Questions on ABA

Post Reply New Topic

Nicholas Gray here, from the movie If You Could Say It In Words that Alex reviewed last summer.

The movie is headed out to LA for a festival in a few weeks. Whenever it plays somewhere I try to set up some outreach time with various groups in the area, and some "listening time" where I meet with different support groups to hear what challenges they are facing right now.

At one of the meetings I have set up for LA, I will be meeting with Dr. Ronald Leaf, a noted author on, and proponent of, ABA as a treatment for autistics. I am familiar with the broader concepts of his writing, but do not have time to really do any in-depth reading before our meeting. Are there questions that anyone here would really like me to ask him? If so, post them here and I will do my best to work them into our conversation.

I hate to admit it, but I haven't seen your movie. I've only seen the review on WrongPlanet. (Like Brent Spinner's characer in "Independence Day," I "don't get out much.") It sounds really good and I would love to see it, but things are not always so easy.

http://www.apa.org/monitor/dec04/autism.html
"ABA therapy for autism makes use of the idea that when people--autistic or otherwise--are rewarded for a behavior, they are likely to repeat that behavior. In ABA treatment, the therapist gives the child a stimulus--like a question or a request to sit down--along with the correct response. The therapist uses attention, praise or a tangible incentive like toys or food to reward the child for repeating the right answer or completing the task; any other response is ignored."

That is completely insane, and shows that these people know nothing at all. Personally, I know for a fact that, had I received such treatment as a small child, I would be sitting in an institution today, rocking an drooling. ABA is certainly not a cure, and is probably a cause.

There's probably not much you can do about Ronald Leaf. When someone goes that far with something, the ego will never let him turn back.

Michelle Dawson, "No Autistics Allowed," Explorations in discrimination against autistics. http://www.sentex.net/~nexus23/naa_02.html

Catatonic. http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt91016.html

Last edited by Tahitiii on 18 Mar 2009, 11:15 am, edited 1 time in total.

Another way to explain it is to say that ABA is a systematic, institutionalized way to destroy the "elephant" before it has a chance to grow. To crush the soul. They don't know what it is that they are killing, so they don't know to test for it. They see only the "progress" in their limited areas of interest and pronounce their program a "success." If you ask a stupid question, you'll get a stupid answer. Garbage in, garbage out.

See my comment on "Tetrachromats" in the tenth post down.
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt94076.html

Behaviour modification is everywhere, and can be good or bad, depending on how it's used. Dog obedience classes are behaviour modification. They teach the dog what is expected, and, just as important, they teach the owner to be consistent and fair. ABA might help parents learn how to set appropriate limits and clear guidelines, especially if they're afraid to discipline a disabled child, but it won't make the autism go away. It didn't for homosexuality, either.

I guess the question I'd have is, how can ABA proponents be sure that it's used ethically? Do they include guidelines for parents, including what ABA can and can't do, and the parents' responsibility to protect their children from difficult situations? After all, it's not fair to teach a dog to not bite, then leave it in a situation where it feels threatened. Or to continually punish a dog for not being a different breed.

I can't say much about ABA specifically, but behavior modification has been around since the first parent told the first child "no dessert until you eat your mammoth". They only put a name on it in the 1900's.

Yeah it works, it works on everyone. Doesn't matter if you're young, old, NT or autistic, human or dog, it works.

But the important issue here is WHAT is being modified. In the case of most kids, parents do behavior modification to get them to clean their room, eat their food, do homework, ect, through various rewards and punishments. In some cases I've heard though, behavior modification is used in autistics to stop stimming. Now stimming is something that we can agree is not "bad" unless it's harming yourself or others (headbanging), so it shouldn't be altered through behavior modification.

My beef with ABA, even if it's not trying to normalize people or being abusive, is that it doesn't really teach you much except compliance and imitation. Generalizing skills, learning the purpose for them, or learning skills that are complex and involve choices, feelings, and one's own ideas, is something that ABA doesn't, and can't, teach. It may in fact stifle such things, since a child in ABA therapy, if he goes off on his own, or tries to do something in a way that he's designed rather than the predetermined way the therapist says it ought to be done, is either ignored or punished. Some autistic people already have problems with out-of-the-box creativity (not all, probably not even most, but a significant number); these people, if taught "do what you are told, learn to copy, learn to memorize", will do exactly that and become so prompt-dependent that they initiate almost none of their own activity... Inertia can be a problem, as it is, but when the only thing that can make you start doing something is the desire for reward or fear of punishment, then there's something very wrong. ABA does decrease the symptoms of autism, but I don't know that (beyond very simple rote skills like eating or dressing) it will make you very much more capable. It seems to be a great way to prepare you for life in an institution, though.

