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Assimilation

rach3rd

rach3rd

Well-Known Member
So I’m learning a lot about what is currently happening in the autistic community. ABA comes up a lot in online discussions, and is often heated. If it has helped you that is great, but it seems kind of creepy to me at first glance. Like it is trying to alter your reality. Am I wrong?
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I would like children and people to be taught & supported in ways which lead to thinking (about things and themselves), for themselves. Whether one adheres or follows ABA or some set of social expectations is up to them. Except, many people - ND & NT - never learn to discern what and who directs their thoughts and actions. They would deny it if asked but they are led along all their life by others’ who are able to manipulate and influence. And when they feel unfulfilled they turn on & sit down to stare at the television.
 
rach3rd said:
So I’m learning a lot about what is currently happening in the autistic community. ABA comes up a lot in online discussions, and is often heated. If it has helped you that is great, but it seems kind of creepy to me at first glance. Like it is trying to alter your reality. Am I wrong?
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I see "assimilation" consuming people in far more than just the autistic community. I see our entire civilization is being assimilated. I feel we are becoming the Borg (as in Star Trek) hived together by the "collective" we call the internet. Our personal interconnects are our cell phones, that I suspect will eventually be implants. This is already being researched: Neuralink.
The lives of most people I know are contained within their cell phones. They become totally lost without it. When misplaced, it prompts a frantic search. I fear the assimilation by the collective may be our eventual demise.
 
I'm an earlier generation, we already got assimilated by Daleks. Also, being of that generation, I can't post a funny picture of a Dalek scene to illustrate this. Or it may be because my mind has been wiped by the metal encased reptilian aliens.

I've given my thoughts on ABA on other threads here, it was based in a very problematic early understanding of autism that suggested children with autism weren't fully human and had to be 'built'. It was of it's time, and we don't think like that any more. However, the idea of teaching some social behaviours to some children may be helpful, we do this all the time in schools, in ways that are not under the banner of ABA.

Therapy approaches that are or would be of use to children and/or adults with autism are many and varied. A new, well informed integrative therapeutic approach for autism would be a great step forward. All we need to put that together is already out there.

ABA is a historical approach that's similar to other old fashioned shakily founded and dated approaches, which often negated the rights and wellbeing of the subjects, and it needs to be moved on from.
 
Are we just truly free spirits? We aren't easily manipulated, we do things our way. I am not controlled by money, or society norms. I don't need credit cards, l don't like tv, and l don't always believe what the government tells me. We are a force to be reckon with and l watch to many cat videos. Call homeland security ☺ lol

Maybe @Thinx could be the one that puts the integrative therapy approach together. Yes, just a pipe dream. Sigh....
 
rach3rd said:
So I’m learning a lot about what is currently happening in the autistic community. ABA comes up a lot in online discussions, and is often heated. If it has helped you that is great, but it seems kind of creepy to me at first glance. Like it is trying to alter your reality. Am I wrong?
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I believe ABA has one good purpose - to establish communication. I use "clicker training" to teach my dogs and positive reinforcement to help kids develop good learning habits. I use positive reinforcement and extinction.

But as communication is established, then it becomes manipulation. Few people seem to understand this concept and use it for the purpose of controlling others. Then it causes more problems. The species on which it is being used for control either responds with inward negativity (depression) or outwardly (negative behaviors). BCBA can be amazing and they commit to adhere to an ethic agreement to be certified. I have learned a great deal from these professionals. But I have also had the misfortune of working with poor BCBAs. Several years ago I worked with a very strong, violent HS student. The student & I got along great - but the student attacked his BCBA several times and I saw the kid punch a teacher in the face.

I believe people working with children & pets should know more about basic ABA concepts b/c there is so much inadvertent reinforcement going on.

Inadvertent Teaching examples:
An obese, yappy cairn terrier had an owner that gave it a dogbone to quiet her, then as soon as another was wanted, it would start yapping until it got another. If extinction was attempted, the fat, yappy dog would go into overdrive to get what another bone. It was her favorite job.

A parent of an MS kid wanted help b/c the kid would have massive tantrums for up to 72 hours (the parent said that was the longest they could go before giving in) because the kid wanted to open all the presents before Christmas. The kid had them trained to then go out and buy all new gifts for Christmas morning or the kid would tantrum until they did. The kid had expensive demands and they went into debt every year to deal with the tantrums they taught the kid to have.

Aspychata said:
We aren't easily manipulated, we do things our way. I am not controlled by money, or society norms. I don't need credit cards, l don't like tv, and l don't always believe what the government tells me. We are a force to be reckon with
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Just one of the many perks of autism! All of the greats are outta the box thinkers!!
 
As far as I can tell, ABA can do wonders in modifying learned behaviors. There are a LOT of problematic learned behaviors out there and as long as one wants to unlearn the behaviors, ABA is a perfectly valid way to go. If you don't want to unlearn the behavior, ABA is futile. (So is any other psychotherapeutic approach.)

Also, I understand that today's ABA is not like that of the bad old days which was little more than Pavlovian conditioning and coercive brainwashing.

Since autism is a structural difference in the brain and not a learned behavior, I don't see how it can help.

But... the man whose only tool is a hammer sees all the world's problems as nails. The same can be true of the practitioners of a school of psychology.
 
I didn’t know what ABA was, thought it was an 80’s pop band?

All mental health is a guess unless the brain is physically messed up - just a personal opinion. I like physical evidence, if it’s there then I’m usually on board but if not then everything is questioned.
 
ForestGumpett said:
I didn’t know what ABA was, thought it was an 80’s pop band?

All mental health is a guess unless the brain is physically messed up - just a personal opinion. I like physical evidence, if it’s there then I’m usually on board but if not then everything is questioned.
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Not enough Bs. :D
 
ForestGumpett said:
I like physical evidence, if it’s there then I’m usually on board but if not then everything is questioned.
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I agree completely, except that I trust mechanism-of-action over evidence. Evidence is only evidence regardless of frequency of occurrence. Mechanism-of-action is how it works. Much closer to proof.
Please pardon my nitpicking.
 
Assimilation got a bad rap from the Borg. Real life assimilation takes place when a minority decides that the society at large offers many worthy things. It's not a surrender of your own uniqueness, its the realization that your own group's customs are not the final arbiter of what is good in life. Over time your customs and traditions diffuse through the larger culture. A fully assimilated society is like a well cooked soup. Many ingredients adding to a common good. Like that soup, assimilation takes a lot of time. Unlike a soup, the ingredients have to be willing.

The Irish are the most assimilated people in America. Yet we have the annual St. Patrick's day celebration. Nothing need be surrendered except tribalism.

If humans didn't assimilate, there wouldn't be any social or political unit larger than a tribe. Force would be central to social organization. And consequently most of us would die in infancy. Those who survived would live in intermittent pain and fear until we reached a ripe old age of maybe 30-40 when we'd die from disease, starvation, or a violent end.

If "us and them" doesn't turn into "we," all that remains is a Hobbesian "war of all against all."
 
I agree with what you say and I hate it so much.

Supposedly it's the only way for inclusion but if a person has to fit in a box in order to be included then it's just assimilation into the system.
 
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