FEP BCBS ABA Therapy

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If I had the energy left in me that I had in my 20's I would start an all out attack on the Federal Blue Cross Blue Shield for not covering ABA therapy. Nothing pisses me off more. Every other government insurance and many state insurances cover ABA in some sense, but the one I'm stuck with refuses to.. so I'm stuck paying out of pocket for it. Maybe I should start one of those government petitions.

ABA isn't really that popular around here. Actually, many of us hold to the position that it is violates basic human rights...

I went through ABA and I came out just fine, slight eating problem but that's because the reward was candy because I liked that stuff. ABA only violates human rights when the therapist involved doesn't care, otherwise it can lead to a largely well adjusted life.

The idea of ABA in most cases no matter much it is drenched in positivity is to change you into as neurotypical as possible. It often does what they want in the short term, long term well into adulthood there is just not enough study. I can't fathom how changing your natural behaviors long term won't cause depression, anxiety and burnout in most people. Constant rewarding of "correct" behaviors rarely teaches you to stand up for yourself, it teaches you to always please others. Many will take full advantage of a person anxious to please others, and won't stand up for themselves.

On a society level the world needs people who don't do and think like everybody else.

Society has a standard on how people should act and behave, things like; "Don't pick your nose," "Answer the door when the bell rings," and something I did frequently when I was young "Please stop peeing in your pants." It's not gonna make an artist stop being an artist or force a writer to go into engineering. The idea behind ABA is to adjust Autistic Children into people who can go out and function in daily society.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions

Functioning in society as defined is being as NT as possible, many supporters do not see the difference. And there are other ways to stop legitimately bad behavior without making a person a slave to conformity. Society has it's standards some good, but is the world circa 2015 overall a place to be admire? No way.

Fear of rejection and actual rejection can force people to do a lot of things that are not good for a person including making a talented artist give up art.

I think you make fair points and I find many aspects of ABA problematic to the point where I find myself going back and forth on whether there is "good ABA". What are the "other ways to stop legitimately bad behavior"?

http://www.asha.org/uploadedFiles/IB-Ap ... herapy.pdf

DIR floor time is the other model that I know of. Everything else appears to be based on ABA principles or DIR principles. Verbal behaviour (variant of ABA) is useful for some kids (more than traditional speech therapy is). I prefer floor time myself but there are some things that ABA does better IMO. mainly for severe autism- not sure what ABA is used for with higher functioning kinds.

Truthfully, I do not think anybody has a clue what to do. It seems like if anything works it's kind of a fluke. My kid still has the communication skills of an infant. He does however sit when told to "sit". Dog-like, yes, but sadly this is better than the alternative, which is no response to anything anybody says ever. He's 6'5", I cannot physically control him anymore, plus I have ANOTHER AUTISTIC KID, so if he's melting down or something, I need to have some control for safety's sake. He still to this day (he is almost 16) only responds to fewer than ten phrases- all taught by ABA. I wish this were different. But I do not see any wonderful solution. Please, if you have one, LET ME KNOW. BTW, we are so far past trying to fit into societal norms...can't speak for others but "being normal" is pretty low on my priority list actually. I'd chop off my writing hand in exchange for a solution...hell, I'd chop off both of my hands with a rusty saw. ABA IS the best we've got for certain things...which just goes to show how incredibly sucky this situation is. I've never been an ABA fan.