cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/17147012
"Sometimes people use “respect” to mean “treating someone like a person” and sometimes they use “respect” to mean “treating someone like an authority”
and sometimes people who are used to being treated like an authority say “if you won’t respect me I won’t respect you” and they mean “if you won’t treat me like an authority I won’t treat you like a person”
and they think they’re being fair but they aren’t, and it’s not okay."
-a 15yo autistic girl experiencing ABA therapy
Yep, like anything with the goal of changing behaviors it all comes down to what behaviors you're targeting, why you're targeting them, and how you're planning to discourage the targeted behavior and enforce the desired replacement.
It's great if you're trying to change behaviors that cause the autistic person distress and interfere with them living a fulfilling and happy life, but horrible if you're aim is to just enforce blind conformity for the sake of it.
My wife is autistic as are at least 2 of our 3 kids, with the third awaiting his own evaluation. She studied ABA in college because when you tell a woman with autism and severe OCD that actually a lot of human behavior is ordered and explainable if you understand the underlying reasons the behaviors exist she tends to jump on it to explain all of the "stupid social bullshit" she's had to deal with all her life.
Even if there are behaviours which the autistic person wants to have fixed, aba is a bad way about going around it.
It (and conversation therapy, which is based on the same idea) are based on an outdated theory that everything is a "behaviour" and can be cured by forming habits. That is, you can cure autistic traits with practice and repetition in the same way that you can force yourself to walk every day to make that a habit.
That's not the case; they aren't behaviours that can be "trained away". The "cure" should be working with the person to find effective coping strategies.
Imagine you had a broken leg, and rather than getting it put into a cast, they instead forced you to walk for a mile a day on because "not being able to walk interferes with your ability to live a fulfilling and happy life".