“Our Family is Different” In the sixth grade, my father sat me down for a “serious talk.” This was the first of a few “serious talks” he would need to have with me over the course of my childhood. As a diagnosed autistic person (Asperger’s at the time), I was…
Tag: ableism
I already did my rant deep dive on play skills. Tl;dr: Play is not play if it’s just imitating what neurotypical peers are doing. The underlying stream feeding that is pathologizing autistic behaviors and interests. Neurotypical children may have “interests” or “passions,” but autistic children have “perseverations” or “restricted interests.” …
TW: ableism, contingent electric skin shock (CESS) Well, it took the better part of a year, but ABAI finally released their – erm – “statement” regarding the use of Contingent Electric Skin Shock (CESS). It’s hard to call a 34-page document a “statement,” so I supposed the authors’ description of…
CW: Ableism, mention of suicide, sexism, hate symbols, sexual assault It’s that time again: Upon the end of March the world will swarm with blue lights and puzzle pieces, dedicating the entire month of April to Autism Awareness Month. Depending on your corner of social media, you will probably see…
One of the most “annoying” stereotypes about ABA is that it’s robotic. BCBAs and therapists are portrayed as unemotional beings walking around with our clipboards watching with deadpan expressions as a toddler cries. Many of us find this description deeply offensive and launch into a pedantic explanation for how inaccurate…
CW: ableism, suicide ABA with autistic children was literally created with the goal of making them “indistinguishable from their typically developing peers.” With the focus being only on observable and measurable behaviors to outsiders, the radical behaviorist roots of ABA as a therapy for autism becomes questionable at best. In…
CW: Ableism Halloween season is upon us, so let’s talk about that blue pumpkin thing that’s going around. If you’re not familiar, the idea is that autistic children should be given blue pumpkins or buckets to carry when trick-or-treating, so they can be identified as autistic when they hold it…
This post is in response to the announcement shown below from ABA International’s Facebook page on 9/7/2021. The announcement came as a bit of a surprise, to me at least, considering how long the autistic and ABA Reform communities have been reaching out to them to say or do– well,…
This is the conclusion to a two-part series on Appropriate Play. Before continuing, please make sure you’ve read Part I. Play as a tool For the sake of argument, I will be discussing the benefits of symbolic play as it would pertain to a person who is living in society…
This one was a doozy, kids. I’ve spent over a week combing through research across psychology, general education, special education, and ABA, trying to answer this question: What is appropriate play and is it even important? There is no simple answer to any of it, but then again I think…