4 ms·

ABA is based on the same underlying research that gay conversion therapy uses.

by ddmf 2y ago

raducu 2y ago
I know from various empirical sources that ABA works way better than the alternatives. But how about the gay conversion therapy? Can anybody do any real science on that or any scientist that would touch the topic would have to say goodbye to his career?
- Yawrehto 2y ago
  It "works" by forcing people to hide who they are. It's like saying that you got rid of people with brown hair by making them dye it something else, only instead of hair color it's a fundamental part of who they are and it greatly increases the risk of PTSD and it only works if you're measuring the wrong thing and instead of basing it on the autistic person's ability to be okay it bases it on society's expectations and it's child abuse and just no. When autistic people are speaking[1] out[2] en[3] masse[4] against[5] it[6], would you ignore what they say? When they say[7] it's[8] bad[9] and[10] unethical[11] and[12] abusive[13] do you say that it isn't? When a woman goes to a police station saying that she is a victim of domestic violence, should the police say it works way better than the alternatives? Should they reject her statements that it is harmful and bad? If a child comes up to you and says that their parents are beating them and screaming at them if they do poorly in school, would you say that it works way better than the alternatives? Or is it only okay when the person is autistic? [1] https://a4aontario.com/2018/05/24/why-we-oppose-aba-in-any-form/ https://a4aontario.com/2018/05/24/why-we-oppose-aba-in-any-f... [note: a lot of these are personal blogs] [2] https://autisticselfadvocatesagainstaba.wordpress.com/2020/04/13/problematic-and-traumatic-why-nobody-needs-aba/ https://autisticselfadvocatesagainstaba.wordpress.com/2020/0... [3] https://neurodifferent.me/@joshsusser/111495271981897561 https://neurodifferent.me/@joshsusser/111495271981897561 [4] https://autisticadvocacy.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/First-Hand-Perspectives-on-Behavioral-Interventions-for-Autistic-People-and-People-with-other-Developmental-Disabilities.pdf https://autisticadvocacy.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Firs... [5] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s41252-021-00201-1 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s41252-021-00201-1, by an autistic author. [6] https://autisticscienceperson.com/why-aba-therapy-is-harmful-to-autistic-people/ https://autisticscienceperson.com/why-aba-therapy-is-harmful... [7] https://loveexplosions.net/2013/09/15/touch-nose-gummi-bear-what-is-aba-and-why-does-it-suck/ https://loveexplosions.net/2013/09/15/touch-nose-gummi-bear-... [8] https://www.the74million.org/article/no-more-cures-no-more-fixes-how-autistic-leaders-are-changing-the-therapy-debate/ https://www.the74million.org/article/no-more-cures-no-more-f... [9] https://awnnetwork.org/my-thoughts-on-aba/ https://awnnetwork.org/my-thoughts-on-aba/ [10] https://unstrangemind.com/aba/ https://unstrangemind.com/aba/ [11]https://www.the74million.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Ethical-Concerns-with-Applied-Behavior-Analysis-for-Autism-Spectrum-Disorder-2020-01-01.pdf https://www.the74million.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Ethi... [12] https://stopabasupportautistics.home.blog/2019/08/11/personal-stories-from-those-formerly-enrolled-in-aba/ https://stopabasupportautistics.home.blog/2019/08/11/persona... [13] https://neuroclastic.com/aba-horror-stories-are-far-too-common/ https://neuroclastic.com/aba-horror-stories-are-far-too-comm...
- contravariant 2y ago
  Any real science is probably out of the question, but is that really that unusual? Plenty of subjects are impossible to research for ethical reasons. I think some data on hypothermia is still only known because of some of the terrible things nazis did.
  - benterix 2y ago
    Why in this case though? I imagine someone who is gay may at some point feel they are unhappy with that and see if there are any options for them. If, for political reasons, we treat the whole subject as taboo, it's basically failing vulnerable people who might need help.
    - contravariant 2y ago
      That's a lot of hypotheticals, and frankly that situation is not too unusual in medicine. They take first do no harm quite seriously. Heck we could have gathered quite a lot of very important and useful data by deliberately infecting a few thousand people with Covid, or even just placing them at risk. To my knowledge none of the obvious experiments on the infectiousness of Covid or the effect of countermeasures happened.
      - benterix 2y ago
        I see your point. But I sometimes wonder how much harm we actually do by being afraid to confront the current political opinions. I believe at least in the UK, after the Tavistock scandal, people started asking questions. I mean, you mention taking do no harm seriously, and at the same time doctors give children puberty blockers sometimes after just two visits, knowing it will negatively impact their physical health (bone density, growth, and many others), to move almost all kids on to hormones - in spite of the fact that the study they themselves published shows there are no improvements in their mental health. And people who decided to start asking questions faced a lot of negativity, just for trying to understand how things really are.
        2y ago
- mschuster91 2y ago
  > I know from various empirical sources that ABA works way better than the alternatives. The question is which definition of "works" you're using. If you're defining "it works" as "the person is able to live in society", then yes, the victim of "classic" ABA may be a "member of society"... but if you include "the person is a mentally stable and healthy individual", then not. Mentally, the victim will be completely broken and traumatized, often enough going through many suicide attempts until they succeed. ABA is torture, so is "gay/trans conversion therapy", and IMHO those advocating it, supporting it or tolerating it should be treated like everyone else involved with torture: lock them up, and in the USA where capital punishment is still on the books, go through with it. Actual "behavioral therapy", aka teaching people with autism how to communicate their needs or how to manage frustration [1], is a completely different beast, and that actually works. Unfortunately, it's difficult to find out what "therapy" scheme will be used, and there's an awful lot of ABA peddlers out there. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/15jayxu/comment/juzra95/ https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/15jayxu/...
