If Not ABA, then What? Increasing Communication, Language, and Academic Skills

I saw firsthand the other element that ABA targets (education) in November of 2021 when I got involved with a group trying to slow the increase of ABA legislation in funding in Texas.

CONTENT WARNING: This piece discusses ABA and other Conversion Therapies. Reader discretion is advised.

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When I started the series Alternatives to ABA, we discussed "Problem Behaviors," I shared how behavior can often indicate unmet needs and why squishing "inconvenient behaviors" may extinguish essential communications to you that your loved one needs something from you they cannot express.

In part 2 we discussed my Autistic perspectives on "helping Autistic People with learning self-care skills, and yesterday in part 3 I dove into my opinions on alternatives to ABA for teaching social skills and offered my thoughts on "appropriate" play.

Today I will conclude this series of alternatives to ABA with "increasing communication and language" as well as ways to “improve academic skills” based on my personal experience as a former Autistic young person and what would have helped me.

If you missed Part 1, Part 2, or Part 3 of this series, please check those out too.

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Lyric on the stand, giving testimony, in one of the meetings at the Texas Capital on ABA.

I saw firsthand the other element that ABA targets (education) in November of 2021 when I got involved with a group trying to slow the increase of ABA legislation in funding in Texas.

Our goal was to stop the expansion of ABA's state funding because when ABA gets funded (because of how many hours and how much funding is required per child), funding for other Autism services (such as speech and OT) often dries up.

ABA is expensive, but ABA lobbyists scare legislators by insisting Autistic people will cost the state even more if we don't have ABA, by misconstruing Autism stats (stating how many Autistic People there are in the state total) and making it sound as if every Autistic Person who doesn't get ABA will never be able to enter mainstream education and then end up in long-term care as adults because we didn't get ABA.

The lobbyists pitched ABA as something all Autistic People need to get ready for mainstream school and life, a stepping stone into school.

Our group was there to speak to the harms and abuses of ABA.

Lyric, a pale skinned nonbinary human in black hat sitting in the stands holding back tears as they sit listening to a bad-ass Black, mother of an Autistic child, with long dark curly hair bravely testifying about the harms of ABA in one of the 2021 Texas legislative meetings.

The ABAers told stories of how they would work to change us so that we could fit into a mainstream educational environment (without understanding or considering the climate they're trying to put us into might not be suitable for us).

They will teach us "appropriate behavior" to be quiet, seated, and still so we don't "bother," "disrupt," and "inconvenience" others in the classroom.

I sat in on and gave testimony at multiple meetings, listening to representatives from various ABA organizations (including Autism Speaks) reading scripts intended to create fear that Autistic People would create "astronomical costs" for the state if we didn't get ABA.

On one occasion, I listened in horror as an ABA provider casually and coldly threw in statistics about parents who kill their Autistic children because we are so challenging.

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