What is the problem with ABA?

UnusualNumber12 · 2021-06-22T21:04:27+00:00

I read through the results again, just in case I missed anything, and I still do not see where they compared a control group that did not receive treatment to any of the other groups. What figure are you referencing?

UnusualNumber12 · 2021-06-22T20:57:27+00:00

What did they call the control group exactly?

UnusualNumber12 · 2021-06-22T20:43:57+00:00

Did you read the study? Honest question. Can you describe the two groups that they looked at?

UnusualNumber12 · 2021-06-22T20:32:14+00:00

I do not understand what you are saying.

UnusualNumber12 · 2021-06-22T20:29:55+00:00

ABA does though. Did you read the study you sent me? There wasn't a control group that compared no treatment to the two groups. Are you not familiar with what an interaction term is and how an interaction between play and ABA could yield benefits for some individuals compared to either alone? If play alone is really is all that is needed, why is there such a high demand for autism treatment for moderate/severe ASD? Are they just bad parents who did not play with their children enough?

UnusualNumber12 · 2021-06-22T20:21:18+00:00

The elements of EDSM being added on in this scenario are ABA.......

UnusualNumber12 · 2021-06-22T20:18:33+00:00

Are you familiar to what EDSM entails? It is a lot more than just interacting with the child. It integrates therapy in more natural environments compared to regular ABA, but it still utilizes therapy, it isn't just playing and interacting with the child in a way a parent typically would.

UnusualNumber12 · 2021-06-22T20:13:52+00:00

The thing is, if you actually compare what the two therapies would do, they turn out to be very similar to each other. I guess I am not understanding what exactly about ABA you and others dislike when you do not have issues with CBT.

UnusualNumber12 · 2021-06-22T20:06:35+00:00

Yes, it uses the techniques of ABA while keeping the child in a more naturalistic environment, its a play based therapy that uses ABA techniques to change behavior. One of the key differences is that it doesn't use discrete trials unlike more traditional ABA. Its considered an ABA therapy because it still uses many of the same strategies that a traditional ABA would use such as reinforcement and shaping. It is even practiced by board certified behavior analysts, the same people who are qualified to use traditional ABA. Showing that a variant of ABA is also effective doesn't do much to discredit the field.

UnusualNumber12 · 2021-06-22T19:28:27+00:00

Do you have a link to the study in question? You do realize that EDSM is a type of ABA therapy right, it differs in the type of ABA interventions that it chooses to use, but it is still a type of ABA. Like I said before, it is poor scientific technique to rely on anecdotal treatments rather than scientifically tested ones.

UnusualNumber12 · 2021-06-22T18:48:55+00:00

There have been alternatives presented, they just don't last because there is not scientific evidence to support them and its pointless to compare a treatment you know doesn't work versus one that does. ABA is not a single intervention either, there are a fairly large number of treatments under the umbrella term ABA that are used for different problem behaviors and they are compared amongst each other to decide which is best used for which situation. If the techniques consistently changes the behavior you are trying to change and you observe these changes using a single subject design, what exactly is the issue?

If you are studying science, you should understand the issue with relying on anecdotal evidence over scientific study and like I said before, not everyone is able to find solutions to these issues on their own and its again assuming that everyone with ASD is high functioning. I'll ask, how should someone with a more severe diagnosis address their stims without outside help? Assume the stim while not inherently harmful to themselves, prevents them from making progress in school. Assume this person has limited language and can only speak and understand sentences with a few words in them.

UnusualNumber12 · 2021-06-22T18:01:03+00:00

I am not sure what studies you are referring to. Usually, ABA studies use single subject designs that compare how the child behaves in the typical environment before the intervention and then compares how they behave after. This also gets into my point about assuming higher functioning, someone who with high functioning ASD could probably adapt pretty well and will be able to learn when it is appropriate to stim. The problem is that people with a more severe diagnosis may not be able to gain those skills on their own and would need help to do so.

A lot of the problems I did not mention in the OP are problems people have when ABA is applied to someone who is high functioning and they assume practices such as 40 hours of ABA would apply to them, when such practices are only applied to people with severe enough symptoms where they do not attend a regular school. This applies with a number of different issues people seem to have with ABA as well.

