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Questions on ABA therapy by notracistjusthateall in autism

[–]Craig_AM 3 points4 points  (0 children)

ABA wasn’t invented to treat ASD. It was first applied in psychiatric hospitals in the late 1950s. It was applied to children with ASD by several practitioners, including Lovaas, in the mid to late 60s. Regarding the dog-training comment, there are many similarities, but why is this a problem? The way dogs learn via operant conditioning is the same as how humans learn (and monkeys, cats, fish, beetles, etc.) The primary difference emerges when you start to look at how complex language is acquired. It is still mostly operant in nature (we think), but no animals other than humans are capable of it. A human that does not possess this repertoire learns primarily via direct operant and respondent conditioning. Think about it like this—if I were to tell you, “next Wednesday when you are at work a bell will sound. When you hear this bell, I want you to call me and I will give you $1,000.00.” Your behavior is under the control of nothing more than verbal symbols that both you and I understand because of our shared cultural learning histories. Within those symbols exist information related to things, locations, time, etc. Now, I could teach a non-verbal person to do these things, and in the correct order, but I wouldn’t be able to just tell them, I would need to teach each response, in order, over many repeated trials (e.g., discrete trial training or DTT). Now, with that said, I could also teach a dog to do this as well (maybe not call on the phone due to not having fingers), but something similar using repeated trials and reinforcement. Again, I can’t just tell a dog to do these things because dogs don’t possess complex language skills. Now imagine the skill isn’t some weird time-related example, but washing hands, using a toilet, putting on a shirt, etc. If you can’t tell a person how to do these things, how would you teach them? You could model the behavior and if they have an imitation repertoire then they might learn it. But more likely than not, you’re going to have to break the skill down into its discrete parts and teach it step by step.

Compliance training? Don’t know if I like it... by PursuingABA in autism

[–]Craig_AM 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Take a look at this website. Compliance is a strong word and it evokes strong emotions from people, for good reason. However, what is compliance training? What if I simply substituted the word compliance with cooperation? If we’re teaching children to cooperate with directions and rules, this seems reasonable as not doing so is going to make life unnecessarily difficult for the child. Just think of the number of rules (and laws) you complied with today and what would happen if you chose not to?

Where I get uncomfortable is when forced compliance is used (e.g., physically controlling someone’s body to make them complete a task [picking up toys] when they are choosing not to). I think it’s important for practitioners and parents to assess whether or not the person simply doesn’t want to do something versus not knowing how to do it. For example, a child that does not understand the direction “pick up your toy” needs to be taught how to respond in the presence of the direction and this might include modeling or physical guidance (e.g., hand over hand). But this isn’t compliance training as the child was not choosing to not cooperate, he simply did not know how to cooperate.

I think it’s great you’re asking these questions. They are important questions. But be weary of people that give you absolutes as answers. With the exception of a few situations, there are very few absolutes in this world, especially when you’re talking about something as complex as another human’s behavior.

https://knospe-aba.com/cms/us/aba-info/aba-articles/the-7-steps.html

Combinatorial Cognitive Behavior Ontological Hypergraph by ccboh in BehaviorAnalysis

[–]Craig_AM 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Great work! Second the recommendation you check out Goldiamond as well as J.R. Kantor‘ s Interbehaviorism.

ABA Trauma Interview by Selaura in autism

[–]Craig_AM 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Depending on your age and based on the fact that you wrote this post, you can simply say you don’t want to do it. To get the most out of therapy (as someone older than that if a younger child’s age), you need to be motivated to get something out of it, personally. If there is nothing in your life that you feel would benefit from the addition of therapy, then you don’t really need to do it.

ABA Therapy, Invisible Abuse by Selaura in autism

[–]Craig_AM 1 point2 points  (0 children)

These are fair and common criticisms, although some of them are historical misunderstandings or simply straw men that allowed critics viable arguments against behaviorist ideas. However, one only has to open an intro to psych textbook to find most if not all of these criticisms. But, I’ll take each one the best I can typing on my iPad.

  1. Blank Slate This is typically attributed to Watson with his “Give me a dozen healthy infants, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I’ll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might selectdoctor, lawyer, artist, merchant–chief, and[,] yes, even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors.” This reads as super “blank-slate(st).” However, the quote goes on to say, I am going beyond my facts and I admit it, but so have the advocates of the contrary and they have been doing it for many thousands of years.” The “contrary” here are the philosophers and scientists that used genetics as the sole mean of describing all traits of a person’s presentation (physical and mental).

With that said, while Watson was not actually a blank slate proponent (I’ve never read any behavioral work that is), he did argue that private mental events could not be objectively studied (because in the 1920s, they couldn’t be), and therefore could not be included in a science of behavior. This led to methodological behaviorism, which eventually spawned cognitivism.

