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beetrans · 2 days ago

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TW: ABA therapy in detail

me n my best friend were talking about ABA and actually specifically talking about talking

did you know ABA therapists try to act as speech therapists without being speech therapists? in fact most, if not all, ABA centers do not have a speech therapist on their team!

at my ABA center they would attempt to force all the kids to use oral speech. ABA therapy is disproportionately used for higher support needs kids who are more likely to have lower speaking abilities if they have the ability at all.

many of the kids there would only speak in a few words or sentences and one was unable to speak at all. kids were denied AAC if they had any speaking ability because they wanted to "encourage speech" and thought AAC would discourage it (something disproven by studies many times). they were constantly scolded and told to "use their words" when they were upset or wanted something. they would try to teach them to talk by forcing them into it.

the one girl who was allowed AAC was the girl who had no speaking ability. she was treated like a puppy doing tricks whenever she would use her AAC device to talk. most of the time she too was denied AAC. the therapists would talk behind her back about "how smart she is to use that tablet" and "how good she is at it" all while denying it to her. they would put her in bad sensory environments without any way to communicate. as my best friend said, this was essentially torturing her.

even kids who could usually speak were scolded when losing speech. if a person who had more speaking ability shut down and lost that speech they were scolded and "lost points" (<- forgot the actual terminology used) for not "using our words."

we were expected to talk the entire time even if we were tired and wanted a break. (everyone at the center struggled with speech to some degree) I really do mean the entire time. these sessions were multiple hours long. we weren't allowed to do things silently. I don't know how much this standard was applied to the kids with less speaking ability but I imagine their experience was similar.

speaking was mandatory to access food or water. particularly those of us with more significant speech problems were expected to ask for it 2, 3 times using verbal speech if we wanted it. it was withheld if they couldn't.

speech was not just expected it was mandatory and failing meant your time in hell was longer. they did not want to focus on building effective communication (which is honestly something an SLP should be doing) they wanted to force speech. it didn't matter that this would not work for many of the kids, that being nonverbal or losing speech are not choices someone makes or something in our control. they didn't care.

reblogs okay (and encouraged)

#aba #abuse #child abuse #D #literally aba 🤝 conversion ''therapy''#and some of these ''psych'' kids (look I have little respect for Psychology TM but ppl training to do ABA don't even hit that)#truly would ''never treat a dog that way''#but have No Problem pretending? believing? that autistic kids aren't HURT by what they're doing #something something look who's missing a theory of mind now

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viridescenttemple · 9 months ago

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