  - raducu 2y ago
    >. "the person is a mentally stable and healthy individual", then not. Some 4 years ago I went through an autism scare with my daughter and booked a 2 day course for parents of children with autism about ABA therapy, held by one of the first parents who cured autism in his child in my country. One of the best courses in my life, and if we could clone that guy and his team, I'm sure ABA therapy would be a lot more efective and the world would be a better place. Anyway, my daughter was completely neurotypical (the trainers explained that even though she was 1.3 years old and nobody could say for sure at that age, a lot of items in her behavior were neurotypical and how those items would have differed in a child with autism). There's a huge deal we don't know yet (why 40-50% of children are completely unresponsive to ABA), and ABA is a huge umbrela for a vast array of techniques, but I'm convinced the approach is solid, and the way to go forward. The issue is the really experienced people who know the high level stuff in ABA go to the "supervisor"/therapy planner role and they work with therapists of various levels in individual therapies. I was taken aback when they showed us the cognitive/emotional skill sets/inventory for children at various ages. There are HUNDREDS of items they work on and evaluate on. For each one of those skills there are a few known therapies. Working on each one takes time. Some skills build on other skills. It's probably impossible that a single therapist has all the right personal skills and personal chemistry with a child to work on all the skills. And it's usually a race against time. So you have a supervisor, a team of 2-3 therapists that work with a child for 8 hours a day. It's very expensive when done right. It's impossible that mistakes are not made, and I'm talking if you get the best supervisors money can buy, the best therapists money can buy, which is usually not the case. The information about the inventory of cognitive/emotional skills ABA has to train in order to "cure" autism made me realize just how complex human beings are, and I'm surprised given this information that the incidence of mental issues is so LOW in the general population, given how many things can go wrong with the human psyche when developing. But the approach seemed very solid, scientific and professional, though misunderstood by many and I'm sure mistakes are impossible to avoid. I've seen other "psychologists" of dubious lineages and while I've only seen a few, the difference was just staggering -- the ABA guys looked like professionals knowing their stuff, knowing their limitations, while the various mono-therapists looked like complete amateurs and full of shit. So I do have faith and hope that in the future, as ABA is refined, things will get better, but the bad labels ABA gets are hurting progress a lot more than they help.
JohnBooty 2y ago
Wow, this is a big statement. Can you explain further? Specifically: is the technique itself cruel or otherwise unethical? Or is gay conversion therapy an unethical application of an otherwise ethical treatment? I could (and am) googling this, but as with any topic there's a lot of poisoned and contradictory information...
- Yawrehto 2y ago
  Yes, the technique is cruel. Basically, it involves taking kids, giving them 'good' feedback - eg, access to a toy - if they mask, or act like they are not autistic. It gives them punishments, which in some cases is electric shocks if they misbehave - which can mean anything from not making eye contact to lashing out because they cannot get the bad things to stop and they need it to stop. Other common punishments include forcing kids to touch or smell things they dislike. A common reward is something like getting your tablet back. Many autistic people are nonverbal, so they are removing their ability to communicate and expecting them not to try communicating by, say, lashing out or having a meltdown when the bad things keep happening. The goal of the program is not to help, as therapy does. It does not allow them to explore possible coping mechanisms, eg headphones or fidgets, to find ones that work well. It says that their autism - a facet of who they are - is bad. They do not allow autistic children to stim, or repetitively do an action. While some stims can be bad (eg my childhood stim of picking at my skin), that is not because stimming is inherently bad but because the particular mechanism is bad. The way I stopped picking at my skin (mostly) was by redirecting it, eg by using fidgets or by finding something that feels the same but is less harmful. (I'd be getting my fingers covered in kid-strength glue a lot more often if it wasn't inconvenient.) Stimming is important for coping with stress and regulating emotions. Plus, they're enjoyable. ABA also leads to nearly 50 percent of people who are forced to undergo it having PTSD. (Autistic people are at a higher risk for having PTSD, but it is still a marked increase.) It is child abuse, plain and simple. There is no possible justification for it, and it is absurd and terrible that when it is being inflicted on autistic children it turns from child abuse into 'therapy' and gains any measure of acceptance. A great resource on it is here: https://autisticselfadvocatesagainstaba.wordpress.com/2020/04/13/problematic-and-traumatic-why-nobody-needs-aba/ https://autisticselfadvocatesagainstaba.wordpress.com/2020/0.... A fair amount of the specific details of ABA are from here, as I - thankfully - have not undergone ABA. (If you want a more reputable source than random Wordpress blogs, the Autistic Self Advocacy Network [https://autisticadvocacy.org https://autisticadvocacy.org] also condemns it.) Also, when over half and possibly nearly 9 out of 10 autistic women have been sexually assaulted (!) [see https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9087551/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9087551/], teaching kids that adults can touch their bodies how they want and they don't get a say in it might not be the best idea.

