Alex Karp (he/him) :clippy: on Nostr: Over the years, researchers and therapists have come up with ways of “supporting” ...
Over the years, researchers and therapists have come up with ways of “supporting” autistic people, i.e. helping them be “normal.” The gold standard for this at the moment is what’s called Applied Behavior Analysis. Fun fact: if you Google it, Autism Speaks is the first result.
Applied Behavior Analysis involves identifying “problem behaviors” and attempting to replace them with socially acceptable alternatives. These problem behaviors often come in the form of a list from the family. Autistic children are rewarded for “good behavior” and negative behavior is met with consequences. If this sounds a lot like animal training to you, you’re not wrong! This “therapy” is billed as helping to support autistic children navigate a NT world. But in reality, all it does is train autistic people to fight against the way that their brains work for fear of punishment. It instills the idea that the NT way of thinking is the correct way and that anything else is bad. /2
Applied Behavior Analysis involves identifying “problem behaviors” and attempting to replace them with socially acceptable alternatives. These problem behaviors often come in the form of a list from the family. Autistic children are rewarded for “good behavior” and negative behavior is met with consequences. If this sounds a lot like animal training to you, you’re not wrong! This “therapy” is billed as helping to support autistic children navigate a NT world. But in reality, all it does is train autistic people to fight against the way that their brains work for fear of punishment. It instills the idea that the NT way of thinking is the correct way and that anything else is bad. /2