Photo by Alexander Krivitskiy (edited by me)
Earlier this year I published a short article on this topic, based on a thread I wrote on Twitter. This is the longer version which I wrote at the time.
The ABAI and BACB provide a platform for torture
Here’s what I see in the lethargic response from most ABAI Conference 2019 delegates towards the idea of condemning torture:
The ABAI leadership and conferencegoers actually don’t care about human rights because they don’t care about humans.
There’s no point anymore in trying to persuade them to care. All that remains now is to show those who do care that the ABAI is a despicable institution, and that membership and adherence to its code of ethics is merely a pact of honour among thieves.
Next time someone says “My ABA isn’t like that!” ask: Are you/your professional body a member of the ABAI? Because then you are supporting and paying an organisation that condones and facilitates abuse.
Would your professional certification as an ABA professional be revoked if you tortured people? BCBAs at the Judge Rotenberg Center haven’t had theirs revoked, because the Behavior Analyst Certification Board (BACB) condones this. If you’re certified by the BACB, your certification allows torture.
Some ABA professionals believe that those who claim to be doing ABA should be credentialed, just like they are. This, they say, protects standards of professionalism, excellence and… ethics.
Your credentials as a BCBA working with autistic people mean, ethically:
- You do not have to listen to what autistic people say works for them.
- You do not have to care.
- You are allowed to torture autistic people if you want, without fear of losing your professional standing.
In fact, in many other spheres of work, you could get in trouble if you did what BCBAs at the Judge Rotenberg Center do, unless you have connections who can ‘fix’ things for you with the law. Becoming a BCBA is a good way for a sadist to make a career of hurting people without fear of prosecution.
“My ABA isn’t like that”
So if you are going to say, “I don’t do ABA that way, my ABA is the nice ABA,” you now have to say, “I do not agree with the BACB’s ethics, I do not agree with the ABAI”, then I will want to know this: If they are the big official organisations who give this method such a bad name, why on earth do you want to call the nice lovely human-rights-sensitive method that you use by the same bad name as the one they use?
There’s this rumour that professionals doing Nice Gentle Respectful Methods are billing it all out as ABA because that is what the US government is prepared to refund. So, a question: Why don’t all these thousands of Nice Gentle Respectful Methods band together and form a professional lobbying group, along with actual autistic people, to tell the government to stop funding ABA, and fund Respectful Methods instead? Like, stop people from thinking that ABA is cool, and demanding it? Do you know how many parents of autistic children work really, really, really hard to try to obviate all the systems that incorporate ABA?
Streamlining production of conformant humans
Oh, but wait. ABA is a multibillion dollar industry. And Autism Speaks’ spokesman said they support the idea that investors should help grow it. There should be streamlining, he said. Streamlining. A production-line, streamlined to smash square-peg humans through round holes. The rising number of autism diagnoses means that the ‘behavioural health’ sector is a fast-growing niche for investors. Your little autistic kid is fodder for a giant, growing, hungry ABA machine. Business is good, and your little child is there to keep it going.
Keeping the machine going
The longer your child stays in the ABA machine, the better for the machine. 20 hours per week. 40 hours. 40 hours per week for 1 year. 2 years. 3 years. Has the child ‘regressed’ because of this ‘therapy’? Great. Behaviour that deteriorates is justification for more therapy!
ABA is, of course, “evidence-based”. Only… the evidence of widespread support from the actual people who have gone through this distributed megafactory is… um… missing.
It’s possible for a therapy to be both evidence-based and a human rights violation. But for ABA, even the evidence is thin. (See Ann Memmott’s article on the evidence for ABA.)
No big deal! There is enough suction from the gaping mouths of these factories to absorb more children for processing. Once the dolls come out of the other side of the ABA factory and their limbs start falling off due to undiagnosed EDS, who cares? They’re ugly now, they’re no longer cute, and we’ve done our bit. Where’s the next intake?
Globalisation and neocolonialisation
No more fodder for the factory? Let’s move to where there are fresh supplies. Aaaah, Africaaaa! PACA is yearning for us to come and process their children. An ableist market is a perfect market. Factories, factories everywhere!
Improved diagnostic procedures in Africa will mean great identification of pre-sorted raw materials for the ABA factories in these untapped colonies. So let’s be sure to support better diagnosis, and channel them into the production line at once.
The message is, “Early diagnosis and intervention is essential, otherwise the child will be lost”. Translated: Young, fresh ingredients are ideal for our factories. We don’t want any of these vegetables to spoil by growing roots and leaves. Hack them off! Into the machine!
This is the industry that actual autistic people and their allies are up against.
But
do
not
be
discouraged.
Do not lose heart.
There is a surge coming that won’t be silenced.
The non-speakers are going to move the world. THIS is the paradox.
Share their words.
Share
their
words.
Arm yourself. You’re part of the liberation movement.
As an ally, you can expect opposition. The ABA crowd will tell you that these words are not the real words of these people. They will tell you that their communication methods should be banned. (Now why would they want that, hmmm…?)
Allies, know your stuff, because you are going to face these accusations. You need to understand the body-mind disconnect — autistic apraxia — and you need to understand how various types of AAC work. You need to know that some non-speakers type completely independently. You need to be prepared to defend communication as a basic human right.
Understand that what you will be doing by reading, learning, sharing and reaching out to parents and caregivers who care about their children’s communication, you can save lives and change the world.
It’s that important. You, autistic person debilitated by anxiety and dysautonomia, with social media as your main connection to regular interaction with other humans, you are going to change this world for other people. Yes, you. You’ll save others even if nobody saves you back.
Why am I so confident? Because I have seen it, and it’s happening already. I cannot even begin to name all the people who have been given their ‘voice’ because my friends and I doing what I ask of you. They are growing, and they are growing strong.
But
we
cannot
stop.
There’s a big, hungry, ableist machine, ready to devour everything that’s beautiful and different, and fragile — and it has momentum.
FOCUS.