ABA is based on the same underlying research that gay conversion therapy uses.

by ddmf 2y ago

ABA is based on the same underlying research that gay conversion therapy uses.

I know from various empirical sources that ABA works way better than the alternatives. But how about the gay conversion therapy? Can anybody do any real science on that or any scientist that would touch the topic would have to say goodbye to his career?

Yawrehto 2y ago
It "works" by forcing people to hide who they are. It's like saying that you got rid of people with brown hair by making them dye it something else, only instead of hair color it's a fundamental part of who they are and it greatly increases the risk of PTSD and it only works if you're measuring the wrong thing and instead of basing it on the autistic person's ability to be okay it bases it on society's expectations and it's child abuse and just no. When autistic people are speaking[1] out[2] en[3] masse[4] against[5] it[6], would you ignore what they say? When they say[7] it's[8] bad[9] and[10] unethical[11] and[12] abusive[13] do you say that it isn't? When a woman goes to a police station saying that she is a victim of domestic violence, should the police say it works way better than the alternatives? Should they reject her statements that it is harmful and bad? If a child comes up to you and says that their parents are beating them and screaming at them if they do poorly in school, would you say that it works way better than the alternatives? Or is it only okay when the person is autistic? [1] https://a4aontario.com/2018/05/24/why-we-oppose-aba-in-any-form/ https://a4aontario.com/2018/05/24/why-we-oppose-aba-in-any-f... [note: a lot of these are personal blogs] [2] https://autisticselfadvocatesagainstaba.wordpress.com/2020/04/13/problematic-and-traumatic-why-nobody-needs-aba/ https://autisticselfadvocatesagainstaba.wordpress.com/2020/0... [3] https://neurodifferent.me/@joshsusser/111495271981897561 https://neurodifferent.me/@joshsusser/111495271981897561 [4] https://autisticadvocacy.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/First-Hand-Perspectives-on-Behavioral-Interventions-for-Autistic-People-and-People-with-other-Developmental-Disabilities.pdf https://autisticadvocacy.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Firs... [5] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s41252-021-00201-1 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s41252-021-00201-1, by an autistic author. [6] https://autisticscienceperson.com/why-aba-therapy-is-harmful-to-autistic-people/ https://autisticscienceperson.com/why-aba-therapy-is-harmful... [7] https://loveexplosions.net/2013/09/15/touch-nose-gummi-bear-what-is-aba-and-why-does-it-suck/ https://loveexplosions.net/2013/09/15/touch-nose-gummi-bear-... [8] https://www.the74million.org/article/no-more-cures-no-more-fixes-how-autistic-leaders-are-changing-the-therapy-debate/ https://www.the74million.org/article/no-more-cures-no-more-f... [9] https://awnnetwork.org/my-thoughts-on-aba/ https://awnnetwork.org/my-thoughts-on-aba/ [10] https://unstrangemind.com/aba/ https://unstrangemind.com/aba/ [11]https://www.the74million.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Ethical-Concerns-with-Applied-Behavior-Analysis-for-Autism-Spectrum-Disorder-2020-01-01.pdf https://www.the74million.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Ethi... [12] https://stopabasupportautistics.home.blog/2019/08/11/personal-stories-from-those-formerly-enrolled-in-aba/ https://stopabasupportautistics.home.blog/2019/08/11/persona... [13] https://neuroclastic.com/aba-horror-stories-are-far-too-common/ https://neuroclastic.com/aba-horror-stories-are-far-too-comm...
contravariant 2y ago
Any real science is probably out of the question, but is that really that unusual? Plenty of subjects are impossible to research for ethical reasons. I think some data on hypothermia is still only known because of some of the terrible things nazis did.
- benterix 2y ago
  Why in this case though? I imagine someone who is gay may at some point feel they are unhappy with that and see if there are any options for them. If, for political reasons, we treat the whole subject as taboo, it's basically failing vulnerable people who might need help.
  - contravariant 2y ago
    That's a lot of hypotheticals, and frankly that situation is not too unusual in medicine. They take first do no harm quite seriously. Heck we could have gathered quite a lot of very important and useful data by deliberately infecting a few thousand people with Covid, or even just placing them at risk. To my knowledge none of the obvious experiments on the infectiousness of Covid or the effect of countermeasures happened.
    - benterix 2y ago
