📌5 key takeaways
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What ABA Is: ABA is a behavioural therapy aimed at modifying behaviours in autistic individuals—often children—to make them appear more neurotypical, using techniques like positive reinforcement.
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Why It’s Controversial: Despite being widely used, ABA is seen by many in the autistic community as harmful and traumatic, as it focuses on changing the individual rather than accepting their neurodivergence.
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Incompatibility with NDA: ABA contradicts a neurodiversity affirming approach because it implies that autistic traits are problems to be fixed, encourages masking, and often ignores the person’s own goals or preferences.
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What NDA Looks Like: A neurodiversity affirming approach centres on listening to autistic voices, embracing individual differences, supporting preferences and needs, and focusing on societal change rather than changing the individual.
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Therapeutic Stance: At Superyou, we do not offer or recommend ABA, instead prioritising person-first, affirming therapy that celebrates neurodivergence and strives for inclusive environments that support genuine wellbeing.
Want the lowdown on Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA) and why we believe it isn’t a Neurodiverse Affirming (NDA) approach?
You may have heard of ABA, know someone who has received ABA therapy or been a recipient of this type of therapy yourself.
It’s a topic surrounded by controversy, and in today’s blog post, we’re going to explore why that is, explain why ABA isn’t NDA, and ways you CAN take an NDA approach when supporting autistic people, whether you’re a parent or caregiver, a teacher or part of a broader support team!
What is Applied Behaviour Analysis?
Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA) is what we call a ‘behavioural’ approach.
Essentially, it aims to change the behaviours of autistic individuals, specifically children with autism, usually with the purpose of making their behaviours appear more neurotypical.
It has been extensively researched and proven to be “effective” when the goal is to change a person’s behaviours.
So what is involved in ABA? Therapists identify and analyse different behaviours and work out ways to change them if they are considered “harmful”.
Positive reinforcement is a major component of ABA, where behaviours the therapist, parents or carers want to increase are reinforced with rewards, and rewards are withheld until the child performs the behaviour.
Why is it not Neurodiverse Affirming?
Put simply, ABA is incompatible with a neurodiverse affirming approach.
Let’s delve into some of the reasons why ABA isn’t NDA:
- ABA is a “treatment”, which suggests there is something that needs to be “fixed”. The autistic community rejects this idea – autistic brains are just one of many different neurotypes, each of which should be celebrated!
- The autistic community has spoken out about the harmful and traumatic effects of ABA therapy. In a recent study published in 2022, autistic individuals spoke about their experience with ABA, with one person saying, “They would encourage anything that they saw that they liked. They would focus on that, and they would not focus on anything that I wanted to do.”
- ABA aims to change the individual, rather than advocating for change within their community and society. A neurodiversity affirming approach looks for ways to change the community, rather than the individual, such as making spaces safer, providing education, and advocating for autistic individuals.
- ABA typically leads to masking and camouflaging of autistic traits, which can be extremely harmful to individuals mental health. Autistic advocates highlight that while ABA may lead to surface-level “improvements” in behaviour, in reality, the autistic person is masking their true nature.
How to be Neurodiverse Affirming
So, now we know what ABA is and why it is not neurodiversity affirming, let’s consider this question; how can we be NDA? The answer is very simple: listen to autistic individuals!
The autistic community knows what they need best – if you are unsure if what you are doing is neurodiversity affirming, consider what your aim or goal is. Did you consult the autistic person? Does your goal align with what they or their family wants to achieve? If you aim to embrace an autistic individual, support their needs and preferences, advocate for change in the community around them, and provide tools to support their participation in whatever capacity feels right to them, then yes, you are being NDA!
Do we recommend or provide Applied Behaviour Analysis therapy?
While ABA has been widely used as a therapeutic approach, it does not align with our neurodiversity affirming perspective or therapeutic approach, as it seeks to change autistic individuals rather than embrace their unique neurotype. So we choose not to offer ABA therapy to any clients.
To truly be neurodiversity affirming, we must listen to and honour the voices of autistic individuals, advocating for a world that accommodates and celebrates neurodivergence. It’s okay to make mistakes. What’s important is that when you know better, you do better, and you actively seek out information and research to keep yourself informed!
We incorporate this approach into our therapy practices in ways that put the person first, which we find results in far better outcomes, happier clients and an overall more positive journey.
Find out more about our therapy approach here!