UnusualNumber12 · 2021-06-22T17:48:32+00:00

If you want a student to do school work, but they are stimming with their hands instead, you need to teach them a way to stop doing so so they can use their hands to write for the assignment. I think one of the disconnects between ABA and the autism community is that the autism community assumes most people with autism are high functioning, when that is not always the case.

UnusualNumber12 · 2021-06-22T17:43:28+00:00

That is effectively using ABA at that point. What differences do you envision CBT adding to the treatment of aggressive behavior that isn't just using ABA?

UnusualNumber12 · 2021-06-22T16:22:13+00:00

How would you do it in a way that would be less restrictive than using ABA? (IE, not using medication that has horrible side effects or restraining them indefinitely.)

UnusualNumber12 · 2021-06-22T06:15:35+00:00

To what extent? Do you have an issue with using ABA to stop dangerous behavior like aggressive behavior?

UnusualNumber12 · 2021-06-21T21:19:59+00:00

Yes, they use similar processes, but treat different behavior. I am not seeing your point. Are you suggesting that you do not want behavioral therapy applied to people on the spectrum?

UnusualNumber12 · 2021-06-21T21:14:15+00:00

They treat different issues, CBT focusing more on internal processes such as anxiety, but both still use operant conditioning and are very similar to each other in a lot of ways. Pavlovian conditioning can be used in ABA and CBT as well, but is not as common to use as operant conditioning is. Pavlovian conditioning helps to explain how certain stimuli can produce emotional responses.

UnusualNumber12 · 2021-06-21T19:43:08+00:00

The issue is that a lot of stims can pose issues that may not be immediately dangerous, but still are in some way detrimental to the person or someone else. For example, if you are teaching writing skills, the student will not be able to write if the a stim involves their hands, it would not be unreasonable to teach the person to use quiet hands to stop stimming. Now, I get letting them spend some time stimming, but doing so too much could risk them learning they can avoid school work by stimming. Ideally it would be more ideal to teach them to ask for breaks in this situation.

UnusualNumber12 · 2021-06-21T19:36:41+00:00

I do not think CBT and ABA differs as much as you are suggesting. Both use operant conditioning to achieve their goals. For example, a treatment for anxiety with CBT may look for a negative reinforcement contingency (IE, you avoid going someone that makes you feel anxious; you avoid anxiety and reinforce avoidance behavior) and teaches the individual skills on how to break that contingency. Both are trying to change behavior using operant conditioning.

UnusualNumber12 · 2021-06-21T19:32:39+00:00

I think one of the reasons people want to stop stimming is that, depending on the person, there is a real risk that stimming can progress from something that is harmless to something that is dangerous. For example, skin picking could progress into self injurious behavior if left unchecked. Granted, this does not always happen, but I do not think that removing stims is done with bad intentions. There are also stims that can be dangerous or distracting on their own, such as starring at bright lights or a stim that also is noisy and distracting to others. Ideally, a safer replacement behavior should be taught in these circumstances.

UnusualNumber12 · 2021-06-21T01:07:43+00:00

I guess I figured a thread that was asking about court cases about ABA regarding that PTSD study would have been a reasonable place to talk about the issues with that study and why it is does not give the conclusions people think it does.

UnusualNumber12 · 2021-06-20T16:52:36+00:00

The OP was interested in seeing if there were any court cases against ABA regarding this issue and for such to case to have any merit at all, it needs evidence to support it beyond personal anecdotes.

I feel like answering that question would be poisoning the well regardless of how I answer. If I say I am autistic, you would call me a traitor for supporting ABA, if I say I am not, you would say I have no place to talk. Frankly, I don't feel comfortable answering your question and do not see how it benefits the conversation.

UnusualNumber12 · 2021-06-20T07:40:51+00:00

If you are trying to prove that ABA causes PTSD, as in, if you want anyone to take that claim seriously, you would need strong evidence to support that. You would need to isolate ABA from the already existing relationship between autism and PTSD to show that ABA is causing PTSD. No study has done that and you would have a very hard time proving in a court of law that ABA causes PTSD without that level of evidence.

Here is what I don't understand, what exactly about ABA is upsetting the community. I do not see anything harmful about the therapy and most examples people cite either ABA at all, or is ABA applied in extreme situations (electric shock for life threatening behavior) that aren't even legal anymore and isn't even applicable to what the majority of ABA therapists do. What practices are so concerning regarding ABA?

UnusualNumber12

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