ABA is causing further problems and trauma for way too many people.
The business of behavioral health is one that uses the reward consequences behavior system, planned ignoring (Dr. Mona Delahooke has a great blog post about this June 2020).
It is about compliance and punishment for non compliance.
It does not even consider the current (last 20 years) research of brain science and that kids who struggle ( adults too) are responding from their downstairs brain. They are not able to regulate themselves.
They dont feel safe.
This is not something that can be trained out of a human. Stimming is a way to regulate, and ABA views it as "not acceptable or appropriate behavior, and it needs to be replaced with something someone else deems more acceptable.
Behaviors until they are understood are always needing to be extinguished, under the ABA theory. This assumes the child, person has control over their behavior and they are simply "choosing " to misbehave, to not comply with a demand, to not meet an expectation. And then this behaviorist decides what consequence the child must receive to "learn their lesson".
The polyvagal theory and other neuroscience research explains how the brain can falsely interpret sensory experiences, environments, and as we already know the neurodiversity of so many, the brain is just wired differently leading to a wide range of processing for things that literally a neurotypical person does automatically without conscious thought. Not so for those who are ND.
Until we see the brain of neurodiverse people as processing things differently, and this isnt bad, it's just different, and also to understand the WHY for kids who struggle with behaviors as kids NEEDing help, needing support, needing connection and lowered demands placed on them.
Our experience with ABA over many years and with so many Companies and behaviorists (because of the high turn over, which is also problematic), but their lack of understanding of how they escalated my son.
They had too high of expectations and showed no flexibility in their approaches that then escalated situations which then "required" restraint because somebody “could get hurt”.
They escalated him and then he was made to suffer the negative consequences because they didnt understand the fact that he could not regulate himself. He has experienced trauma in his life, has a hole in his colon and has Autism. He needed so much support, not criticism or judgement.
He needed to feel safe and their approach of constantly placing demands on him to teach him when he was dysregulated, was falsely presuming competence when his behaviors were communicating he needed a safe, calm adult to co regulate and help him. That's it.
That's the simple brain science. And no amount of rewards or punitive measures can change the brain response of a child who is dysregulated and struggling. It really is that simple.
We had people tell us when my son was 5, 6 7, 8, 9, 10 that he is violent, dangerous, and should be placed in residential. This is absolutely insanity and we knew our son. Behaviorists and behaviorism is not using the most current research and science and is contributing to behaviors we see in kids who struggle.
These kids are not appropriately supported and then are blamed, punished and blame gets directed to their parents for “not following the program, not being consistent”. This is so BS and is way too common. That’s all I’ll say on this.
For the few exceptions in behaviorists, there are not enough when the standard theory behind behavioral health is one that seeks to change the person, to train behaviors like a puppy and truly is inhumane way too much of the time.
We now know better, it is time for everyone to do better and stop this cycle that is only further holding our kids that are neurodiverse back. Time to change our lens to “kids do well if they can. And if they can’t, WHY?” as Dr. Ross Greene always says. And our mindshift to what has happened to our kids? Not what is wrong with our kids?
No comments :
Post a Comment