      I see your point. But I sometimes wonder how much harm we actually do by being afraid to confront the current political opinions. I believe at least in the UK, after the Tavistock scandal, people started asking questions. I mean, you mention taking do no harm seriously, and at the same time doctors give children puberty blockers sometimes after just two visits, knowing it will negatively impact their physical health (bone density, growth, and many others), to move almost all kids on to hormones - in spite of the fact that the study they themselves published shows there are no improvements in their mental health. And people who decided to start asking questions faced a lot of negativity, just for trying to understand how things really are.
      - 2y ago
mschuster91 2y ago
> I know from various empirical sources that ABA works way better than the alternatives. The question is which definition of "works" you're using. If you're defining "it works" as "the person is able to live in society", then yes, the victim of "classic" ABA may be a "member of society"... but if you include "the person is a mentally stable and healthy individual", then not. Mentally, the victim will be completely broken and traumatized, often enough going through many suicide attempts until they succeed. ABA is torture, so is "gay/trans conversion therapy", and IMHO those advocating it, supporting it or tolerating it should be treated like everyone else involved with torture: lock them up, and in the USA where capital punishment is still on the books, go through with it. Actual "behavioral therapy", aka teaching people with autism how to communicate their needs or how to manage frustration [1], is a completely different beast, and that actually works. Unfortunately, it's difficult to find out what "therapy" scheme will be used, and there's an awful lot of ABA peddlers out there. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/15jayxu/comment/juzra95/ https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/15jayxu/...
- raducu 2y ago
  >. "the person is a mentally stable and healthy individual", then not. Some 4 years ago I went through an autism scare with my daughter and booked a 2 day course for parents of children with autism about ABA therapy, held by one of the first parents who cured autism in his child in my country. One of the best courses in my life, and if we could clone that guy and his team, I'm sure ABA therapy would be a lot more efective and the world would be a better place. Anyway, my daughter was completely neurotypical (the trainers explained that even though she was 1.3 years old and nobody could say for sure at that age, a lot of items in her behavior were neurotypical and how those items would have differed in a child with autism). There's a huge deal we don't know yet (why 40-50% of children are completely unresponsive to ABA), and ABA is a huge umbrela for a vast array of techniques, but I'm convinced the approach is solid, and the way to go forward. The issue is the really experienced people who know the high level stuff in ABA go to the "supervisor"/therapy planner role and they work with therapists of various levels in individual therapies. I was taken aback when they showed us the cognitive/emotional skill sets/inventory for children at various ages. There are HUNDREDS of items they work on and evaluate on. For each one of those skills there are a few known therapies. Working on each one takes time. Some skills build on other skills. It's probably impossible that a single therapist has all the right personal skills and personal chemistry with a child to work on all the skills. And it's usually a race against time. So you have a supervisor, a team of 2-3 therapists that work with a child for 8 hours a day. It's very expensive when done right. It's impossible that mistakes are not made, and I'm talking if you get the best supervisors money can buy, the best therapists money can buy, which is usually not the case. The information about the inventory of cognitive/emotional skills ABA has to train in order to "cure" autism made me realize just how complex human beings are, and I'm surprised given this information that the incidence of mental issues is so LOW in the general population, given how many things can go wrong with the human psyche when developing. But the approach seemed very solid, scientific and professional, though misunderstood by many and I'm sure mistakes are impossible to avoid. I've seen other "psychologists" of dubious lineages and while I've only seen a few, the difference was just staggering -- the ABA guys looked like professionals knowing their stuff, knowing their limitations, while the various mono-therapists looked like complete amateurs and full of shit. So I do have faith and hope that in the future, as ABA is refined, things will get better, but the bad labels ABA gets are hurting progress a lot more than they help.

