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Ann Memmott PgC MA (She/They) 🌈 Profile picture
@AnnMemmott
Dec 13 • 10 tweets • 3 min read Twitter logo Read on Twitter
Sigh. Brand new ABA. An 8 month old baby is given ABA to enforce use of hand signals from them.

I am especially concerned about this:
/ link.springer.com/article/10.100…
Chart from the link, showing the amount of crying from the baby during the ABA. See description in posts.
It shows how long the baby was crying for, during ABA.
At about session 18, the baby was crying intensely.
Then the crying stopped.
The team claim a success.
What was the success? Teaching a baby that the team will keep doing ABA whether you cry or not? Mmm?/
The team are clear about aims. This snip from the link above:
Stop the baby crying.
Stop the baby 'whining'.
Stop the baby climbing.

Stop the baby being a baby and learning in ways that reflect their (possibly) autistic neurology, it would appear, therefore?
It's a no from me. Teaching an infant manual signs is beneficial as it promotes early communication, improves socialization, and can functionally replace behaviors such as crying and whining. Improving early communication also may reduce the probability of an infant engaging in dangerous behaviour, like unsafe climbing.
Oh yes - I nearly forgot. Assent. Ahem... "Participant assent was obtained before and throughout each session". From an 8 month old baby.
O...K....
I've never read anything like it. Image
Doesn't appear to be a word in there about long term follow up for adverse effects.
But, this is ABA, of course - and what a team... (some interesting names in there...).
So it's not relevant as to whether they hurt the baby, as long as the baby performs?
Here's a bit of the Discussion, from the paper.
"Current CDC milestones suggest a child should be able to point...at 15 months old. In the spirit of 'why wait? [we made the baby do it at half the age]..."
They claim this may stop 'problem behavior'.
I just can't even.. Image
If you know any actual baby development specialists, please let them have sight of this and get their views.
gives the NHS guidance on assent. It's a no from the NHS.hra.nhs.uk/planning-and-i…
This is a snip from that NHS link on assent from young children. Very, very clearly a baby cannot provide meaningful assent. The adults remain wholly responsible. Image
I am grateful to wise contributors who have pointed out that if you stop a baby crying and teach it to sign instead, what happens if the baby is out of sight and gets into danger?
The chances of the baby dying are, I would suggest, far higher after this 'intervention'.

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More from @AnnMemmott

Ann Memmott PgC MA (She/They) 🌈 Profile picture
Dec 3
I read so much misinformation about our lovely autistic people.
Occasionally, it's useful for us to look at what the actual research says, rather than what a few people say in the media to get themselves more clicks. This is a thread/
How many lovely autistic people? Well, about 1 in 30 of everyone you know.
Your family members, maybe.
Your neighbours.
Your work colleagues.
Your medical professionals.
Your shopkeepers.
Your emergency service personnel.
Teachers.
Parents.
Grandparents.
Friends/
What sort of lovely autistic people?
People of all genders.
People of all ages.
People of all backgrounds.
People of all ethnicities and faiths.
Extravert people.
Introvert people.
Artists, musicians, dancers, philosophers, faith leaders/
Read 18 tweets
Ann Memmott PgC MA (She/They) 🌈 Profile picture
Nov 27
Today, friends, I'd like your help in explaining something.
Specifically, people who say, "But if you're not polite & nice when talking about the practices uncovered in some ABA settings, people won't listen or want to change it. You have to win their co-operation."

Comments?
PS, as ever, I tend to use the 'like' button to acknowledge I've read a comment.
Thank you to all contributing here. It's an important discussion, because even bigger organisations get caught in the 'teach autistic to be polite, or we won't listen to them being in pain' thing.
I'll add this as a thinking point. It's a favourite of mine, when considering the communication of any marginalised community.
Is telling distressed autistic people to be nicer about what caused them harm a form of Tone Policing? everydayfeminism.com/2015/12/tone-p…
This is from the link, the Why Does Tone Policing Happen slide. There is a transcript at the link as well.
Read 7 tweets
Ann Memmott PgC MA (She/They) 🌈 Profile picture
Nov 2
Aha. Thread.
It's the latest research on Positive Behaviour Support (based on ABA), and whether it makes people with learning disabilities less 'irritable' and less 'lethargic'.
By gum, there's some findings in this.
Let's have a look.
Here's the link: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ja…
Let's remind ourselves that Positive Behaviour Support (PBS) is the approved way of dealing with autistic people & people with learning disabilities in hospitals, care homes etc. So, logically, it's good really good evidence of working, yes?
Has it?
Here we go/
This team found 167 people with learning disabilities (in the US, that's called 'intellectual disabilities'). Their staff did PBS on 72 of them, with data taken before staff PBS training, half way through, when they finished PBS training, & 6 mths after training/
Read 14 tweets
Ann Memmott PgC MA (She/They) 🌈 Profile picture
Oct 26
Whilst we're here, "Level 1, 2 and 3 autism".
The fiction that there are three neat categories into which we can be placed, which apply to everything we are and do, which are caused solely by 'autism', and which stay the same for life. Really?
Let's think about this/
I started life as a nonspeaking autistic child, terrified of changes in routine, flapping and rocking in a corner, lining things up, completely bewildered about how to relate to others.
So, level 3, yes?/
...and through the next decade, taught myself to speak to others. Heck it went wrong, time after time. Wrong timings, voice tone, content - whatever I said was WRONG & often got me further isolated. But I had been punished into not flapping & rocking. So, level 2, eh?/
Read 16 tweets
Ann Memmott PgC MA (She/They) 🌈 Profile picture
Oct 15
Sigh. Thread.
A research team decided that 37% of autistic children diagnosed when very young ...and then are given normalisation-enforcement, don't look & behave like they are autistic by the time they're 5-7 yrs old. Thus are not autistic/
jamanetwork.com/journals/jamap…
There's so much that worries me in this.
For a start, they weren't comparing like for like. The initial diagnosis and the re-testing were different, by different teams. At least they admit that - but in the press reports, it's being hyped up as a success for ABA (!)/
Worrying also, apparently more of the girls seemed not to be autistic any more.
What do we know about enforced normalisation and its harms?
What do we know about teams failing to spot autistic girls?/
Read 9 tweets
Ann Memmott PgC MA (She/They) 🌈 Profile picture
Oct 8
Today we will look at another way that teams attempt to erase authentic autistic behaviour from autistic children - and replace it with them acting like nonautistic children - then describing this as a success.
PECS cards.
We start with this paper.
/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37803891/
This team of ABA enthusiasts noticed that previous PECS teams have reported this 'success'.
One such team was who <checks notes> picked 17 young autistic boys and one (yes one) young autistic girl.
Then, took their favourite stuff away from them and/onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.…
...enforced nonautistic behaviour, by only giving them their favourite stuff back if they Played Properly. Properly, the reader may understand, means 'do it my way, whether that's meaningful to you or not, because I know best' /
Read 11 tweets

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