The founder of ABA, Dr Lovaas’ own view of autistic children stated:
You see, you pretty much start from scratch when working with an autistic child. You have a person in the physical sense — they have hair, a nose and a mouth — but they are not people in the psychological sense. One way to look at the job of helping autistic kids is to see it as a matter of constructing a person. You have the raw materials, but you have to build the person.
(The Art of Autism, 2015)
Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) therapy should not be considered a therapy or treatment for autism. Even when it may not appear to be harmful, ABA is an inherently abusive and traumatizing practice. This trauma and abuse stems from a troubling history behind the practice, a lack of understanding among professionals about autism and autistic behaviors, and from ableism within healthcare. Autistic children face abuse in the name of therapy through punishments and aversives. They face abuse by being trained to be compliant and to not express their discomfort. They are taught that their natural instincts and behaviors are wrong — that for being autistic, they are wrong.
Endorsing Aversives and Torture
At its roots, ABA was a physically abusive practice designed by Dr. Ole Ivar Lovaas in the 1960s. Lovaas’ methods focused heavily on aversives to change autistic children’s behaviors, and particularly focused on eliminating stimming; he referred to stimming…
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