So many American and Canadian parents of autistic children are being given no options but ABA. If they refuse direct ABA, people in charge slip the ABA methods into speech therapy, classroom practices or anywhere they can.
I'm seeing parents ask in Facebook groups how they...
I'm seeing parents ask in Facebook groups how they...
...can get their children out of this, but they are being blocked all over. Even when officials agree not to use ABA, things happen that lead them to investigate what's going on, and you find out ABA-based approaches were used anyway, they just didn't call it that.
While all these people have this odd idea about 'evidence-based practice', they are unable to face the evidence playing out in front of them.
Once an autistic man and I did a talk at a school for autistic children, and afterwards a leading teacher (HOD) who was retiring after many years of service and going into private practice chatted to us further.
She was surprised to learn from us that many autistic people experience hyperempathy, because she'd been taught we don't experience empathy.
"But haven't you noticed..." I began, and described the many ways in which children's hyperempathy shows in a classroom situation, like how they read your mood and react to the vibes you bring into the room from home.
"Yes, wow," she mused, saying that she'd experienced that for sure, she just never made the connection before.
And this wasn't even a North American school where they do ABA; it's a well-known South African school for autistic children, mainly centred around TEACCH.
This is why the number of years someone has spent working with autistic people means NOTHING to me.
You can be there all those years and still not understand the basics, because you're still viewing every experience through the lens of what you were taught, which was distorted.
You can be there all those years and still not understand the basics, because you're still viewing every experience through the lens of what you were taught, which was distorted.
There's got to be a different way of training 'special needs' professionals.
Because this isn't effective:
Because this isn't effective:
https://twitter.com/ekverstania/status/1343361502506586114
If every step of the educator or therapist's learning is based on ableism, encrusted with ableism, designed to reinforce, reward and celebrate ableism, then don't be surprised if every aspect of your autistic child's education is informed by... ableism.
https://twitter.com/ekverstania/status/1550181613992132609?t=44e1X0O6nTgmOdH9Jv1exQ&s=19
And don't be overly oppressed when people in traditionally oppressive roles suddenly start spouting the vocabulary of social justice.
https://twitter.com/ekverstania/status/1543935586913992705?t=44e1X0O6nTgmOdH9Jv1exQ&s=19
I think I need to point out that the same thing applies to us at autistic activists. We can easily think that because we're autistic ourselves, and we have a big Twitter/TikTok following, or we wrote a book and we know not to say 'low-functioning', we must be an 'autism expert'.
Just when I think I know the basics of autism and the most salient factors in autistic health and communication struggles (my focus areas in advocacy), some new piece of information comes along and shakes my whole paradigm.
Some of the keywords and names that mark key points along my learning journey (in no particular order):
Motor loops.
Ion channels and channelopathies.
Intersectionality.
Anti-racism.
Craniocervical instability (CCI), Chiari Type II malformation, tethered cord.
Vagus nerve.
Disability (versus disorder), the social model of disability, and the human rights approach to disability.
Dan Bergmann and Elizabeth Bonker.
Amy Sequenzia.
Plural people.
I don't think most of these are normally on the list of topics in any standard autism course. (If there is such a thing as a standard autism course!)
More:
Temporal lobe epilepsy.
Apraxia, disinhibition, dysregulation and the cerebellum.
#CRPD Comment Note 7 of 2018.
Arnstein's Ladder of Participation (thanks, @AnnMemmott).
Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome/connective tissue disorders and mast cell disorders.
There's this refrain among ABA people, that's the equivalent of saying lalalala whilst blocking your ears when you don't want to listen to anyone. It's a similarly meaningless sound. It goes like this:
Why meaningless? I mean, 'evidence-based' sounds sooo scientific and logical and formal and true and trustworthy.
So, I'm working on a thread to explain the poppycock reasoning behind ABA's 'evidence-based' chorus, but until the thread has more substance to it, you can follow @KristenBott, one of the researchers who's published papers on these evidence claims.
https://twitter.com/ekverstania/status/1553166192608772097?t=mQJcSCEBvlCxwt2r-xhalg&s=19
Here's an interview with @KristenBott about some of the pervasive problems in ABA research.
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