ABA, Modeling, and Abuse

There's pushing kids to try a little harder, to go a little further, than would on their own. Then there's pushing them past their tolerance limit, pushing them into pain or panic. One is a healthy part of raising or teaching a child. The other is child abuse... I know that much of the damage done by therapists is done without malice. Most of it is done with good intentions, even. I don't bring these things up to make anyone feel bad about what they are doing or have done. I do it to help you learn, as I learned, for the sake of the kids we're all trying to help.

Practice, Perspective, and Progress: a vignette

Sometimes I feel like the majority of my doing my job correctly consists of simply figuring out when I'm in the wrong. It's so easy for us humans (neurotypical or not) to project, to assume, and to get stuck in our own perspectives. And then we get annoyed when someone else responds badly because we…

Autism in easy English: Stimming

This post is about stimming. It is part of a series talking about autism in simple language. The goal is to help explain autism for ESL/English Language Learners.

What’s Wrong With “Better” ABA?

This is a preliminary post. There are a bunch of references I need to add, and plenty of examples and stories I could share. But I want to get the basics down now, while they're on my mind. There are a gazillion critiques of ABA out there, largely from adult autistic people, and some from…

More Challenged Than Challenging, part 1

We can't make aggression disappear completely, but we can make it less likely, less frequent, and less intense. Over the years, we've done a lot to make my client's life more orderly and predictable. As a result, he's generally a happier and calmer person, and slower to anger than he used to be. He is still someone with limitations that frustrate him unbearably at times, and he doesn't have as much emotional maturity as most people his age. But he is also much less prone to violence than he used to be. I think that's definitely worth the effort!

In Which I Use My Imagination

I want to help you imagine it, too. Perhaps it will help you, as it helped me, to be more patient with the profoundly autistic people in your life, and more openminded about what thoughts may lie behind their actions.

Words, words, words

Musings first, then the part about words. ******* In my typical way, I have suddenly gotten back into heavily using this blog after months of barely remembering that it exists. It always takes me a while just to remember how to post stuff and where my profile is and what various icons mean and things…

Autistic People Imitate Just Fine

Many people, including professionals, think that autistic children don't learn by imitating, the way neurotypical/non-autistic children do. But they do imitate. They may just imitate different things, and in different ways.

Behavior diagrams and flow charts

I often think of things from the perspective of a scientist or engineer trying to solve a problem. It can help bridge the gap between different communication styles, such as autistic and non-autistic, in a way that respects both. Here is an example: Autistic children are often taught to look up and make eye contact…

A picnic, with nonverbal communication

A true story: My 12-year-old nonverbal client and I are having a picnic at the park on a beautiful summer day. We sit on the grass. I try to read to him a bit, but he turns away and begins to vocalize loudly, so I assume he isn't in the mood to listen. I put…