A Video Essay On Why I Don't Care About Behaviourism (That No One Asked For)

Sorry for being late with this!- it turned out kinda long, and I got too excited when drawing and went into unnecessary detail lol.
also side note. I wrote a loose script beforehand and man can you TELL bc I am MASKING HERE more than I usually do in videos and its annoying as hell to watch. but. that's life. ugh

I'm having a #weird time lately but I am really looking for making tons of videos for y'all. lots of cool stuff coming soon. thank you for watching

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Related: autism, autism diagnosis, Paige layle, paigelayle, paigelayle tiktok, tiktok videos, autistic, autistiktok, autistok, autism spectrum disorder, Aspergers, Aspergers syndrome, autism in girls, dsm, autistic kid, autism mom, autism family, autism speaks, autism awareness, autism acceptance

[curlypuff]

I've also seen some people say that after you hit a kid you need to sit down and talk to them about what they did wrong so they understand... then why did you hit them??? If the talking part is what actually fixes things why did you hit them??? Mind boggling, I hope in the future children wont have to deal with this bs

[nekochadechu]

The way the site said ABA will teach kids skill reminds me of parents seeing their kid finally showing affection by hugging after going through ABA and assume the therapy taught their kids empathy because they believe physical affection is the only sign that someone has empathy

[marcusaurelius]

Behaviourism is like putting on a bandage each time a child cuts their arms on the playground merry-go-round rather than addressing the jagged edge that keeps cutting the children.

[oops]

As a kid who absolutely had to “perform” for my mom to brag about to her friends… it’s not been a great adulthood.

[NavaSDMB]

My mother complains that I "never liked her"; apparently as a toddler I would rather spend time with pretty much any other adult I knew than with her.

The pediatrician had to tell her that making the baby cry for one hour because she's hungry after 3h at an age when "the book" said 4h (the book = what she'd been taught in teacher's school, plus those books in fashion at the time, plus the all-too-common misunderstanding that an average value is the only acceptable or even possible value). Both as a baby and as a child, she held me very little and berated other people for holding or hugging me because she saw hugging and holding as "pampering".

From the point of view of a hungry baby, someone who refuses to feed you when they're your only source of food, refuses to hold you when most of the time it's just them and you, never hugs you... is not very likable! I got more hugs from the neighbors than I did from her, of course I liked them better!

[venussownnatlan]

Behaviorism basically forces ND people to suffer to be acknowledged. I am getting my autism evaluation soon, and the biggest fear I have is that I’m not suffering enough now to be acknowledged. At this point I’m 90% sure I’m autistic, and I want this addressed now when I’m in high school so I can get the accommodations I need in adulthood. Because I know that even though I don’t show outward behaviors of my sensory issues and social difficulties, as my world continues to change and I’m forced to work in environments that are hell to me, I WILL begin to show negative and harmful behaviors. But I might not be able to get that until I’m having bigger and more frequent meltdowns or I can barely leave the house outside of work because my workplace is so overstimulating. I KNOW my brain is different, but since I’m not behaving enough like it, I’m not as valid to the medical community.

Update: my parents hooked me up with a therapist, yay! But she’s not an expert and autism and describes herself as a behaviorist at heart, oh no! Throughout the beginning of the session she was pretty much just talking to my mom, then when we were alone and I told her why I wanted to come her immediate reaction (after knowing me for like 10 minutes) was “there’s no way you’re autistic”
If she were a professional in the field and we’d talked longer I’d be more inclined to accept that, but she didn’t have that going for her. As someone who went into literal years of research before asking for a diagnosis and who has multiple autistic and otherwise ND friends that also thought it’s worth it to look at that didn’t seem adequate to me. I described autism signs I have but she just said “ptsd, adhd, and anxiety all look a lot like autism” and explicitly told me that I shouldn’t research things like this if I think it might pertain to me. Then, as I described why I also think I have adhd, she legit said “sounds like an attention problem” as if there is no A in adhd. She even said I couldn’t have autism because “I would’ve been caught sooner” and when I explained that afab people get diagnosed later she agreed but didn’t take that into consideration at all.
All in all, a frustrating experience where I felt like I wasn’t listened to and I was talked down to. She legit said “I’m not an expert on autism at all but I’m like 100% sure you don’t have autism” then asked me if I had any trauma as if that was why I was there.

[albedougnut]

This is what bothers me so much about research surrounding ABA therapy. The research which suggests that it "works" only focuses on the behavior of the child, but it pretty much never analyzes the mental health or wellbeing of them. When research such as correlations between PTSD and ABA therapy are revealed, instead of investigating them further, proponents of ABA will instead dismiss them entirely.

[milamila]

Behavioral therapy in children is literally just parents saying "ah yes, this one behavior you, my child, have in this present moment with me annoys me in some way, so I will beat you or draw it out of you in some other way in order to make me, your parent, comfortable in this present moment", regardless of what kind of emotional and/or attachment issues their child might develop as an adult.
The amount of crying children I've seen in my life beind handled by emotionally immature parents who would rather berate or beat their child in public (usually in supermarkets) in order to not be embarrassed, I guess, instead of trying to figure out why their child is crying in the first place.

