Aba Therapy Quotes

The Magician should devise for himself a definite technique for destroying "evil." The essence of such a practice will consist in training the mind and the body to confront things which case fear, pain, disgust, shame and the like. He must learn to endure them, then to become indifferent to them, then to become indifferent to them, then to analyze them until they give pleasure and instruction, and finally to appreciate them for their own sake, as aspects of Truth. When this has been done, he should abandon them, if they are really harmful in relation to health and comfort.

Applied behavioral analysis is the longest-standing therapy we have for kids with autism, and despite all its controversy, there’s no denying its effectiveness at increasing desirable behaviors. “Kids respond well to rewards, and ABA is based on breaking desirable behavior into smaller steps and rewarding the child for completing each step along the way. It’s basic conditioning principles.

An often-heard statement is that ABA therapy can make your child “indistinguishable from peers”. But I’m begging you, don’t aim for that. Your child is different, and they’ll always be. And that’s OK. By forcing them to be “normal”, you’re telling them you don’t love them as they are. Autistic ways of playing are valid. So are autistic ways of communicating. Stimming is fine. Moving is fine.

Every masked Autistic person has a litany of experiences like this. Most maskers dodge the massive psychological bullet that is ABA therapy, but we still receive endless conditioning that says our unfiltered selves are too annoying, unusual, awkward, nonconforming, and cold to fit in. We also witness how other nonconforming bodies and minds are treated. When the entire world shames people for being into “childish” things, having odd mannerisms, or simply being irritating, you don’t need ABA to program you into compliance. Everyone around you is already doing it.

For many Autistic kids, learning to obscure your pain often becomes a primary survival strategy; for masked Autistics, this isn’t taught within ABA therapy, but as part of regular life. I didn’t go through ABA, but friends’ parents did yell at me for squirming awkwardly in my seat.