I still would like to see that movie......

The well-researched and detailed essay by Michelle Dawson entitled The Misbehaviour of Behaviourists - Ethical Challenges to the Autism-ABA Industry is here: http://www.sentex.net/~nexus23/naa_aba.html .

At the bottom of the essay is a link to the comment board on which you can ask Michelle questions.

Put another way:

ABA starts with a handful of erroneous assumptions, including the one that says you need to crawl before you can walk. They see that, statistically, most people learn X before they learn Y before they learn Z, and assume that everyone must go through the same developmental sequence.

We do not need to do that.

Most people are born knowing X, can learn Y, and very few ever get to Z.
I was born knowing Z, can learn Y, and refuse to internalize X.

Z = Logic. Truth. Rational thinking. Honesty. The answer to everything.
X = Herd instinct. The root of all evil. The cause of all of society’s ills. A dishonesty so basic that you can’t even call it a lie.
Y = Figuring out how to share the planet with other life forms.

ABA insists that a child progress through X and Y, at the expense of Z. All that can do is break the child’s mind. It just sends his head spinning in a thousand directions. If he manages to survive at all, it will be in spite of ABA and not because of it.

For the small child with Asperger’s, if you don’t get it, don’t even try. All you can do is harm. Just feed him and keep him out of the street until he’s at least eight years old. Then, at the intellectual level, you can start working on strategies that would fall in the “Y” category. As an adult, he (or more likely, she) might have an interest in figuring out “X,” which would include studying human nature as a system: psychology, anthropology, sociology and such. S/he will never learn it at the reflexive, instinctive level, any more than the NT can learn honesty at the reflexive, instinctive level.

We are not a disease. We are the cure.

====================

ABA is an attempt to push buttons that are not there. Social pressure -- "Oh, pretty please, do it for me," or fascism -- "Because I said so," fall on deaf ears. They made no sense to me when I was a kid, because I don't have those buttons. While I understand them now, at an intellectual level, I still find them to be offensive.

When a NT parent or teacher tries pushing those buttons and gets no response, he naturally becomes frustrated, infuriated, enraged, abusive. There's no other way for it to go.

As though instinctive bullying weren't enough, ABA advocates systematic, institutionalized bullying, from an "authority" figure who pretends to know what he's doing.

Last edited by Tahitiii on 18 Mar 2009, 3:37 pm, edited 2 times in total.

yes. i would too.


and on behaviourism. i knew someone whose mother was a Skinnerian Psychologist.
he was brought up in a household that "managed" the kids in that way.
didn't do him any good.

i might add on a lighter note - i saw this thread last night and thought it was a mispelled reference to
benny, bjorn, frieda and agnetha.

waterloo...money money money...

Are you really serious about Reward for Behavior practices on humans?

To my way of thinking ABA is nothing new but it is a very old training method under a new name and it can be modified to suit many conditions. I think at one time it was in the guise of:
"If I promise not to kill you will you haul the bodies of my other victims to the pits"?

Statement and question for the eminent academic.

dear sir,
With all due respect...you are a tosser.
i have had experience with ABA in my life. perhaps it made me more socially aceptable but it also contributed to suicidal ideation and depression.

At 46, i have come to the delightful obejctive realisation that you are wrong and a fool.

You cannot knock the autism out of people. you can streamline them so they fit your perception of what is appropriate to be human.

off with your head you silly old fool.
and to quote Monty Python,

COME BACK AND I'LL BITE YOU

Here's a snippet of an interview with Ronald Leafs mentor which hopefully provides an insight into leaf's approach to autism:

http://www.autismconnect.org/core_files/interviews/transcripts/ivar_lovaas.htm

frightening interview, garyww.

i'd prefer to let the little ones run free - not very practical i know.

after all, the aim is they learn to work a twenty hour week. (35 is probably beyond them.)