Are autistic children worthy of ethics and human rights?

Post Reply New Topic

http://www.sentex.net/~nexus23/naa_aba.html

This is a link to a very important paper written by a woman on the ASD spectrum, which comprehensively details the issues and history of behavioural "treatment" of ASD children, and the person who started the idea that physical punishment cures autism - Professor Ivor Lovas.

The paper - in my view - is powerful and acutely perceptive.

Activist PS: You could print and send it to naive people who think ABA is the cat's whiskers, because they were told so by some behaviourist masquerading as a psychologist...

Of course they are.

ABA, especially the "aversive" type, tends to be rough on autistic kids.

The aim, I believe, is to incorporate autistic kids into the greater society without sacrificing their autistic identity and autistic strengths.

That is one very long and very powerful article - I hope everyone here takes time to read it in full.

The concluding paragraph certainly does not mix words:

Until this happens in autism, behaviourists can't evaluate what recovery from autism means and how it might be manifested. They have no way of knowing whether recovery from autism is a good or a terrible result. Their criteria are the biased byproducts of human rights violations and cannot be trusted. In pretending otherwise, behaviourists are proposing to train autistics in appropriate human behaviours while themselves displaying some of the most maladaptive human behaviours available.


I was stunned to learn that back in the 70's at the same time the same behaviorist at UCLA who were developing ABA for autistics were running "The Feminine Boy Project," a behavior modification/aversion therapy program to change feminine acting boys into masculine acting boys in hope of preventing homosexuality. This would of course be considered a monstrous human rights violation today - But the same people who led the way in creating ABA for autism are the same people who were behind that project.

Another article on the feminine boy project:

Therapy to change 'feminine' boy created a troubled man, family says

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/US/06/07/si ... xperiment/

I agree.

You know, I came out of that lecture theatre in the 1980s feeling soiled, as though I had had sh.t thrown at me. And I had been exposed to a blizzard of it.

re the article: all her work is interesting and I hope it will be widely read here.

http://neurodiversity.com/library_lovaas_1965.pdf

More on Lovaas - using electric shock on 5 year old autistic children. Yes, he's a monster.

Those children, if still alive, will be in their 30s now. I wonder what happened to them. My guess is that they would have been so damaged by Lovaas that they may not have been capable of functioning in later life, so great was the betrayal they had experienced "for their own good". Possibly died of drug ovedoses after struggles with addiction from teenage years on, if they lasted that long.

I'm glad I was born in 2000 and have parents who would never think about giving something like that a try

I'm glad of that too, Ezra. In years to come I think you may become one of the stars in putting ASD on the map of reality for people who don't have it and don't understand it, and reducing the stigma and ignorance that prevails now.

You, perhaps, misunderstood. I'm not a fan of ABA, either. I stated that goal as the general goal, not as a defender of ABA.

My bad.

Thanks for posting that paper, a long but worthwhile read.

Extremist consequentialism, aka the ends justify the means, seems to be the standard of ethical consideration used in the application of behaviour modification techniques as discussed by the author.

Ethics have been deployed; society is intolerant through ignorance, a nanny type perspective of ‘protect the objectified from the bigotry in the world’, by further objectifying them until they conform....? The extremist interpretation of ABA increases the demands on overtaxed systems, to accommodate those who cannot understand/respect difference unless it’s physically obvious.

I fail to see the sense in this approach and wonder if behavioural and mental comorbidity would be as prevalent in a more ideal tolerant society. (I agree for example that communication is of benefit for the person with ASD, what I disagree with is that eye contact should be conditioned, as it is required by those without this challenge as necessary for communication.)