BCBA Answers Questions About ABA Therapy

Interview speaking with a BCBA (the individual licensed to oversee RBTs and work on programs for ABA clients) and on occasion her boss at the facility they work in.

Again, if you disagree with statements or perspectives expressed in this video, please remain respectful, regardless. I am thankful for the time they gave me in answering questions and conversing with me about this topic.

[BlondieGirl]

I was terrified of her assertion that it's somehow a misconception that meltdowns mean someone needs a break. Um. Yes. That's exactly what a meltdown means. Adults need breaks when they become overwhelmed. Why on earth would we require children to achieve this Herculean task of not ever needing a break?

[kolmogorovaxiom]

Here are my thoughts on this:
- Teaching people to make eye contact, sit down, and keep their hands still is NOT teaching them to pay attention. I can pay attention without showing it the way NTs expect me to show it.
- Teaching play skills? They are kids. Just let them play.
- If the child cannot be at school due to problematic behaviors, it likely means that school is too traumatic for them and the behaviors are just a symptom of that. The fact that your goal is to get the child into school means that you are trying to (despite your claim otherwise) change the child to fit the system instead of make the system accommodate the child.
- Meltdowns do not mean the child is unwilling to do something. It means they are UNABLE to do it. It is like if you try to run 100 miles without stopping. At some point your body will just give up and you cant do anything to stop it.
- Allowing the child to go home is reinforcing a meltdown behavior? I guess so, and sure every child will take advantage of opportunities to throw a tantrum and get what they want to some extent, but the fact that it has become such a huge issue that the child cannot go to school at all should be a red flag that something more than that is going on.
- Teaching the child to communicate what they need during a meltdown is actually a good goal, but it only works if you respect it and allow them to do what they need to do. Otherwise, anger is the natural response to being forced into traumatic experiences. Also, the best way to teach that in many cases is by talking to the child after they have calmed down, which would include asking the child how they were feeling and what can be done to make it better, in an understanding and non-judgemental manner. Of course, this approach requires methods more appropriate for traditional talk therapy than for ABA, which is one reason why a heavy reliance on ABA is a problem no matter how it is implemented.
- If stimming appears to be interfering with the child’s ability to learn, it is likely for one of two reasons: either the practitioner applies NT standards and assumes the child is not paying attention, or the child is tuning out (willingly or unwillingly) due to high amounts of stress and the stimming is just a consequence of that. Neither justifies suppressing stimming.
- By teaching eye contact, suppression of stimming, and suppression of signs of distress (meltdowns), you are teaching the child to hide who they really are. This teaches the child that their true self is wrong and to constantly pretend to be someone else, often to an extent more so than they realize, which is very harmful. The proper focus is a balance between masking and being your true self. For example, masking may be necessary at a job interview or an important business meeting, but the workplace should be accommodating enough to be bearable and not require constant masking, and you should be able to be yourself around your friends and family. With meltdowns, the appropriate skills to teach are self-awareness, self-advocacy, and knowing and doing what you need to do to avoid them.

[mirandaranda]

I’m really looking forward to watching this, as well as your ABA video, tomorrow! Thank you for doing all the hard work to make these videos. I used to practice ABA about 10 years ago, in a job working with autistic kids, before I knew how harmful it really is. I believed the hype that we were helping them to be able to “participate more fully in society” or some such crap. Now, fast forward to my own recent autism diagnosis and learning a lot more from the autism community, and I see it for the harm it really causes.

So just thanks again for this! Your videos are always really well thought out, researched, and presented!

[teebles]

Compliance is not a skill. If it's about compliance, the child might not be developmentally ready for what is being asked, not understand, have a sensory aversion to something, etc. Teaching compliance leads to internalizing, masking their difficulty, not fully understanding why they are doing what they are doing, and vulnerability to abuse. I like that she said sometimes if they get a kid that is too compliant they teach them to say no. That is not always something they teach in a lot of aba places though.

[-melanie-]

These answers scare me so much. I do not think I would have survived ABA, not joking. You had it, right? I am going to stop watching now as it gets hard to breathe. Thank you, I did not know.

[MrJstorm]

They can only do 2 hours a day of school but they can follow that up with seven or eight hours of aba. Considering what she considers to be behaviors I am downright scared of the backstory here.

[RatsPicklesandMusic]

"Compliance"... That really freaks me out. More like setting your child up to be abused....
And also, why in the everloving f*** would you START with "maintaining eye contact"? Like how AT ALL is that actually a useful life skill? I'm sorry but no. Just no. If someone can't respect you just because you don't look into their eyeballs consistently, they don't even deserve to talk to you.

