ABA feedback please?

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Yes, but unfortunately, I have to leave so I don't have time to answer fully right now.
Will be back by later tonight. (American DST time, Eastern time zone)

All of these books that are old and therefore not copywritten are available online for free. Just google the title and free. Its usually a pdf.

http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.html

Or you can go to the library if you want a hard copy.

Kraftiekortie, I am very interested indeed in your experience, forgive me if it came across that I wasn't.. It's just that in your answers you didn't mention specific experiences from your life or confirm that this was used on you, and if so what your reaction was in those instances? That's the reason I didn't directly answer you too.

However I did put the 'Allegory of a Cave' onto my reading list as it sounds extremely interesting

Since I was not diagnosed with Asperger's until I was an adult in 2001, I have never been to ABA. But what I have learned about makes it sound horrific and like something from the old insane asylums from the 1500's. They do things that would be seen as torture, cruelty and child abuse to an NT kid, but just because it's an autistic child it's supposed to be "therapy". HA!

They punish kids for doing anything autistic. They punish the child for showing negative emotions such as sadness or fear. The inflict pain and use restraint when the child stims, even if they are not causing harm to themselves and others. They put on a big show for the parents acting like they are happy happy happy, but when they are alone with the kids they are like Nazis.

The fact that something like this exists in this day and age make my blood boil. Human beings just have a natural desire to abuse anyone who is "weak" and unable to defend themselves.

I believe ABA methods were used, informally, by my mother.

I am not under the impression that ABA methods were used on me in a therapeutic setting---though my memory is pretty hazy from birth to about age 6.

I understand what you're saying, Katy.

And I understand what you're saying too. You're actually quite right that it was not considerate of me to respond to others and not to you, you rightly pulled me up on it. You reminded me of my son in this

Firstly, I will say that ABA was not officially used with me, because they didn't know about Asperger's when I was a child ... so I was labeled "gifted" instead.

Rewards:

1) For every A on my report card, I earned a dollar. For an overall grade of A, the entire family got treated out to the restaurant of my choice. For every B, I would earn 50 cents. The good thing was, my sisters and brother got to come to the restaurant too, which helped cut down on envy, jealousy, sibling rivalry ... when one of us got rewarded, everyone got some benefit. So when my brother or a sister got an overall grade of A, I got to go out to eat at whatever restaurant they chose ... this was a good thing.

2) Similarly, I was taught religion at home. I would receive small monetary prizes for memorizing certain prayers or catechism answers. Quite effective. I learned quickly, I made a small token amount of money, very cool.

3) Being on good behavior at church and in the car to and from meant that the family would go to a restaurant for a meal or a treat like ice cream or donuts after church. If one or more kids started acting cranky or fighting in the car, the threat was that we would go straight home and eat a can of tomato soup for lunch, followed by a nice apple, orange, or banana. (I hated tomato soup, and who wants fruit when you can have ice cream?)

The nice thing about being rewarded for good grades was that we kids were never pushed beyond our capabilities ... If the best we could honestly do was earn a C or a D or even a failing grade like an F, there was no punishment. However, if it was felt that we were being lazy and not working up to our capacity, that was not the honorable thing to do. Nobody in my family ever got punished for being lazy in school. This was a good thing because it took the pressure off, and so achieving in school was something to feel good about.

Punishments:

1) Spanking ... yes, I grew up when spankings were still very common. And I pretty much knew what would get me in trouble. And no, I was no little saint or angel. In fact, I could be mischievous, and once in particular knew darn well that something I was going to do would get me spanked ... thank goodness I'm older and more mature now.

2) Being sent to my room ... yes, this was an indignity (at least for the first few minutes of being in my room). It was probably meant to calm down my temper, because for a little while I would be angry ... but pretty soon, I was enjoying the "alone time" in my room. So this was a very cool punishment fer shurr!

3) Being yelled at ... I don't advise this when the yelling is demeaning (which all too often, that's what it becomes).

4) Having something taken away ... an item, privileges, or being grounded ... Actually, this punishment really didn't happen to me that I can remember.

Anyways ... Loved the rewards, hated being yelled at. Yelling is not helpful.

...

I get straight Bs with little to no effort. I'm rich.

I used to get good grades in school. Never got an award for them--except some praise both real and faint.

It was taken for granted that I would get good grades.

I was hit with the strap for things like cursing. I got spanked sometimes, too.

I was spanked frequently with a belt. I think it was really just the norm back then - in my family's circle anyway.

I would never spank my own child.

Thank you all for your replies! This is really interesting. You see, till last year I took the kids to a school where there is very high performance generally, and my son while getting really positive feedback at the beginning from teachers, began to do worse and worse, and I could see this was because of his state of mind. No-one seemed to be worried except me, in fact strangely he still got good reports though I could see the quality of the work (and his interest in it) was superficial at best.

However, I frankly don't give a darn about grades. I'd have done anything to get him happy and tranquil again.

Every evening he was taking 2 hours to fall asleep. At this point I was working flat-out to pay for the private school, usually alone with our two kids as my husband's job is very demanding. I was shattered. I was also commuting 2 hours a day, with the children.

Talking to a friend, about the endless bedtimes, she said 'it's easy - you just give him pocket money, every time he goes to sleep without bothering you he gets 50 cents and can save up towards something he wants.'

Sounded like it made sense - so I did it, and it worked! (For stopping him disturbing me at night, if not for his inner tranquillity.) Three days later, the bad feeling I had about it got worse rather than going away. I bought the thing we were saving up towards, for him, outright. I lay with him for the 2 hours, and as I held him in my arms he began to ask me questions, and talk about things, basically revealing two things a) he was being badly bullied and b) he was not able to recognise it as such, and was in the process of blaming himself and internalizing it. So actually it seems to me now that I needed to find the cause, rather than suppress the symptoms.

So that's my experience. It seems to me that where there have been experiences that were not particularly negative, it is because there was a general loving and supportive environment in the family (and a certain flexibility!)

That's why I'm so interested, and thank you for your input, kraftykortie, phoenix, pieplup, somanyspoons and lostonearth! One more question for those who didn't mention this aspect so much, if you feel like answering -

Did punishing or rewarding usually have the effect your parents/teachers wanted? and
Do you think being rewarded for things you did, or how you behaved, make you feel good about yourself and more confident in the long run?

Um, one more aspect i think often overlooked, of rewarding, is that withdrawal or withholding a reward, actually does amount to punishment if you think about it..

Positive reinforcement, praise, and encouragement worked much better for me than punishment.

Mild punishments, especially for that era but I and most people were not rewarded for what you were supposed to do. Behavior modification programs, hovering, um no. I and most kids were given freedoms that would get parents arrested for child abuse today. "Live and learn" was the value system which meant I was given more opportunity to screw up but it also meant when I screwed up it was not anybody else's fault and I was expected to deal with and learn from whatever negative consequences ensued. Parents going into school and telling the teacher what to do or that that they were were wrong was practically unheard of. I did get rewarded for unusually good things such as bieng taken out to dinner for graduation.

There were times when I certainly could have used more guidence but overall for me the "free range" parenting era was more benificial then harmful for me. That era was too extreme in its lack of support, today is too extreme the other way because the ABA and other "supports" often fails to understand the people are different and kids are not conformist robots, but kids.