JohnBooty 2y ago

Wow, this is a big statement. Can you explain further? Specifically: is the technique itself cruel or otherwise unethical? Or is gay conversion therapy an unethical application of an otherwise ethical treatment? I could (and am) googling this, but as with any topic there's a lot of poisoned and contradictory information...

Yawrehto 2y ago
Yes, the technique is cruel. Basically, it involves taking kids, giving them 'good' feedback - eg, access to a toy - if they mask, or act like they are not autistic. It gives them punishments, which in some cases is electric shocks if they misbehave - which can mean anything from not making eye contact to lashing out because they cannot get the bad things to stop and they need it to stop. Other common punishments include forcing kids to touch or smell things they dislike. A common reward is something like getting your tablet back. Many autistic people are nonverbal, so they are removing their ability to communicate and expecting them not to try communicating by, say, lashing out or having a meltdown when the bad things keep happening. The goal of the program is not to help, as therapy does. It does not allow them to explore possible coping mechanisms, eg headphones or fidgets, to find ones that work well. It says that their autism - a facet of who they are - is bad. They do not allow autistic children to stim, or repetitively do an action. While some stims can be bad (eg my childhood stim of picking at my skin), that is not because stimming is inherently bad but because the particular mechanism is bad. The way I stopped picking at my skin (mostly) was by redirecting it, eg by using fidgets or by finding something that feels the same but is less harmful. (I'd be getting my fingers covered in kid-strength glue a lot more often if it wasn't inconvenient.) Stimming is important for coping with stress and regulating emotions. Plus, they're enjoyable. ABA also leads to nearly 50 percent of people who are forced to undergo it having PTSD. (Autistic people are at a higher risk for having PTSD, but it is still a marked increase.) It is child abuse, plain and simple. There is no possible justification for it, and it is absurd and terrible that when it is being inflicted on autistic children it turns from child abuse into 'therapy' and gains any measure of acceptance. A great resource on it is here: https://autisticselfadvocatesagainstaba.wordpress.com/2020/04/13/problematic-and-traumatic-why-nobody-needs-aba/ https://autisticselfadvocatesagainstaba.wordpress.com/2020/0.... A fair amount of the specific details of ABA are from here, as I - thankfully - have not undergone ABA. (If you want a more reputable source than random Wordpress blogs, the Autistic Self Advocacy Network [https://autisticadvocacy.org https://autisticadvocacy.org] also condemns it.) Also, when over half and possibly nearly 9 out of 10 autistic women have been sexually assaulted (!) [see https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9087551/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9087551/], teaching kids that adults can touch their bodies how they want and they don't get a say in it might not be the best idea.