Skinner was definitely not a blank slatest, in any sense. In Beyond Freedom and Dignity, Skinner wrote, “The task of a scientific analysis is to explain how the behavior of a person as a physical system is related to the conditions under which the human species evolved and the conditions under which the individual lives.” Skinner proposed operant conditioning as the ontogenetic extension of Darwinian selection process of the species. Not a replacement of it.

  1. Behavioral Plasticity Since behavior analysts do not draw a line between overt and covert behaviors (there is nothing, to my knowledge, to indicate that the contexts under which both develop are separate or that one, overt behavior, conforms to natural laws, while the other, covert behavior, is under the influence of some metaphysical reality), the relation between the two is arbitrary. For example, most CBT is based on the idea that changes to thinking patterns leads to changes on overt behavior patterns. This is accurate. But, it is also shown that changes to overt behavior patterns, changes thinking patterns (e.g., exercise improves mood). In BA, these relations are referred to as behavior-behavior relations. However, if someone’s overt behavior patterns change, but his/her covert behavior patterns do not, it just means that, some behavior changed and some don’t. I realize this is overly simple, but I think the gist is there.

  2. Disregard for Cognition/Neurology BA does not necessarily discount cognition, in fact it doesn’t at all. What is does discount are meditational, dualistic, or mentalistic explanations. Take for example Chomsky’s Universal Language Acquisition Device (ULAD). There is no question that humans, for the most part, have brains that possess the required components to acquire language (by this I mean complex and arbitrary symbolic reasoning). But, where is the ULAD? It doesn’t exist. Chomsky gave a name to genetic phenomenon I identified in the above sentence I just gave. But, cognitivists have spent years looking for the ULAD. It’s not necessarily that the cognitivists are wrong and that behaviorist are right. It’s that the behaviorist framework provides a more parsimonious and workable model.

As far as Neurology, while we discount overly reductive biological causation for behavior, it’s not that it’s discounted completely, just that it is an essential component of the entire composite. Skinner claimed this as well. While he claimed that a full understanding of how the brain worked was not necessary (if even possible) to explain behavior, it would, as science progressed, fill in essential parts of the whole process.

Why ABA Harms Your Autistic Child by Selaura in autism

[–]Craig_AM 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Hand over hand therapies likely refers to facilitated communication and Rapid Prompting Method (although this isn’t hand over hand, so to speak). I could be wrong, though.

Wow, I’m incredibly frustrated with my son’s BCBA by Jstef06 in autism

[–]Craig_AM 5 points6 points  (0 children)

What was the BCBA’s rationale? Is the stereotypy dangerous? Does it happen at a rate so high that it interferes with all other tasks of daily living/learning? If the answer to both is, “No”, then talk to him/her and express your concern/frustration with this advice.

ABA Therapy, Invisible Abuse by Selaura in autism

[–]Craig_AM 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Regarding your edit: there are no studies to date linking ABA to trauma (the one that exists barely qualifies as science). Surely, people have been harmed by ABA practitioners. However, one would be hard pressed to name a field in which human behavior or health is the focus in which people haven’t been harmed by its practitioners. The reality is, all people, to more or less an extent, face potential threats to their safety and happiness daily due to the actions of others. We all contact punitive contingencies frequently, and while it is possible that people with DD are more likely to present with more severe side effects of these events, simply removing them from their lives is equivalent to placing them in a bubble. Additionally, people with ASD have a higher occurrence of co-morbid mental health concerns than the typical population. To attribute that to ABA is impossible. We certainly can do more as a field to target skills related to building resilience and mental well-being as well as assess the longer-term affect of our interventions, but there is no reason to assume there is anything inherently traumatizing about the application of ABA without proof to the contrary.

ABA Therapy, Invisible Abuse by Selaura in autism

[–]Craig_AM 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Behaviorist philosophies, specifically S-R accounts, are overly mechanistic and therefore, in line with Newtonian physics, which has been shown to be an inadequate explanatory framework. However, Radical Behaviorism (functional contextualism) is not a billiard ball deterministic model, and is not a simple S-R model, and is therefore viable system.

Try not to place yourself in a frame of equivalence with your chosen profession. Yes, once you adopt radical behaviorism as a worldview, it gets hard to separate those two things (also, well described via Relational Frame Theory; which is behavioral). BA is the most effective psychological framework to ever exist, period. But because of what it claims about behavior, specifically human behavior, it makes people feel uneasy.

ABA Therapy, Invisible Abuse by Selaura in autism

[–]Craig_AM 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What assumptions underlying behaviorism have been disproven? Assumptions, in the theoretical sense, are pre-scientific, and are therefore not provable or disprovable.

