It is not a secret that I had an especially hard time with ABA. An explanation of ABA can be found here. I came across a blog post about an autistic praising ABA. Knowing what I went through, this raised some red flags.

He states,”I have read bad stories about ABA from other people with autism, but I am here to share my positive experiences.” First off the way we refer to ourselves is Autistic not “with autism.” We are not ill and we cannot leave our autism behind.  It looks like he wants to silence most autistic experience.

He says he loves his therapists and one changed how he looks at life. He claimed to gained more independence. But he fails to say how or what methods they used. There is a lot of missing information. He does not say how many hours a week or if they did not allow him to stim. All he says is how much he loves it.

He says that he is making progress with his attitude. This sounds like masking. He does not see that the therapist is training him to act just like everyone else. This is really damaging.  He also states that his behavior is in control. It is in control because they trained him, not find the underlying reason why the behavior is happening.

One thing he says “I see it as you get what you make of it and I choose to make the most of my time with my therapists.” To me, it looks like he is blaming all the victims of ABA for their own PTSD and negative experiences. So it was my fault when I was 8 what my therapist did to me? I do not want to relive it or go into a PTSD attack so the link is in the first paragraph of this blog.

There is not enough information to go on so did he actually put himself through ABA?

Original article: https://mitchellslifewithautism.com/2019/03/22/my-experience-with-aba