Thread by @ekverstania

“Building a Person”: Legal and Clinical Personhood for Autistic and Trans Children in Ontario (by @JakePyne)

"Despite open violence, Lovaas framed ABA as compassionate... Despite uncertain evidence, he presented ABA as scientific..."

cambridge.org/core/journals/…

"Psychologist George Rekers, a key figure in the world of conversion therapy (and co-founder of the notoriously anti-gay Family Research Council), used Lovaas’s techniques to treat so-called “deviant sex-role behaviors” in male children."
— @AlexKronstein nsadvocate.org/2018/07/11/tre…

The man behind ex-gay “conversion therapy” started out trying to make autistic children “normal”:
"Both projects were based on the same fundamental view: that it’s easier to change a child’s behavior than it is to destigmatize that behavior in society"

lgbtqnation.com/2021/03/man-be…

"Their justification for the experiments they subjected him to was that it’s more difficult to modify society’s behavior than [the child's behaviour]." — Sebastian Rubino, on #ConversionTherapy

It's time to ban ALL forms of #ConversionTherapy. It's time to dismantle the multibillion dollar #ABA industry founded on the work of Lovaas, where 'therapists' use operant conditioning to train non-autistic behaviour into autistic people.

https://twitter.com/ekverstania/status/1422136347834425344

"He used electric shock on them... shocking them if they didn’t hug him or the other experimenter in less than three seconds. Lovaas considered the experiment a “success” because the twins’ behavior “changed markedly toward increased affection.” #ABAisAbuse #ConversionTherapy

There is a Web of people and organisations complicit to the abuse.

https://twitter.com/ekverstania/status/1414982927373455361

Banning electric shocks is not enough; there are plenty of other ways of doing #ConversionTherapy.

https://twitter.com/ekverstania/status/1414687669410537472

Planned Ignoring also works to break down a vulnerable person and makes them realise that you're not going to support them unless they act in ways that you deem correct, and don't express their distress.

https://twitter.com/annmemmott/status/1302994346078351361

For some autistic people, though, it is simply impossible to move their bodies to comply with the demands of the 'therapist'. (People don't get to choose the design of their nervous system.) #ConversionTherapy tania.co.za/behaviour-is-c…

"Over the next several years, I went to court five times in an attempt to halt the administration of ABA and to protect my son against continued injuries." (The author is an ABA survivor. Her child died in an ABA related injury.) trace.tennessee.edu/cgi/viewconten…

She's not the only one who repeatedly tried to stop the American government from abusing her disabled child.

Ban this abuse. Ban #ConversionTherapy. #BanABA. The BACB, CARD and ABAI are complicit. The US government funds torture. Ban this everywhere.

https://twitter.com/NeuroClastic/status/1146606010502668292

Many think that #ABA is probably necessary for the "low-functioning" people, even though it would be traumatic for "high-functioning" autistic people—almost as though they don't really think disabled people with high support needs are... people.

#LISTEN!

https://twitter.com/ekverstania/status/1360724255906873344

Well, guess what! That is EXACTLY what Lovaas said too: they're not people! And through torture, you can "build a person".

#ListenToNonspeakers and stop subjecting autistic people to government-sponsored #ConversionTherapy!

https://twitter.com/ekverstania/status/1361772450778910722

Stop colonising Africa with this brutality. #BanABA

https://twitter.com/ekverstania/status/1412874077098946571