Thread by @GymRobcom

oireachtas.ie/en/oireachtas-…

I’ve watched the meeting between Irish ABA/PBS lobbies and the Disability matters committee.
The meeting occurred as a response to the committee’s stance against ABA/PBS.

Here’s a summary and my thoughts🪡

#BetterWaysThanABA

1) At 2:14 into the meeting the first practitioner states that “Behavioural analysis is not a therapeutic intervention for autism”.

For the next 90 minutes they spend most of the time talking about behavioural analysis for autism.

2) A lot of things are mentioned about the settings and scenarios where behavioural principles are used.

They don’t talk about how ABA/PBS comes into that.
They’re just saying that behaviour exists as a thing and seem to think they’re making a point.

3) Concerns have been raised by the autistic community ‘and others’

They deliberately left out the ‘others’ are professionals, researchers, survivors, and BCBA’s who’ve left the field.

It’s not just autistics but it’s very clear they’re trying to make this ABA vs Autistics

4) It only took the speaker 4 minutes to talk about how they’re actually the victims and the autistic and ND community are the aggressors.

Does anyone need to be reminded about the research paper Irish ABAers wrote about 2 weeks back? That’s the mentality we’re dealing with

5) Speaker: “There are many autistics and ND people that support us” - no reference given.

What’s many? 2, 200, 2 million?

There’s a lot of this in the 90 minutes. A throwaway piece of PR with nothing to back it up

6) “We wish to engage with those who have concerns regarding ABA”

Since this meeting BCBA’s have been solely contacting parents trying to sway them.

They haven’t contacted professionals who see ABA regularly in practise.

Just parents who may be in crisis mode.

7) Parents who are in crisis mode, vulnerable, wanting to do the best for their child but don’t know who to turn to
- that’s their target market.

It’s not the people who see this practise regularly and or know the research behind it, it’s the people they can manipulate

8) They speak about the need for respectful dialogue between Behavioural Analysts and autistics.

@AnnMemmott do you want to take this one?

How much research is there by people in the field of ABA/PBS that speak about us in a positive, respectful, accepting way?

9) Throughout the meeting there is a lot of neuro-affirming jargon with not a lot of substance to it.

They talk about rights based behaviour analysis but it sounds like basic Neuro-affirmative support work.

I genuinely can’t understand the difference after 90 minutes..

10) If human rights based BA is just support work then why don’t these BCBA’s leave the field of behaviour analysis and just do support work?

The only difference I see is that it’s less harmful, you’ll have less of a god complex from your title, but the money is worse

11) The speaker says there are numerous examples of neuro-affirmative BA but then just give examples that aren’t specific to ABA.

12) “The behavioural science community is at the forefront of supporting people who are self injurious with behavioural health concerns”

No reference given. Again it’s support workers/SCW on the floor that are at the forefront of this. Add in OT’s and SLT’s and it’s covered.

13) A few people on the committee asked about the overuse of chemical restraint

They used human rights jargon each time to sidestep the question.

They kept talking about what ABA could be but not what it currently is, seemingly admitting it’s actually a mess

14) Most of this meeting is about how Irish BA is different to American BA, they say the examples of bad BA come from unqualified therapists using the title

No reference to this statement, I’ve always worked with BCBA’s who had a masters in it and the same harm still exists

15) “ABA isn’t in the medical model in Ireland”

I work with BCBA’s who say it is.

I think them saying it’s not like American BA is so they can say the biggest study ever done on ABA doesn’t apply to them because they’re ‘different’.

It isn’t like Judge Rotenberg centre…

16) A lot of mentions of how Irish BA is better than other forms of BA

Again, no references or examples specific to BA. They speak of how BA is respectful in Ireland. It all seems to be opinions.

Here’s a recent paper by Irish BA’s: iejee.com/index.php/IEJE…

17) One therapist talks about how they quit smoking but in the scenario they had autonomy, could opt out at anytime, they made the plan their self, and knew the consequences of not sticking to it

None of this is BA as it’s applied by BCBA’s regularly in disability services.

18) They speak of how most BA’s understand autistic behaviour

No reference

They mention if they had a code of ethics a parent can contact them saying if it’s harmful.

But the parent mightn’t recognise what’s harmful. The harm mightn’t be noticed for months or years.

19) They talk about an “experts by experience” panel which from what I gather is talking to parents of people who’ve been through ABA.

The only people that would agree to be on this are people that already support ABA.

20) “There will always be individuals who require behavioural supports”

There are no references for anything they’re saying, these are just the opinions of people who financially benefit from saying this.

21) They talked about a BA awareness campaign, but all it sounds like is a PR campaign.

@HollyCairnsTD asked a great question on informed consent which seemed to completely throw them and wasn’t actually answered.

22) In answering they talked about when someone is already in the intervention. They didn’t talk about if the intervention is offered to them or if potential harms are discussed with the person.

They deny the research that it’s harmful so how can they give informed consent?

23) “We want to see behaviour acknowledged as Will and Preference”

This is dangerous and typical ABA.

Anyone can interpret any behaviour any way they want, this is one of the biggest concerns with ABA and they want it to remain a part of it.

24) @HollyCairnsTD asked about the people who oppose ABA.

Speakers mentioned how the autistic community oppose it but “we get agreement and shared understanding” with them

Again, no reference.

Holly didn’t specify she was talking solely about the autistic community.

25) They want to be regulated by other qualified BCBA’s - yes nothing can go wrong there 😐

26) They were asked if they’ve taken the criticisms of researchers, and professionals seriously and spent the next 10-15 minutes talking about death threats they’ve received from autistics.

Nobody should be getting death threats and is hope these are being reported to Gardai.

27) They say 2 of them are autistic and their opinion matters

Absolutely, I mean you are trying to financially benefit from your opinion, but you’re allowed to have it. You’re just not allowed to decide what’s best for an entire community based on your biased opinion.

28) They didn’t answer the question about whether researchers and professionals criticisms are taken seriously.

It was asked a few times, and each time the answer was in line with the narrative;

ABA V Autistics

29) 1 autistic BCBA mentioned how they received “some form” of ABA as a child and it was the most affirming experience of their life

Using their same argument, how do they know what they got was actually ABA or the person wasn’t qualified, could have been basic support work

30) They also name dropped Terra Vance from @NeuroClastic saying they said something positive about BA - but had no reference for where that was said and seems to be another fabricated statement.

31) So to sum up the argument is;

BA is bad but not if you’re qualified, and regulating it solves everything. They didn’t explain what rights based BA is and any examples given just described support work, SLT, OT, or Social care work.

32) They also didn’t differentiate between ABA and PBS, they seemed to speak of behaviour analysis as one thing.
Surely that means there’s actually no difference between the two?

33) They side stepped most genuine concerns, they made lots of vague statements, they didn’t reference anything, there was a lot of opinion statements, they’re the victims, they ignored researcher/professional views etc.

It was a textbook display from them.