I think another question is whether "autism" any longer corresponds to any real identifiable syndrome or condition at all. If you have ever entered this world of autism diagnosis you will find a world of incredibly vague/abstract lists of symptoms, absolutely no physically or biologically grounded means of diagnosis, and extremely subjective interview tests administered by social workers who make judgement calls. I truly don't know what autism is supposed to mean beyond your kid (generally your boy) is weird or difficult. I'm sure ABA as a basically Skinnerian form of indoctrination or training can affect behavior in some way for anyone though.
There was a study that surfaced recently finding something like 25% of the increase in autism diagnosis is due to people with intellectual disabilities being classified as autistic instead. You also have the label of "aspergers" being phased out, which I think is a shame because it denoted a kind of mild, functional autism that most of us are familiar with and that needn't be overpathologized. My guess is that those who are truly autistic in the sense that we used to mean it are negatively impacted by the expansion of the diagnosis.
I don't think even intellectual disabilities are necessary. I have observed all this with my kids and the children of family friends. In the 70s when I grew up autistic kids were a small highly distinct population with absolutely massive and obvious developmental and language acquisition issues indicating significant brain damage that persisted into adult life. But today there appear to be no intellectual disability or language issues of any sort required for an autism diagnosis.
Institutionally schools and parents require some kind of medical label for kids to get extra help, and as far as I can see there are just a few labels to go around. The hyper kid (ADD), the sad kid (depression), the violent kid (oppositional), the weird kid (autism). With a lot of overlap, as any of these situations also tend to make you weird and not fit in socially. People are reluctant to diagnose oppositional so a lot of the bad-tempered / act out type kids end up in the autism bucket at least when they are young. Autism seems to me to have spread over into what in the past would have been understood as mild eccentricity.
I've been increasingly curious about what ABA looks like on the ground. I work in a related field, and the solicitations for "Registered Behavior Technicians" are wall-to-wall, far outstripping related roles. The requirements to become an RBT in my state are almost trivial (High school grad, 40 hrs training) especially when measured against the nature and intensity of the therapeutic work expected, and the vulnerability of the population. Having a little familiarity with the concepts behind ABA myself, and knowing how easily behaviorist training can go off the rails in any context, the competency of some RBTs I know is a matter of concern. Undertrained and underprepared people receiving certifications isn't unique to ABA, but ABA does seem like a modality where the skill of the 'practitioner' is paramount, especially in avoiding harm. The horror stories do not surprise me at all.
I used to know an ABA worker who claimed that the therapy could be used for good or evil, and that it really did contain a great deal of power to modify behavior at the cost of treating people as, essentially, animals. He too was very concerned with the quality of persons doing it and whether their intentions or those of their family were ultimately in the child's best interest.
I think another question is whether "autism" any longer corresponds to any real identifiable syndrome or condition at all. If you have ever entered this world of autism diagnosis you will find a world of incredibly vague/abstract lists of symptoms, absolutely no physically or biologically grounded means of diagnosis, and extremely subjective interview tests administered by social workers who make judgement calls. I truly don't know what autism is supposed to mean beyond your kid (generally your boy) is weird or difficult. I'm sure ABA as a basically Skinnerian form of indoctrination or training can affect behavior in some way for anyone though.
There was a study that surfaced recently finding something like 25% of the increase in autism diagnosis is due to people with intellectual disabilities being classified as autistic instead. You also have the label of "aspergers" being phased out, which I think is a shame because it denoted a kind of mild, functional autism that most of us are familiar with and that needn't be overpathologized. My guess is that those who are truly autistic in the sense that we used to mean it are negatively impacted by the expansion of the diagnosis.
I don't think even intellectual disabilities are necessary. I have observed all this with my kids and the children of family friends. In the 70s when I grew up autistic kids were a small highly distinct population with absolutely massive and obvious developmental and language acquisition issues indicating significant brain damage that persisted into adult life. But today there appear to be no intellectual disability or language issues of any sort required for an autism diagnosis.
Institutionally schools and parents require some kind of medical label for kids to get extra help, and as far as I can see there are just a few labels to go around. The hyper kid (ADD), the sad kid (depression), the violent kid (oppositional), the weird kid (autism). With a lot of overlap, as any of these situations also tend to make you weird and not fit in socially. People are reluctant to diagnose oppositional so a lot of the bad-tempered / act out type kids end up in the autism bucket at least when they are young. Autism seems to me to have spread over into what in the past would have been understood as mild eccentricity.
I've been increasingly curious about what ABA looks like on the ground. I work in a related field, and the solicitations for "Registered Behavior Technicians" are wall-to-wall, far outstripping related roles. The requirements to become an RBT in my state are almost trivial (High school grad, 40 hrs training) especially when measured against the nature and intensity of the therapeutic work expected, and the vulnerability of the population. Having a little familiarity with the concepts behind ABA myself, and knowing how easily behaviorist training can go off the rails in any context, the competency of some RBTs I know is a matter of concern. Undertrained and underprepared people receiving certifications isn't unique to ABA, but ABA does seem like a modality where the skill of the 'practitioner' is paramount, especially in avoiding harm. The horror stories do not surprise me at all.
I used to know an ABA worker who claimed that the therapy could be used for good or evil, and that it really did contain a great deal of power to modify behavior at the cost of treating people as, essentially, animals. He too was very concerned with the quality of persons doing it and whether their intentions or those of their family were ultimately in the child's best interest.