The Gold Standard Fallacy of ABA: A Reference Guide for Therapists, Educators, & Parents

I am a mom. In 2021 I assumed public school would teach my daughter to read. I quickly found out that was not the case. I am apart of the unidentified 80% of adults that are Dyslexic. I got phonics in 1998. My daughter did not. When she was having difficulty in school the only answer was what I learned later was the autistic industrial complex. This has been documented. Richard Roy grinker lectured about it almost 15 years ago now. So school systems since 1970's have embraced behavorism. They include PBIS in teacher training. If a child does not follow the neurotypical centric standards. They are excluded from general education. I embraced this terminology of neurodivergent early on thinking it would help me advocate. It did not. People use neurodivergent as synonym for autistic. My town is a huge 🧩 puzzle piece loving autism speaks town. These parents are still blaming vaccines and looking for cures. They don't understand that neurodiversity is highly heritable and has by documented as so since the 1970's. So what happens once neurodivergent kids understand that behavorism is manipulative? The spell is broken. It doesn't work. Behavorism today is still the same as it was in 1913. Based on materialism that denies the concept of free will. Behaviorism was debunked by Noam Chomsky in 1967. Yet with whole language and balanced literacy and education it lived on. We see strides in Neuroscience and social cognitive learning theory paralleled with the continuation of misunderstanding gestalt language processing and mirror Neurons. I highly recommend this book to anyone who calls themselves a Neurodiversity Advocate or a neuroaffirming advocate because if you're an individual, a parent, a educator, or a professional we need to be united against ABA therapy.It's the bcba at my daughter's old school that created a toxic environment that enabled my daughter's dyslexia to go ignored. The paraprofessional felt entitled to push her into a shelf. The school to this summer claims it's an accident. My pediatrician documented it differently. We homeschool now.I don't feel safe sending my children to a school knowing BCBA's are getting paid $90,000 a year with minimal training to practice abuse. I want to see seclusion and restraint end. I want to see corporal punishment out. I'm tired of seeing schools get sued and nothing changes. We need to stand up and honor the human rights of all children. Especially our neurodivergent children that are the highest potential for a better future in the information age, yet if they don't get a proper education they could possibly go on living life without learning to read, write, add, or subtract.My mother personally experienced the institutionalization of her childhood in the 1970's. Thankfully in 1974 that was made illegal. We need to prevent ABA (40+ hours) therapy from becoming in home and in school institutional establishments. We need to empower parents with the knowledge that neurodiversity is hereditary. They might be neurodivergent themselves.The more we become aware, and take action. I believe we all can live to see a neuroinclusive and a neuroaccessible future.

This books is an extensive review of the peer-reviewed research on ABA. While primarily focused on the harms and pitfalls of ABA this is an essential reminder for any related service providers to keep neurodiversity affirming practices at the center of how we provide services to autistic clients.

If you don’t understand how scientific research is conducted then you may believe anything you read including this. Not all ABA providers are equal unfortunately leading to a lack of continuity of care and allowing the public to stereotype the field as a whole which is not accurate. SLP’s do not test their methods with the scientific rigor to validate their procedures, while ABA has plenty of scientific evidence to support its use; does that mean that all ABA service providers implement concepts and principles accurately? No, if you’re unhappy with your provider find a new one there are plenty out there. Behaviorism is not ABA, behavior modification is not ABA., Chomsky is not ABA, PBIS is not ABA. SLP’s have an issue because ABA has more success in verbal behavior than they do; that’s because there is science to support their treatments that has been proven effective. Do your own research, verify what you’re reading has been published in a peer reviewed journal that validates the scientific rigor necessary to make it evidence based treatments

I read this in one sitting in less than 3 hours. As an Autistic person, parent of an Autistic child, as well as an Autistic Early Intervention teacher with my Master's in Early Childhood Special Education, I was very interested in reading this book! I have been advocating against ABA therapy for several years now and have found it frustrating that so many resources are opinion blogs that I can hardly bring to my job in a public school district. The occasions when I have seen research cited have been piecemeal and spread out over time. I can't begin to say how wonderful it is to have such a damning critique--backed by all the evidence--of ABA for Autistics in one spot. I really hope a print copy is released as well, because I'd love to keep copies around to lend out and reference. This is an absolutely fantastic resource, and I hope it makes it into the hands of all the parents and professionals who absolutely need to read it!

Well-researched, valuable information for anywayone wanting to know the truths about ABA.

This book is such an amazing resource and is going to help so many in their advocacy efforts against ABA/PBS/PBIS/Behaviorism.Unfortunately, when advocating for neurodiversity affirming practice, many do not value lived experience or resources/evidence that they deem "unscientific." This book is a compilation of some of the best research regarding the harms of ABA. It's going to be such a game changer!This is such a brave book to put out into the world as the ABA industry is known for coming after those who speak out against it. I'm so happy Julie has never shied away from speaking out to help others.I have a kindle copy of this book, but plan to order myself a hardcopy because I love it so much. I will also be ordering several other copies to give to others who are unaware of the issues with ABA.

This book references the things that are important for everyone (especially parents) to understand about ABA. The first thing most parents are suggested to do after an autism diagnosis is find a BCBA and many blindly go into this without understanding the implications. This book covers the poor evidence for ABA, ethical concerns, outcomes of trauma, the ‘new’ ABA, autism as an industry among others.The author references an article and includes a summary. There are links to the articles to read the full text, however the author also summarizes the main points. I read all the included references.ABA does not attempt to understand autistic individuals. Stimming, for example, has a purpose (it could be to help reduce anxiety or a way to self regulate). Reducing stimming is generally to make other people less uncomfortable and therefore ABA tries to eliminate it. ABA teaches compliance, which leads to learned helplessness and suppressing who the autistic individual is.This is a highly needed resource and I hope any parent considering ABA will read this first. Many people argue the new ABA is different. It may be less overt abuse, but it is still abuse. It removes the child’s autonomy, does not consider autistic identity. It’s important to consider the social model of disability vs the medical model (there’s something wrong with autistic people society needs to fix, so they act ‘normal’)The only cons I see is that some people may find it difficult reading research articles as they can be dry. This would be a bigger issue for parents than professionals who are used to reading research.There were several links to research or articles I could not access without paying. I did not find this a big deal as the author has multiple resources on each topic, as well as a summary of the article.Overall, I think this book fills an important gap and would highly recommend it.

If you know anyone that ever had any doubt about ABA being a torturous "therapy", then please, respectfully, throw this book at them.The evidence compiled in this thoroughly researched book is harrowing, yet the multimillion ABA business thrives..I cannot stress the importance and value of this resource enough!Let me put it this way.. you cannot claim to be a neuro-affirming individual or organisation and perpetuate the abuse and torture engrained in ABA.Collectively, we need to stand up to this abuse and eradicate this practice once and for all.Julie, thank you for your hard work!

The author takes on a multi-$billion industry and questions its alleged evidence. And, my goodness, what a set of findings it is.I would strongly recommend this for professional contacts, and anyone investing in the lives & welfare of autistic individuals.