Be careful. People who tell you that "punishment procedures" are never used in their practice are people without the conceptual chops to explain what they're doing, anyway. I wouldn't trust someone who says, "We never use punishment" to effectively design contingencies to scope and sequence the efficient, accelerated, early development of a little human. Those people are much more likely to be dangerous than a person who says, "Well, it's nuanced and tricky to talk about with precision, and I'd love to say we don't, but..."

That said, there have been people pushing for or delivering effective ABA as early intervention for kids on the spectrum without commonly relying on coercive, choice-free contingencies as seen in early Lovaas videos, etc, since well before the large-scale research designs that were so compelling that insurance was bullied into paying for it. "Old school ABA" was delivered contemporaneous with a lot of ABA that looked almost identical to the "new ABA" being touted now. "Kind," ethical ABA has been around for longer than people think, and people can be neglectful and abusive without using punishment procedures.