76 FT383LETTERS
Applied Behaviour
Analysis
Whilst I’m somewhat disappoint-
ed thatyou chose to print such
an ableist dismissal [byJames
Golbey,FT377:74] of the least
fortean point made inmyletter
[FT374:74], I’m hoping this will
be an opportunity toraise aware-
nessabout both autism in adults
and the horrors ofApplied
Behaviour Analysis (ABA).The
desire to make us “normal” has
always existedeven before di-
agnostic labels and ABA, as the
changelings all knew – ABA is
just a modern, organisedform of
beating theweirdness out of us.
Functional labels are mislead-
ing and harmful, and this is why
modern diagnostics is moving
away from using them.Theyare
oftenweaponisedby parents:
your correspondent dismisses
me as “biased high functioning”
purely because I can compose
a letter containing something
he dislikes (it takes me several
hours, incidentally).Autism
doesn’twork thatway; we have
different strengths andweak-
nesses. I amhyperlexic, butI
also have executive functioning
issues and other problems that
mean I can’treliably managemy
life oreven mybasic personal
hygiene andnutrition. I have
physical co-morbidities that
mean I am prone to frequent
injury and daily pain. I also have
self-injurious stims [repetitive
behaviourby autistic people],
which have frequently left me
bleeding and/or concussed. On
a good day, after 40-oddyears of
practice, I canexhaustmyself
masking it all and passfor “high
functioning”; on a bad dayI
can’t.The day I most lookfor-
wardto is the day when I don’t
feelforced to describemydis-
abilitiesfor strangers who feel
better qualified to talkabout
what it’s like togrow up autistic
than actualgrown up autistics.
Us lucky old “high functioning
adults” are onexactly the same
spectrumexceptwe can tell
people what it’s like in here, but
no one cares and whenwe say
things that the parents don’t
want to hearwe are dismissed.
Parents are quick to point out
that ABA no longer uses physi-
cal punishment and so it isn’t
abusive. This reflects society’s
general move away from cor-
poral punishment, but it hasn’t
changed the underpinning
principles of ABA.The founder
of ABA, Ole Ivar Lovaas, didn’t
even think autisticchildren
were people andwanted to train
us, likePavlov and his dog. He
said, “You have a person in the
physical sense — they have hair,
a nose and a mouth — but they
are not people in the psycho-
logical sense... it as a matter of
constructing a person.You have
therawmaterials, butyou have
to build the person.”^1 These
sentimentswould beveryfamil-
iar to thechangelings! (In the
1970s, Lovaas also carried out
government-fundedexperiments
with this technique on gay and
gender nonconformingchildren;
onewent on to kill himself be-
cause of the damage done.)^2
Lovaas “built the person” us-
ing electric shocks and dramatic
beatings, allowingchildren to
receive affection only when they
managed to stifle their normal
behaviour. “Spank them, and
spank them good,” he said. Here
he is talkingabout ‘Beth’, an
early patient:
“I justreachedover and
cracked her one right on the
rear. Shewas a bigfat girl soI
had an easy target... she stopped
hitting herselffor about 30
seconds and then,you see, she
sized up the situation, laid out
her strategy and then she hit
herself once more... At firstI
thought, ‘God, what have I done,’
but then I noticed that she had
stopped hitting herself. I felt
guilty, but I feltgreat.Then she
hit herself again and Ireally laid
it on her. You see,by then I knew
that she could inhibit it, and that
shewould inhibit it if she knew
I would hit her. So I let her know
that therewas no question in
mymind that Iwas going to kill
her if she hit herself once more,
and thatwas prettymuch it.
She hit herself a few times after
that, butwe had the problem
licked.”^3
We’re still onfamiliar
changeling turf here, I’m sure.
