Thread by @AutSciPerson

TW JRC, shocks

"..Rotenberg and the parents and guardians argued that the shock treatment was beneficial for patients who did not respond to any other treatment"

1. How is shocking people beneficial?
2. Respond in what way?

1/6

reuters.com/legal/litigati…

"'With the treatment, these residents can continue to participate in enriching experiences, enjoy visits with their families and, most importantly, live in safety and freedom from self-injurious and aggressive behaviors,' it said."

2/6

In what world is getting shocked 100 times a day completely out of your control, due to behaviors as innocuous as getting out of your chair, or wanting a drink, or any other regular life thing, living "in safety and freedom"?

3/6

In what world is that somehow better than performing self-injurious behavior (likely because that person is in pain and that is how they are COPING, there's literal research on this on the "Why ABA is Harmful" page on my site that explains this).

4/6

Tell me how they (or anyone) can "enjoy visits with their families" while being electrically shocked and causing 2nd and 3rd degree burns because of it.

5/6

"Congress has explicitly prohibited the FDA from regulating the practice of medicine"

This is not medicine.
This is torture.

This is not a medical device.
This is torture.

This is not okay.
#StopTheShocks #SayNoToABA

6/6

Here is a quote from the research on self-injurious behaviors, and specifically why ABA is utterly unhelpful at "treating" them:

"…physiological responses resulting in pain from non-suicidal self-injury can be an attempt to heal psychological pain or other pain," [cont]
1/

"especially for individuals with an insufficient stress response...Research has been fairly transparent that a high proportion of children with ASD..use challenging behavior as a form of expression,"
2/8

"and even if the behavior is ignored the child will still engage in [self-injurious behavior (SIB)] in order to try to communicate (Chiang, 2008)...A Functional Behavior Assessment or Analysis (FBA) is a method that is widely used in Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) therapy"
3/8

"[The FBA] has been inappropriately applied to address SIB to develop hypotheses as to the internal, invisible processes within a child in order to determine why they are engaging in SIB…"
4/8

the conclusions for the functions of [self-injurious behavior] reached [in ABA] are varied, inconsistent, and without any scientific basis. Therefore, any treatment recommendations that are derived from an FBA should be considered unreliable"
5/8

"since the assessment method in it of itself is unscientific, as it attempts to measure an unobservable construct, which is outside of the sphere of behaviorism and should only be performed by someone trained in psychology..."
6/8

"It is unclear why one would think these responses are appropriate for someone who is engaging in SIB since these responses do not follow any evidenced-based treatment. A psychologist would not respond to any client this way after discovering their client..is engaging in SIB"
7/8

And the actual study is called Treating Self-Injurious Behaviors in autism spectrum disorder, by Shkedy et al. 2019, link is here - tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…

The quote and reference is on my blog page here -
autisticscienceperson.com/why-aba-therap…

8/8

Please continue to fight for the ban on electric shocks, the GED, and torturing autistic people.

The overturning of this ban on electrically shocking autistic people is barbaric. @PattyMurray and @BernieSanders

A personal account from someone who went to JRC:

https://twitter.com/AutSciPerson/status/1412851439496466438?s=20