[StephenRichmond]

Behaviourism is when you recognise that your parents behavior, taking you to the supermarket, is a problem and so you give negative feedback, lying on the floor and screaming. Once you successfully get your parents to associate their behavior with the negative response you'll be able to train them to behave more appropriately. Useful advice for all toddlers out there!

[faycarretta]

I've definitely been humiliated several times by adults when I was a child and that hurt my self-esteem so much! It's also probably why I developed social anxiety from such a young age...

[fabiolaramirez]

“We know that by letting the child cry it out loud and self-soothe it works … but not without causing a bunch of other issues that cannot be repressed forever and will come to the surface” I felt that and it happened now that I’m a mama.

[corbenhavener]

From an autistic perspective, behaviorism is frustrating. So many challenges autistic people face can be addressed by changing aspects of the environment. At its most expressed behaviorism is used to justify abusive treatment.

[sortofsollo]

first impression: i have never even heard abt behaviorism??? but i’m gonna watch this

after watching: wow. jesus. i… am realizing my therapist when i was a kid entirely did behaviorism and i only masked my anxiety so i could be brave enough to be dropped off with everyone else so i could get a chocolate bar

[nekochadechu]

I hate how to get a disorder diagnosis the questions are so based on behaviour, when going through my autism assessment i was so unsure on how to respond because i wasn't sure if this behaviour i have is what the question asks and i always needed to think of the meaning behind all the behaviours asked like "do you have hard time ___" It's really from the perspectice of an outside and not about the person themselves because what goes through your head doesn't always reflect how people will assume of your behaviour....For exemple when i have trouble understanding other people's emotions i might end up saying things that will hurt but i'm not aware of it, but apparently this will be seen as being blunt when for me it's just normal so when i'm asked if i'm blunt when i say things i'm not sure--

[Seri-dydd]

When I hear “behaviorism” I always thing of A Clockwork Orange or 1984 and similar disturbing dystopian novels. I know A Clockwork Orange was written in direct criticism of certain ideas in behaviorism.

[chelseal]

Some comments have already addressed this but I’m gonna drop this here anyway in case someone missed them. Positive reinforcement doesn’t always equal “good” and negative reinforcement doesn’t always equal “bad.” You can have positive punishment and negative reward. In conditioning, positive means additive, negative means subtractive. When I let my dog out of the kennel after she sits and holds position, that’s a negative reward because I subtracted the crate. A negative punishment would be taking away your teen’s phone or something else they like as a consequence. Spanking is an example of “positive” punishment because you are adding physical pain. When you stop it’s a negative reward. Putting a sticker on a chore chart is an example of positive reward.

[felipe-zmyd]

I had a very late diagnosis at age 20, I was treated with ABA as that's the standard method of care for autistic people, but since I'm in Brazil, I had access to a multidisciplinary team with a speech therapist to help me with my stuttering and general shyness, an occupational therapist to help me overcome some social situations like ordering food, talking on the phone, etc. and a psychologist with a focus on autistic people. I'm thankful the ABA approach I was presented focused more on helping me overcome the hurdles I could overcome without forcing me to do things that were exceedingly difficult. I felt respected at all times.

The behaviourist model has helped me immensely, it helped cure my anorexia, depression and other comorbities I developed due to the undiagnosed autism. Even though it has helped me, I can see why it can be wielded as a weapon against autistic children.

[anaisdebeaumont]

It’s so weird to cure the symptoms rather than the problem that causes the symptoms

[AccipiterPictures]

Yes!! This!! Behavioral Psychology seems to reverse the cause and the effect. It observes behavior and then labels it. "This is autistic." "This is OCD." etc. And then treats that label as having explanatory value when it's only descriptive. "Why do they act so weird?" "Well, they're autistic." No. It was determined that they're autistic on the basis of the behaviors you're describing as weird. Doesn't go deeper into understanding what motivates that behavior in the first place and keeps people ignorant and confused.

[HaHaHannah]

You should do a video on the “pathogizing” of every single behavior in autism. If you have a developmental disability if any kind you go from a person who sometimes gets upset to “a fighter.” If you can’t communicate with your words and sometimes lash out with biting, you’re now “a biter.” Normal behaviors like getting angry and storming off is called “a runner.” Then this escalates to every little thing they do being added to the file of who they are. Completely normal reactions are pointed to some part of their disability. I can’t just enjoy my preferred activities - I’m hyper focusing and need to be redirected in an hour in otherwise I’ll sit there all night. Like an adult can’t possibly get into a project and work on it throughout the night. I know you could find 100 other ways we turn everything into an issue. It’s not that I like an item - it’s my preferred item and used as a way to get me to do something. It’s not that I just want to hug those I care for - I have boundary issues. So I’m and so forth. I think another long form video like this would be awesome. Great video!!