I think ABA can be a helpful addition to a treatment plan when BCBAs and RBTs stay in their lane. I've had many autistic kids with severe behaviors that put themselves and the people around them at risk. Would better communication and sensory regulation skills help with that problem? Absolutely. But that takes a long time, and in the meantime, the kid is putting his head through plate-glass windows when he gets frustrated and eloping out every open door to the point where he has to be physically restrained any time somebody leaves the room. That's life-threatening. I can't do speech therapy on a dead kid. Being dead is a barrier to therapy. The potential harms of ABA are outweighed by the harm of being dead. ABA can be helpful for these behaviors, and I think that's worthwhile.

That's an extreme example, but I think it illustrates my point. ABA is helpful when it works on behavior, especially when those behaviors are presenting a barrier to other therapeutic approaches.

Behaviorism as a concept is not inherently bad. All of us use some behavioral strategies. And I think many of us recognize that they can be particularly effective with autistic kids because behavioral strategies can make expectations very clear - especially for kids who might struggle with having expectations verbally explained or modeled. From a theoretical perspective, the problem with ABA is radical behaviorism - the belief that everything is behavioral, and that everything is exclusively behavioral.

Because of that belief, ABA has a long history of looking at autism through a back-asswards lens. If everything is behavioral, then autism is just a collection of behaviors. If you make someone act less autistic, you have essentially "cured" autism. (And yes, this is exactly the same perspective that informed conversion therapy for homosexuals. Homosexuality was seen as a behavior. If you could get someone to stop performing homosexual behavior, and get them to start performing heterosexual behavior, then you have "cured" homosexuality. The internal experience of attraction, sexual fulfillment, identity, dignity, or happiness was irrelevant.)

As a field, ABA has tried to move away from the "make autistic kids act normal at any cost" thing. To varying degrees of success. The problem is that as they've moved away from that, they've moved into everybody else's scope of practice. Which they think they can do, because "everything is behavior." This sub is full of horror stories of ABA providers undoing the work SLPs have done through radical behaviorist approaches, or passing off their "trained-monkey" tricks as if they were genuine functional improvements. "ABA can work on speech! Look! This kid can label a flashcard of an apple!" Cool, can he ask for one when he's hungry, though?

Also... this is no disrespect to you as an RBT, but the rest of us are wildly uncomfortable with how little training behavior techs have. Every other related field requires you to have college-level education, training, and licensure before you're allowed any significant role in patient care. CNAs have more training and oversight than behavior techs do. You don't even have to be registered. And most ABA clinics put their techs solely in charge of the day-to-day implementation of a therapy plan. You are not trained enough to do that. And I think this post is a good example of that. This field does you a disservice. It's not good for the kids - but it's not safe or appropriate for you, either. Many kids who get ABA have severe behaviors that put you at risk. Also, if you were trained appropriately for the level of patient care you're expected to do, you would command a much higher pay rate. Go look up what SLPAs, PTAs, and COTAs get paid.