ABA feedback please?

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Has anyone of you had ABA applied to you when you were at school, or from your parents?
I would be most curious about this, and in particular what effect you think it had on you.

I am a parent and should mention that I am not very much in favour of this (or what I've read about it so far!), but I'm trying to keep an open mind until I hear what people have actually experienced.

I don't believe in the aversive (painful) aspects of some ABA.

I believe, sometimes, that an autistic child has to be "forced," so to speak, to get out of their comfort zone. ABA is based on this premise, I believe.

When I think of getting out of comfort zones, I look at Plato's "Allegory of a Cave."

I believe understanding the points made in "Allegory of a Cave" are essential in understanding autism.

Imagine being in darkness for years, and having to, all of a sudden, try to see things in bright sunlight? This is what it might be like for some autistic people if they leave their comfort zones.

Imagine, even, coming into sunlight after leaving a dark house. An autistic person's reaction to this is probably more extreme than yours.

I had to google ABA.
I like the entry for "American Birding Association." Have loved birdwatching since a favorite aunt introduced me to it.

As for being "forced" out of my comfort zone ...
Well, my mom once tried hiding medication in my orange juice and scrambled eggs.
The result of which was, I refused to ever again drink orange juice or eat scrambled eggs,
for the next 15 years.
Not a good way to get a picky eater Aspie kid to eat nutritiously.

A far better approach was used when my dad once explained to me,
"Sometimes, you may not feel like going somewhere, you're just not in the mood. But a lot of times you'll find out that if you just go, you'll enjoy yourself once you get there."
He was not calling attention to my behavior in any way, but instead explaining how he felt sometimes, and that this was a normal thing.
Maybe he had asked me if I wanted to go somewhere, and I might have answered, "I don't know."

Anyways, if you're talking about "aversive" behavior conditioning
like the kind I read about in "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley,
then obviously I would be against it.

I don't mean literally "forced."

I mean it more in the way Phoenix expresses it.

There are times when simple, gentle prodding might seem like you're "forcing" an autistic person, even when it's not "forceful" at all from the standpoint of a "normal" person.

Phoenix's father had the right idea; he was a very smart man. He had "Allegory of a Cave" in mind, even if he never read it.

The teaching methods I was exposed to were more general behaviorist and not strict ABA. But I still have post tramatic stress around it. (ABA is a super strict method of behaviorism.)

The really hard thing for me is that everything became my inability to spell. I was nothing but spelling and math facts. Behaviorism isn't about growing a human or helping us develop a strong sense of self. Its all about demonstrating observable skills. So, what it's really teaching you is that it doesn't matter who you are. It only matters what you look like. I was brought in for "lessons" on how to spell every day. They put me in front of a machine and made me drill, drill, drill. They made me do endless worksheets. I have an IQ of 136. If I refused to go to the resource room, they dragged me down the hall bodily. If I didn't comply with my drill work, I was denied breaks. I missed art for spelling. I missed science for spelling. I missed recess for spelling.

You'll notice that I'm a fairly average speller at this point. Yah. I finally TAUGHT MYSELF. I was in collage and I discovered whole language spelling, which for me was the right teaching method. I applied it to myself and ta-dah! I figured out spelling. I think it's also relevant that I went through a mental growth spurt at that time, too. There is such a thing as simply being ready for a skill.

Some of my hardest memories are being in a really bad space and having my mother or a teacher say to me that "we don't reinforce this behavior" instead of helping. You see, behaviorism teaches that people are wired to gain attention. And if you give a kid attention when they are "bad" you will reinforce that badness. But I needed help. And I didn't get it. And I didn't have the wiring to learn what ever it was they thought they were teaching me by ignoring me in pain. Its not just that ABA is a bad teaching method. (It's actually a pretty effective training method.) My problem is that the mind-set which grounds and governs it is, excuse my mellow-drama, evil.

I'm not just a collection of functioning or non-functioning skills. I'm not just about demonstrable and observable behaviors. I'm HUMAN.

So, while yes, ABA can teach your kid certain skills, I think it's real danger is in the belief that you have to apply it's theories every moment of every day to be effective. It "works" but only in that your kid will come out of it being trained in certain skills that are useful in life. But if you really buy into this stuff, you buy into this idea that you child is some kind of instinct and response drone, and not a human being with feelings and a soul of their own.

I really have no belief in the psychological theory of "Behaviorism."

Behaviorism, in its most dogmatic form, denies the efficacy of introspection.

Yep...you're right. They do this for practical reasons.

I was once diagnosed with Schizoid Personality Disorder because one of my shrinks needed funding.

Thanks for the examples, somanyspoons and the_phoenix, this is precisely the kind of information I'm looking for..

I can see there're some confusion about the terminology, so when I say ABA I mean, when external motivators (rewards and/or punishments - though it can be just rewards, I believe that is more fashionable these days) are being used in order to to elicit approved behaviours, or to 'motivate' people into doing certain tasks. Yes, somanyspoons, I absolutely agree that we are looking at behaviourism in a pretty pure form, and it's very interesting about the insurance.

So, were MOTIVATORS (rewards and punishments) used on you: if so what were they, what were you being persuaded to do (or not do), and what effect did it have on you; on your development and state of mind?

How come you didn't care for my feedback? I'm just curious. Did I not explain it right?

Yes, I had both motivators, and punishments used on me as a kid. Then again, I had both used throughout the time I was growing up.

Pieplup: Just Google "Plato"...and you'll probably get full-text, printable versions of Plato's works like "Republic"" and "Allegory of a Cave."

Same with any "major" philosopher.