But these dayswe (should) know
better. Autistic people don’t self-
harmfor noreason. Usually it’striggeredby sensory or mental
overload, manifesting in situa-
tions thatwe find desperately
uncomfortable thatwe’ve been
forced into becausewe live in
a “normal”world. Instead of
finding out why Beth hit herself,
they made her terrified of hit-
ting herself. Before the beating,
shewas in a state ofoverload;
after it, shewas still in a state of
overload, but terrified aswell.
ABA is literally advocatingfor
autistics the sort of treatment
thatwould be consideredabuse
if done to a person with any
other condition that caused
“challenging” behaviour.
Modern ABA doesn’t shock or
beat, but it is still an inten-
sive programme of behaviour
modification using punishment
andreward, of which 40 hours a
week isrecommended from as
early as possible. Itfocuses on
behaviour and ignores needs.^4
Parents and therapists just don’t
recognise theabuse because
they don’t know what it’s like to
be autistic and they don’t learn
how to communicate with us.^5
ABA teaches them that autistic
feelings don’t matter, that
theirexperience of theworld
is invalid, that theymust bottle
up discomfortfor the comfort
of others. It teaches them that
their needs, their feelings and
their consent don’t matter. It’s
teaching them that their senses
are wrong, that autism is wrong,
they are defective, they just
need to learn to be “normal”,
maintain that painfuleye con-
tact andkeep their damn hands
still and then their parents will
finally accept thechangeling in
their midst.
Many parents bragabout
how they have “cured” their
children, but there is no cure,
justchildren learning masks.
Forty hours aweek would
brainwash anyone into being
anything. It’s not a success to
make autistic kids unhappy and
terrified. Even articles praising
ABA, with parents who think
theirchildren are cured, are full
of evidence that thechildren
are just masking and are setting
themselves upfor a whole mess
of adult issues. In one article, a
“cured” boyeven says: “I miss
theexcitement...When Iwaslittle, pretty often Iwas the
happiest a person could be. It
was the ultimate joy, this rush in
your entire body, andyou can’t
contain it.That went away when
mysister started teasing me and
I realised flappingwasn’treally
acceptable.”^6
I’m too disabled to be a parent
but I am pretty sure that Iwould
never, ever brag to theNewYork
Timesthat I had “cured”my
wombfruit of their happiness
just because their bitch ofa
sisterwas embarrassed.
In America, where ABA is of-
ten the only therapy insurers will
payfor, some practitioners aren’t
even actually doing ABA.They
are instead providing something
more like occupational therapy,
trying to understand what trig-
gers self-harm and meltdowns,
and calling it ABA so it can be ac-
cessed! Many have writtenabout
how they stopped practising ABA
when theyrealised itwas abu-
sive.^7 There are alternatives that
work, and don’tabuse or devalue
children.^8
If all this doesn’t ring true
to Mr Golbey’sexperience, if it
isn’t 40-hours aweek of intensive
behaviour modification he’s in-
flicting on hischild, then it isn’t
ABA and hereally shouldn’t be
reactively defendingabuse.
Zoe-Dawn Anderson
Bexleyheath,LondonFOOTNOTES
1 http://neurodiversity.com/library_
chance_1974.html
2 http://edition.cnn.com/2011/
US/06/07/sissy.boy.experiment/index.
html
3 http://neurodiversity.com/library_
chance_1974.html
4 https://theaspergian.
com/2019/03/28/invisible-abuse-
aba-and-the-things-only-autistic-peo-
ple-can-see/?fbclid=IwAR3Oxczalavnz
LMDKY_h_xPkoV8Mj7XQmmGs3nUx-
Iej8I1g8T7T31YpVyjM
5 http://www.psy.ox.ac.uk/publica-
tions/672990
6 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/03/
magazine/the-kids-who-beat-autism.
html
7 https://madasbirdsblog.wordpress.
com/2017/04/25/i-abused-children-
and-so-do-you-a-response-to-an-aba-
apologist/
8 http://www.thinkingautismguide.
com/2017/04/if-not-aba-then-what.
html