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Tania 🇿🇦 AutisticStrategies.net Profile picture
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3 May, 19 tweets, 5 min read
To ABA therapists who say, "OMG, I don't do what the Judge Rotenberg Center does!":

Renounce your RBT or BACB credential.

The BACB accredits the people who work at the Judge Rotenberg Center with the same BACB credential.

You should be ashamed that you wear the same letters.
Sorry. BCBA or RBT. 😑 You know what I mean.
Scared of losing your job? Yeah, that could happen.
Because ABA could be all great and golden delicious if we just got rid of those few bad apples, right?
"If You aRe on TwitTer YoU aRe toO hiGH FuNctiOniNg tO spEaK for thE sEvERe caSEs."

Oh, really? Then maybe YOU shouldn't be speaking either, you seem to have been functioning a little too highly these past few decades.
How about we #LISTEN to 'severe' people?

Oh nooo! But then we may just end up realising that we have been misunderstanding 'severe autism' for, like, forever!
And we'll have to start from the bottom again and learn a whole lot of new therapies, because our ABA knowledge will be utterly useless! We can't have that. It's humiliating and not lucrative while we have to go through rigorous unlearning and relearning.

What's more, if we give nonspeaking people access to communication beyond PECS, they may use actual words to call us torturers and abusers. Can't have that level of noncompliance, now can we?
ABA apologists have an obsession with diapers.
They want to use incontinence as the conversation stopper, like those buffer posts at the end of a railway shunting line.

But we won't let them. 😁

You wanna talk incontinence? Let incontinent people lead the conversation!

Oopsie daisy! We're supposed to be talking about nonspeaking autistic people being incontinent, because somehow that intersection buys ableists more Right-to-Silence-You tokens.

So let's let nonspeaking autistic people talk about incontinence, then.
Ready?
You really, really, really love your ABA? Well, there's a niche market for everything, I guess, if you're weird.
Maybe in the future, you could go to adult services providing ABA as an extension of their BDSM options? Could be ace friendly and all. Just mundane dom-sub stuff with numbers, the alphabet and picture cards.
Could make a lotta money as an ABA dom. 'Cos right now ABA isn't about money. It's not like it's an investment sector or anything.
READER DISCRETION ADVISED: I'm slipping in and out of sarcasm and irony in this thread. Take everything with a pinch of salt, a cup of tea and some Leberwurst and ghee on a rice cake.
Just be sure to be on the right side of history.

This is the right side.
There aren't many options.

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More from @ekverstania

Tania 🇿🇦 AutisticStrategies.net Profile picture
5 May
Yep. And like other communities, we fight, disagree, and have divergent opinions, besides our divergent experiences. And that also means that you have to stop trying to find that one person or united voice to represent us, but listen to MANY of us, many orgs, and see the trends.
Marginalised subgroups include:

African autistic people IN AFRICA.

Do you even know the name of any Black African autistic activist who lives in the continent of Africa?

#INSAR2021
Hey, #INSAR2021 researchers, those who specialise in researching what helps nonspeaking autistic people with high support needs:

Who are your favourite nonspeaking autistic activists, and how have they informed your work?
Read 6 tweets
Tania 🇿🇦 AutisticStrategies.net Profile picture
5 May
Us: Listen to autistic people.

Them: No, you're adults. Our research is about children.

Us: We were once children, and we care about children.
Them: These children aren't like you. They can't go on the Internet and type.

Us: When we were children we didn't go on the Internet and type either.

Them: OK, but these children don't speak.

Us: We're not speaking now either, we're typing.
Them: These children don't EVER speak, and they hit their head against the wall.

Us: Yep, sounds like some of us.

Them: If you can type, you're too high-functioning to understand.

Us: Listen to yourself.

#BoycottAutismResearch
#ListenToNonspeakers
#NothingAboutUsWithoutUs
Read 4 tweets
Tania 🇿🇦 AutisticStrategies.net Profile picture
5 May
I don't want the research you people do saying "ABA works" implemented.

You set the goals, you create the hypothesis, you design the study, you interpret the results and you conclude that "ABA works".

My community won't help you implement your research.

#BoycottAutismResearch
Do you know what that phrase "evidence-based" has come to stand for among autistic people?

The ABSENCE of evidence of respect for human rights.

#BoycottAutismResearch
Renounce ABA, #INSAR2021. I dare you cowards.

Help us get nonconsensual ABA banned.

#ListenToNonspeakers. Stop silencing them. You're ACTIVELY doing right now.

If you don't start respecting #HumanRights in research, we will up the campaign to #BoycottAutismResearch.
Read 21 tweets
Tania 🇿🇦 AutisticStrategies.net Profile picture
4 May
Thanks to lobbying by nonspeaking autistic people and their allies, professionals who work with autistic people in South Africa are becoming increasingly aware of apraxia as a major factor in the struggles of autistic people with high support needs.
Apraxia is a problem with purposeful movement. In nonspeaking autistic people, this typically affects the whole body. Many nonspeakers call it the body-mind disconnect or the brain-body disconnect.
A variety of methods help nonspeaking autistic people learn better control of their movements. Some of these methods, such as Spelling to Communicate, involve prompting, i.e. guiding an apraxic person through simple instructions to help them learn control.
Read 18 tweets
Tania 🇿🇦 AutisticStrategies.net Profile picture
1 May
It's #EDSAwarenessMonth and I am one of those people who bizarrely feels like I don't 'deserve' a diagnosis because I don't have a full house of Beighton symptoms and I am not as badly off as my friends, even though I subluxate my shoulders every night, live in constant pain...
...and have been worried for the last five years that I may dislocate my jaw.
Right now I am fundraising for a woman in my city whom I have never met who is dying from the cascade of health issues that comes from being medically gaslighted for so long (even though she worked in a hospital before)...
Read 17 tweets
Tania 🇿🇦 AutisticStrategies.net Profile picture
30 Apr
SUICIDE RISK: 3 6-year-old Autistic guy in Denver, Colarado. He's being evicted and he can't cope. He has nowhere to go. Couldn't earn enough for rent, couldn't find a place to stay. Who should he contact please? It's urgent.
That's 36, not 6.
I'm not American, but I have known him for many years, then lost contact. I now appear to be the only person left he's talking to. I said the @TheArcUS and @NationalADAPT may be able to help but I don't know if they do crisis help. Who should he contact? It's urgent.
Read 23 tweets

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