#Sounds like a guy called Oliver doing a bad job at hoding

[dark-raven-feathers]

That sounds like the most made up name ever

hey! i came across your blog and saw that you said pro-aba dni. i hope this is okay to ask but i was wondering if i could get your perspective on aba. if you need/want to stop reading now because the topic is upsetting/annoying/anything else, then i totally get it and you don’t need to go further or respond. i wanna start off by saying that i only know what i was taught, which is that aba is a good thing. anyways i worked as a special education teacher at an elementary school where a lot of my students had rbt’s with them for all/most of the day. in our case, a lot of those rbt’s were there to prevent students from harming themselves or others. i will say that i have certainly seen some questionable aba being done (there were several different companies providing services and their procedural differences could be glaringly frustrating). but none of my students were capable of articulating how they felt about their rbt and/or aba as a whole so i was looking to see why people are opposed to the practice. i mean i can see how making a child change their behavior as a way to fit into “normal” society (a stupid concept bc normal is bs) can be troubling, but i could also see that some good can come out of it, as far as harm reduction goes. coming from a psych background i can see how teaching kids to adjust their behavior in order to keep them safe is a good thing. but if the practice as a whole isn’t good then do you know of an alternative that is effective? (as far as reducing harm/injury goes.) i apologize if this seems extremely ignorant of me but i am genuinely curious to get an autistic kid’s point of view. especially if they have personal experience with it, but even if they don’t. since this is relevant to my career field, i don’t want to go about thinking that aba is effective if it actually is quite the opposite. i’m also not looking to glorify/make excuses for aba if it’s a bad thing. sorry for the novel of an ask. i appreciate you taking the time to read this. again, don’t feel like you have to answer if this is a stupid or pointless thing to talk about. i’m not looking to waste your time. thanks again.

(TW FOR ABA, ABUSE, TRAUMA, ETC.)

I was in ABA when I was 11 or so. The goal of the therapists was to make me suppress my emotions, and mask. I was forced into overstimulating environments and was not allowed to leave, I was yelled at, I was taught I am not allowed to say no to anything, etc.

The experience was traumatic, and I still struggle with a lot of panic attacks and nightmares related to it.

And no, I'm not quite sure of a way to reduce harmful stims. I have quite a few harmful stims too, but from my experience ABA made them a lot worse, whilst also making my mental health horrible. Sometimes finding alternatives to those stims are good. I tend to bite the insides of my mouth a really severe amount, and chewies don't fix the problem, but they are helpful for harm reduction sometimes.