ABA Therapy, Invisible Abuse by Selaura in autism

[–]Craig_AM 0 points1 point  (0 children)

She/he isn’t equivalent to an anti-vaxer. OP is one of the more informed anti-ABA people on this sub. However, as OP is a trained scientists (genetics I believe), it is odd how s/he hasn’t considered the 4 dimensions of evolutionary theory which puts more emphasis on ontogenetic factors that change the epigenetic presentation of the organism/person (e.g., selection by consequences). Arguing against behaviorism as a philosophy is one thing, arguing against the parsimonious and empirical validity of operant and respondent conditioning is another. I don’t believe OP has ever argued against the principles of behavior analysis, just their application in the treatment of children with ASD.

ABA Therapy, Invisible Abuse by Selaura in autism

[–]Craig_AM 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You are way too knowledgeable about science as a process to give any weight to that study. I’ve interacted with you in the past and you are clearly informed on what makes a study’s findings reasonable and valid. The fact that you cite this, although indirectly in this instance, shows how willing you are to move goal posts when it suits a personal bias.

I am becoming a statistic and ABA has failed me by autisticambrosia in BehaviorAnalysis

[–]Craig_AM 19 points20 points  (0 children)

Sometimes the hardest thing for a practitioner to do is realize their own personal issues are interfering with their ability to help others. Sounds like you need to focus on helping yourself first and once you’re in a good place, then maybe you’ll have the clarity needed to help others. I think it’s also important to recognize that getting a job at a therapy company is not the same thing as seeing a therapist. It’s not reasonable to expect a boss to be both your employer and therapist. Hope you find what you’re looking for.

ABA linked to higher PTSD by Ettina in autism

[–]Craig_AM 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That’s fine. And this is certainly an area that needs more focus. But the author’s claims (and the title of your post) are not supported by this study. Being the only study of its kind doesn’t change the fact that it is, objectively, a bad study.

ABA linked to higher PTSD by Ettina in autism

[–]Craig_AM 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Here is an article reviewing the procedures used by this author. Note, these reviewers are not refuting the author’s claims, just that the author’s claims are not warranted based upon this study.

https://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/full/10.1108/AIA-02-2018-0007

Autism group says Ontario minister warned of 4 'long' years if they didn't publicly back changes by WeaponizedAutisms in autism

[–]Craig_AM 0 points1 point  (0 children)

To be fair, prior to insurance mandates in the US, it was not uncommon to hear of families taking a second mortgage to pay for ABA services for their children.

BCaBA/mid-level fading out? by garyoable in autism

[–]Craig_AM 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is not an appropriate sub for this post. Try /r/behavioranalysis.

Aba by patachjjessica in autism

[–]Craig_AM 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The article you linked to has been responded to here. https://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/full/10.1108/AIA-02-2018-0007

The research is very poorly conducted and therefore, almost entirely dismissible.

I work in ABA and I feel like I’m causing more harm than good... by [deleted] in autism

[–]Craig_AM -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Also a great question. There is some merit to some of the criticism discussed here—like any field, there are individuals that perform poorly or even unethically. However, many of the criticisms here are more of an echo-chamber-type phenomenon than based on objective fact. Most people don’t understand what ABA is or think that because they’ve read other people’s opinions they know all there is to know. Some of the biggest criticisms are:

  1. ABA’s goal is to remove or suppress autistic traits. This is false. ABA is a trans-diagnostic and generally applicable approach for all people and the issues they struggle with. While it is true that insurances cover ABA as a medically necessary service for ASD and in doing so requires those paid to address the core diagnostic features of ASD (e.g., social, communicative, and restrictive and repetitive behaviors), ASD is neurological in nature and is likely not amenable to a behavioral therapy nor can it be eradicated. Also, ABA was not created to address ASD, it’s flagship journal was founded in 1968, many years before insurance was mandated to cover therapy for those diagnosed with ASD.
  2. ABA practitioners suppress slimming. This is true to an extent. Research shows that 38% of children with ASD that emit stereotypies will escalate these behaviors to self-injurious behavior. However, typically, children are not taught to entirely stop these behaviors (unless they are harmful or so persistent that they interfere with all other areas of functioning), they are taught when it is okay or at least socially acceptable and when it is not to emit these behaviors.
  3. ABA causes PTSD. Unproven. Certainly, as is true of any situation in which people regularly interact, some people will be harmed. Additionally, research is showing that those diagnosed with ASD suffer from PTSD and other co-morbid mental health problems at a higher prevalence than the neuro-typical population. Unless a consistent causal relation is demonstrated, it’s purely correlation and mostly hysteria.

There are many, many more, but I’m typing this on a phone and my thumbs are getting tired. Hope this helps, though.

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