THE WORD IS OUT ABOUT AUTISM

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I will Malcolm

I don't like that....Malcom, I hope you're kidding.

You have my unswerving loyalty, Malcom.

Can I be a general (or at least an officer)??? I have been studying tactics and playing RTSs for as long as I can remember and it would be an honor to be a officer in the aspie militia.

Hmmm... After reading this thread one could think that the Canadian government is readying gas chambers. With all due respect, Michelle Dawson's article has many powerful words, but is nearly devoid of facts, unfortunately. No reason for the third world war yet.

I am sorry. But I am not. I have to stand up for what I believe or else it will be crushed. I will only raise an army if they try to deny my freedom and that of others like me. My friend who tries to run an anarchist website has added a page on his website about the militia, but it is warped highly.

Magic, did you miss the big list of sources at the bottom of the article?

Do you know that Michelle Dawson's opinion is that there won't be any effective pre-natal test as she believes the genetics will continue to confound and those doing the research are actually being a bit optomistic about their data? I don't really know if that is, but she certainly hasn't said anything to the effect of meaning the opposite.

Her position is complicated, a simplification like yours doesn't quite fit it. If you are going to criticise, you can do so personally in the comment board at the bottom. Michelle isn't pushing the idea that there are going to be gas chambers, but reading your post gives that impression.

I will also Malcolm.

Good good. You can be a general Endersdragon.

That's a bit belated Malcom_Scipo, Ender is a general in his own right. Ever since destroying the Buggers, he was awarded the rank of general. I would put him in charge of everything, genius that he is.

Lucas,
You can't live a life based on the laws of Operant Conditioning. You can't always remove every reason that someone does something. If you get offended, you can't just go beat a person to a pulp and blame it on the fact that they offended you. You need to develop self-control. Even if there is a stimuli for something, you sometimes need to know that it is still not acceptable behavior to use to deal with that stimuli.

I did mention that "it only depends on what and how you apply it". Typical autistic behaviors such as rocking are, of course, not a reason to apply ABA. But if a child has a tendency to violence when overloaded, it is not desirable to allow the child to express it in that manner. You don't apply it in order to get rid of the overload, but you apply it towards developing other ways of coping with it.
Ethical has nothing to do with it, it is something that people have been doing for years, but without a name and label to attribute it to. Were you ever smacked for stealing? For smoking cigarettes? Violent behavior? That is a form of ABA. The same principles.
Because adversitives decrease in efficiency as you get older, these things need to be set while you are a child. You would rail against being smacked if you were, say, 15. But as a child, at least NT child, you should realize that its something you should not do. An AS child would not necessarily realize what it means, but ABA works to help them understand what it is for, and then they can associate that with what they did.

Danlo

The problem arises when ABA is used inappropriately, such as for making autistics 'more normal' by erradicating their autistic behaviours (stimming, avoidance of eye contact, screaming because nobody understands and they're all alone and afraid in a hostile world), in which case it's roughly equivalent to treating appendicitus by electrocuting the person's genitals until they learn to stop screaming from the pain for fear of more pain. Self-control is all wonderful and good, but not to the exclusion of addressing the underlying problems.

http://www.astraeasweb.net/politics/aba.html ABA gone bad.

Peter, if you were replying to my post, you did not read it very thoroughly.

I really do get tired of people repeating stuff I have already said, and then addressing points that I did not make. Read my posts thoroughly before attempting to reply to them.

Danlo, you've misunderstood me, you think I believe in Operant Conditioning(which is as much an ideology as a science). What I said was that there is a widespread ethical problem in the field of ABA-Autism where those who believe in Operant Conditioning selectively ignore it.

This is the case when ABA is used to repress violent and explosive behaviour, Autism doesn't cause someone to be aggressive, so why does it happen? A Behaviourist's science tells them that Operant Conditioning has a hand in it, but for the sake of being market friendly, they allow Special Pleading for Autism.

There is a serious ethical issue when you take someone's meal from them and then toss them scraps, that pretty much explains what is happening in a lot of ABA sessions. The child will need to express something, this attempt at communication is ignored and then it reaches a boiling point where the Autistic child resorts to the 'last straw' behaviour: the trantrum. Only then is the communication noticed and it is assumed that violence was the tendency and first resort.

When I have something important that I want to say and I am ignored repeatedly until I act in a manner neccessary but unacceptable, it is unethical to then teach me to act in a manner which will yet again be ignored until I am unacceptable again when my first resort was perfectly acceptable, but ignored.

The evidence for 'plasticity' which is what they call the importance of early development is somewhat lacking also. Evidence is cited in the cases of feral children who didn't grow up around people and could never be domesticated, but it is assuming that it is because of the stage of life rather than the quantity of life experience(like people who are alive but have never lived).

This is highlighted that adversive do NOT in fact decrease in effectiveness as one gets older, they decrease the more they are applied which would lead someone to assume that it is to do with age when it is not. That was Skinner's point.

Perhaps I simply felt that your point was understated and needed a little expansion and emphasis. Sorry if it came out otherwse.

Sorry, Peter, I guess I did the same to Lucas. Lucas, sorry mate, it did not occur to me that you were just simply describing what they believe.
It all boils down to application rather than the principles of ABA, I agree.