[MrJstorm]

I hope the kid doesn't realize that their consent is being rationed because I guarantee that a lot of patients will hoard opt outs even when they absolutely need it just in case it gets worse later

[purpleblue]

I have a question. When you visited all the ABA places did you also told them and tried to explain that it is harmfull or did you only ask your questions?

Also you earned a new subscriber with your two hour video ^^

[SSJKamui]

That Woman seemed rather nice. Often, what she said sounded rather rational and agreeable. But some "problems" she talks about, really sound more like normal childhood behaviors. Especially the part of throwing a tantrum to seek attention. I do not know any child who does not do that sometimes. This is literally a characteristic of childhood.

Sometimes, I was somewhat sceptical about her answers. Some things seem to be rather complex for the ABA method to teach. Especially the thing with police officers, saying no etc.

In programming, on a basic level, this would mean:

if (parents || family || police)

{
obey command;
} else
{
!obey;
}

But it gets complicated to determine if someone is a police officer. Ofcourse, you can say police officer = person wearing a uniform. But a uniform can also be worn by people at a halloween party. Some male strippers also wear (and undress) police uniforms. And there are some cases where a genuine police officer does not wear a uniform. Certain groups like FBI also do not wear uniforms often. Some police units have different uniforms and equpments depending on current tasks.

People who claim to be members of the police are not necessary from the police.SOmetimes, even criminals pretend to be members of the police. One of the biggest cybercrime cases in germany for example was done by hackers claiming to be the police and enacting a certain controversial new law which was all over the newspapers at the time.

And there are tons of genuine policemen who abuse their power to do something which is against the law.Especially cases about police brutality.

Often, its also stupid to completely obey every demand of the police without talking to a lawyer first.

I doubt that the rather simple methods of ABA can train such a complex function with so many different cases. Reality is far more complex and less "platonic" than a computergame. There is no function like person== instanceof("policemen" ) which can give the exact results.

Some aspects of the interview confirmed many of my suspicions about ABA. For example, that woman always emphasized ABA as a preparation for school. I thought that is one reason for the problems with ABA. Autistics describe ABA as oppressive and eradicating the individual personality of the child to make him follow orders. Since 200 years, many people described public school in exactly the same way. For example John Holdt, Max Stirner, many proponents of alternative school concepts like Sudbury, Eduard Limonov, Ted Kacinsky, Michel Focault, Paul Goodman and many more. These people came from all over the political spectrum. Even Savitri Devi, who literally founded a cult worshipping Hitler as a god, criticized schooling for being oppressive. And in Japan, there is a famous proverb that school "hammers down" people who do not fit within the mass.

When ABA basically tries to make children fit into school and is so oppressive and anti individuality/freedom, and pro conformity, I think we can't have a conversation about how bad ABA is, without asking to change how schooling works. ABA can only be made less harmful or made to disappear, if schools stop being authoritarian hellholes.



And especially the things she said about "problem behaviors" and that some children do them to be able to leave school earlier. If you take the behaviorist theory at face value, such a reaction of the child implies that the child sees school as an aversive/punishment, in behaviorist terms. The real question that woman ignores seems to be "why are our schools so bad that most children see it as a punishment?" and "wouldnt it be better if children actually like going to school?"



On topic of sometimes, you need to do a task you hate. This is sadly true. Especially in business. Its a sad truth that sometimes, you definitely need to arrange yourself with morons. I have this problem at the moment. I do not want to do a certain task and I think its stupid, but on the other hand, not doing it will result in loss of money for me and my business partners. This is not fair, but this is sadly reality. And this is not necessary authoritarian. Some people do things which are well within their rights, but they are unable to understand that what they want is completely stupid. And sometimes, they sadly have a better bargaining position.

On topic of what they said about apropriate ways to play. I do not know for sure how that woman means it. It could be that she means conformity. This would be bad. On the other hand, when playing within groups. Its like how jordan peterson said it: The goal is not to win the game, but play it in such a way that you get invited to the next game. As a child, you often encounter children who manipulate the game, disturb or even hurt other players and are totally obnoxious just to feed their own egos. And you want to avoid such children. And within enough time, such a behavior can have bad results for the perpetrator. Because of this, it might be good to teach children not to be such a child.

[MrJstorm]

So a lot of autistics will just follow the rules why do we have to reinvent the mind with contextless commands and hoping that they'll apply them in other contacts instead of just giving rules and why those rules need to be followed and implicitly where the flexibility in the rules why

[sapphire]

Hi! I have a master's in educational leadership and counseling. I would like to complete a course sequence certificate program that will allow me to sit for the BCBA exam. I am wondering if you have any schools in mind that offer this route? The only school I am considering is National University. Do you have any other recommendations? Thank you so much for your time.