and is asked to do the task again - repeatedly, if necessary, until he does it. Anyone who's worked with autistic kids knows the problem with this - especially if you've worked with a child with a very low frustration threshold. I have heard from some various people that in practice, especially with therapists and aides who are frustrated themselves or not properly trained, the "consequences" can include verbal insults, sarcasm, and threats, and when a child becomes visiably frustrated or acts out, they are sometimes restrained physically. I can't even begin with how wrong all of that is.

Another serious problem is ABA is often applied in teaching the child basic academic skills, like shape or letter recognition. Now, any educator worth their salt will tell you that is not a good thing at all to make a child experience repeated negative "consequences" as part of the learning process, espeically that young.

Problems of the proactice aside, since the method is fundamentally unsound in theory, it should not be practiced at all.

I'm glad that I never went through that garbage. If I do have children, I wouldn't want them going through that garbage, either.

lastcrazyhorn, you are COMPLETELY getting the wrong idea from aspiemartian, Cockneyrebel and siuan. It is just about the most useful thing for an autistic person, it can make the lowest of the low funtioning into an almost completely NT person, LIKE ME.

Sort of, yes, that's how it all sounds, except that one wouldn't be allowed to hit dogs when training them.

I'm not sure that it's so great to be "almost NT" anyway.

I'm also sure that everyone's experiences are different; so it's a good chance that there are pros and cons to this, just like everything else in the world.

With that said, I'd like to continue hearing explanations.

Actually, some people DO hit dogs. Outside of security dogs, the idea is more to annoy than hurt, but it is still hitting.

True, but it's 'illegal' to hit a dog, at least where I live, but legal to hit a child.

mightyzebra,

Thanks for the input; it's always cool to see the other side.

Aside: 18% of all autistic individuals don't acquire speech due to improvements in therapy nowadays (autism, not Asperger's), it used to be 50%.

These days, punishments are being used less and less by ABA therapists. I'm sure that there are still some that do it, but punishments are considered an absolute no-no by the ABA providers that I am familiar with.

That's a good thing, in my opinion, because I think it's incredibly unfair to punish a child that may not realize why what he did was wrong. It's also unnecessary. Offering me a paycheck is sufficient to get me to come to work every day. Yelling at me for calling in sick would only make me want to get away from you.

I'm trying to keep score here. As someone with a 29 month old daughter who is about to begin ABA therapy.

The 1 person who has actually had it thinks it's great.

Have any of the rest of you had it??

The explination given here is NOT the description given to me. There is no punishment, just no reaction given to a child who is giving no response or an incorrect response to the therapist. There is no hitting. They are coming to our home where Sophie will be most comfortable.