Ep. 75: ABA & Neurodiversity Affirming Practices
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What personal experiences shaped the host’s view on ABA therapy?
what's up everyone and welcome to making the shift for autistic kids
we're an slb couple from california with four boys and we're
here every week to bring you neuro affirming
tips tricks and tools are you ready to make the
shift let's do
Hello, hello, everyone. Welcome to Making the Shift. Today, I am in my clinic. Chris is dancing because he is so excited to be back at school. So today we are talking about something that everyone wants to hear about and no one wants to talk about.
That's right. So we're going to touch on some difficult topics and concepts in an easy to understand way. This episode is a no shame, no blame zone, more for educational purposes to help guide ideas, shift thoughts, and help with those that you work with.
Wow, that was beautiful. It's like you would have thought you had that written down, but I know you, so I know that you don't.
I tattooed it on my brain.
So today we're talking about behavioral therapy, specifically ABA for autistic kids. We're gonna be sharing what our personal experiences, what our personal perspectives are. So keep that in mind that the thoughts we're sharing are our own. Also, Chris and I do have different perspectives on this because we've had different lives, different work experiences, different settings. So I'm excited to have this conversation as well just to see kind of what those differences are and things we agree on too but You know, this is something that we joke that no one wants to talk about because it's so controversial. And sometimes it's like you feel like no matter what you say, it's going to be wrong. And I think that's why people are so afraid of this topic, because it's regardless of what you say, not every person is going to agree with you.
That's how life is. But what we really wanted to do again was share what our personal experiences were and And first of all, I will say that I was trained as a behavioral therapist when I was in grad school. And so many people are shocked to hear that because it's so different than what I do now. But I was looking for a job and those jobs were like all over the place. And I ended up getting hired as a one-on-one aid for a seven-year-old girl in a private school. And I had no prior experience with any type of behavioral therapy, just so that you know where I was coming from. I actually had a floor time background. So this was very different. And I think I can speak for a lot of us when I say, you know, one experience is not like every other experience, right?
You could have completely different experiences with therapists and with therapy. And I think that's really important for us to say and acknowledge. So this is just what my experience was, which was basically I was taught, maybe I had two days of training with this little girl's BCBA who was previously, her one on one. And this is what it looked like. And if you've been in this situation before, this probably sounds familiar.
How does the iceberg analogy change the way we understand autistic behavior?
But basically, first day, her BCABA hands me this fat binder of concepts that they'd been working on like these are things she'd been working on for years and she basically taught me how to kind of go through what I would do with this little girl every day and I actually wrote about this in my book so if you've read it you've read the story but she would say you know you want to ask this little girl every question three times if she gets it wrong three times in a row you're going to mark it as an x and then you're going to move on to the next thing So I just cannot take this one moment out of my memory, which is, I always had to ask her, what's the weather like today? You know, and we wanted her to say like sunny, rainy, whatever.
So I would say, what's the weather today? No response. So I would ask the second time, what's the weather today? No response. Third time, what's the weather today? And looking back, she was definitely like a salt language processor. And she went, rainbow, rainbow. And I'm like, OK, Mark, that is wrong, you know, which is funny because it is kind of related to the weather looking back.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What personal experiences shaped the host’s view on ABA therapy?
0:08–3:34
2
How does the iceberg analogy change the way we understand autistic behavior?
3:34–7:01
3
Why is focusing only on observable behaviors problematic in ABA?
7:01–11:02
4
What are neuro‑diversity‑affirming alternatives to traditional ABA goals?
11:02–14:27
5
How can parents choose the right specialist for their child’s specific needs?
14:27–17:44
6
What systemic barriers make ABA the default therapy and how can they be addressed?
17:44–21:25
7
How can therapists rewrite goals to support sensory and emotional regulation?
21:25–26:39
8
What resources does the ND Affirming Therapy Academy offer for neuro‑diversity‑affirming practice?
26:39–29:49
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from The NeuroAffirm Podcast
Ep. 125 How to Run Successful Social Groups
Ep. 124 Building Rapport Isn’t Enough...How Therapists Become Part of the Intervention
Ep. 123 Not Seeing Progress in Speech Therapy? Start Here.
Ep. 122 Screen Time Considerations for Autistic Kids
Ep. 121 The Biggest Sensory Mistakes SLPs Make
Ep. 120 Why Anxiety is So Common in Autism (And What Actually Helps)