ABA research – this epic resource was compiled by Max Shinske
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mhj_7filLX9N7qsSAfG33Mu-PmUwCR5rpfCpOQTemaY/mobilebasic?fbclid=IwAR3gW43g6-KjpVWG94enAMp-pSb7nPTRezw9INrIwum2yOJLcjZcfl9QkkM

More on PBS (Positive Behaviour Support)
https://amase.org.uk/pbs/?fbclid=IwAR3h7H3ztnprplValjvZyXw8ddRCDAVttph6uqTPXfb8ACWa_HEX-zPREXo

ABA Advice for Parents
Written by John Greally, Remutaka, Aotearoa. Posted to the Autism Inclusivity online group in December 2023. This is an Autistic-led group for parents and caregivers of Autistic children to ask questions of Autistic adults. https://www.facebook.com/groups/autisminclusivity

• • Truth
    ABA is perhaps a $25 billion industry with the murkiest of props, strategies, lawyers, propagandists, claims, statistics, variations, modernisings, window-dressings, and self-referencing ‘studies’.
    Most autistics here would be fortunate to have $50 to push back with.
    We have to rely on the truth being told by the truthful.
  • Harm
    Most children subjected to ABA will at least develop in several ways that are not healthy, no matter how great the parent’s praise of ABA or how many regrets they express.
    At worse, trauma will result, usually lifelong. That’s inevitable when a child who lives a vast internal life surveys all of what is happening to them consciously and unconsciously, all they must stop and replace with something from others, and comes to realise they are being asked to die and be replaced by another non-autistic, and therefore acceptable, wanted person.
    (I will stop that part of the conversation here, as it so hurts to type more about that right now. Some fellow autistic who is brave and less fragile might, below).
  • ABA reactions
    A child who is subjected to ABA might either seem to ‘worsen’, take flight, fight, bite (I love the biters!) … or actually seem to surrender and fawn, even ‘love’ their 40-hour trained registered behavioural technician.
    To ‘worsen’ means to innately know we are being suffocated, to rebel in so many brilliant and resourceful ways, almost always without any idea why we struggle and demonstrate in so many ways.
    To fawn is to succumb.
    “GOOD JOB JOHNNY!” “HIGH FIVE.” “WAY TO GO – EXTINGUISH YOU!”
  • Path back
    What if the path back from ABA begins with a deep realisation and deeper apology, a lifetime or countering, with the exact same costs and number of hours to undo the harm as ABA took and cost? Or more?
    There is precious little written on the subject of undoing ABA, that I know of.
  • Undoing
    From what I have seen, the undoing of ABA requires mindful applications of attention to:
    1. Access, a child free to get what they need themself when they want it without permission, as a natural prerogative.
    2. ABA teaches them ‘stop being autistic’, not ‘accept you are autistic and can yourself get what you need to support who you are’.
    3. Agency, a child free to decide so very much themself and eventually without encouragement or permissioning, as a natural right to behold.
       ABA teaches them to suppress their needs and preferences for the sake of others, to align with others foreign expectations, to succumb.
    4. Identity, a child free to express themself, say who they are, live their way of being alone and/or with others similar or appropriate to them, a natural connection.
    5. ABA teaches them they are defective and must stay away from neurodivergents in order to avoid re-infection, the return of ‘extinguished’ behaviours, the return of self.
    6. Movement, a child free to look where they wish, look directionally at what they want, stim and more, travel alone in their actions, stand and sit as they please, droop or dress as they want, rise and colour as they choose, bodily able to demonstrate human freedom, a natural necessity.
    7. ABA breaks this soul, and strives for conformity, utilitarian usefulness for others, passing, normality, camouflage, indistinguishment, stifling.
    8. Equality, a child free to know that they are equally human and equal to all other humans, irrepressible and inestimable in value, free of the darkness served by words defect, disorder, damaged.
       ABA teaches them so much of who they are is to be suppressed, or people will see them as damaged, secondary, unacceptable.
  • Assistance
    I think informed and natural autistics can help undo ABA, including connection with autistic child peers unharmed by ABA, who experience neuro-affirmative parenting first-hand.
    Secondly, all neuro-affirming therapists, especially those who focus on EXPRESSION: music, movement, dance, drama, equine, and physical therapists. Immense training lies in the subtle wonders they work, money well-spent, hope rekindled.
    Parents who invest alone or together in new healthy parenting dynamics are obviously part of the equation — inevitably the foundation of any recovery.
    The biggest tasks still lie with you.