How do I feel about ABA?
It’s complicated. There’s a lot I feel unprepared to comment on. I’m also unsure what my role should be in this discussion.
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My experiences with ABA so far
I honestly have very little direct experience with ABA, also known infamously within the autism community as Applied Behavior Analysis. As someone diagnosed with autism at the ripe old age of 22 and who had a very mainstreamed K-12 experience, I was never a recipient. In some ways, it feels as if the discourse around ABA in autism spaces is a party I got invited to, set an alarm for, and somehow slept all the way through, but where I am also expected to send a thank you note to the host for inviting me and eventually reciprocate the favor. It feels like everybody else either knows or pretends to know things that I never will.
I do have experience interviewing for an entry-level job as a “child development specialist”, which was a clever way for the company in question to recruit more potential behavior technician hires and train them on the spot. What I saw was nothing short of appalling and made me understand part of what I might have been spared not having my autism diagnosis as a toddler. My…
