It's a long video, but I'm really impressed with the amount of research he put into this. I knew about ABA's problematic origins but going more in depth really paints a picture of how bad it is. As well as, that there ARE people out there working to change it from within, but they face ENORMOUS structural and for-profit incentive pressure against them. I think the best part is near the end, where he lays out the sort of things parents should be asking in order to evaluate just what kind of therapy is right for their child. I'll copy some:
- What behaviours are you planning to change, and who decided they were problems?
- How do you respond if my child says “no”, cries, hides, or wants to stop?
- Do you ever target stimming, eye contact, or “looking normal”? Why?
- How do you measure my child’s wellbeing during and after the session, not just their behaviour?
- What alternatives (OT, speech, autistic-led supports, relationship-based models) have you considered?
As an anecdote, I once took a psychology 101 course in college. I thought it was gonna be all that interesting internal stuff like Jung. But no, the entire course was focused on BF Skinner's behaviorism. The cold mechanical view treating people like input output robots really freaked me out. The professor even once showed us a video of a mother "extinguishing" a behavior in a 2 year old, and all I could see is that she basically traumatized this baby. But no one else seemed to see that. The professor showed this example as a good thing. I was horrified. The nonchalance of the psych professor teaching this behaviorism put me off so much, that it made me reluctant to seek out therapy for my mental health, fearing that this is how therapists must think of us. I kinda regret not speaking up in class about it, but the way nobody seemed to care made me feel like I was being too sensitive or something. The fact that ABA is entirely a behaviorist model is really the root of the problem.