Worth revisiting why I have professional concerns about the most common current version of Positive Behaviour Support (PBS) for autistic people. This'll be a thread.

PBS used to be affirming, equal, gentle. Supportive and friendly. Respecting difference/

It was used as a vast improvement over the old punishments and shaming that were common in Institutional settings, where the prisoners (I'll call them that) were routinely shouted at, hit, even electrocuted.

But, in recent years, a new version appeared, very quietly/

This one is based on Applied Behaviour Analysis, a wild theory that began some decades ago, and which was co-created by this chap, Lovaas. Content warning. This was his bizarre belief about autistic people: That we are not humans. /

Further content warning for how he got his results: /

So, I was quite surprised (understatement) to find that the ABA industry was now rebranding a lot of what it does as PBS. I blogged about that, here. http://annsautism.blogspot.com/2017/04/autism-aba-and-pbs-some-questions.html

Admitted, the ABA industry doesn't actually hit children until they comply any more. Hurrah. But/

...instead, they moved into microcontrolling children for hour after hour after hour, relentlessly stopping them so much as moving a finger.
So, I started looking for evidence that this was achieving something. I can't find any. I wish I could.
https://annsautism.blogspot.com/2019/01/autism-some-vital-research-links.html

That blog contains the puzzled NHS and Clinical research teams, also looking for evidence of PBS/ABA working. It's a challenge. It seems to have no actual effect on 'challenging behaviour', despite branding itself as a Gold Standard. Very odd indeed/

Various organisations have set up PBS training, to explain their thinking. Here's an example:
Summarised, we must normalise the autistic people, otherwise others won't give them their human rights.
That's the sort of thinking that makes my blood run cold, frankly/

Human Rights aren't something you have to earn by normalising yourself to resemble other people.
Human Rights are the right of every human being.

But it's worse than that. The 'normalisation' programme is disastrous. So much evidence of actual harm is emerging/

Evidence of that 'masking' leading to really poor mental health outcomes, to suicide ideation and greater risk of taking their own lives.
No-one thrives as an inauthentic copy of someone else.
You wouldn't.
We don't.
It's simple.
But there's more.../

In that blog above, so much positive research emerging about autistic people.
About a genuinely different, not broken, communication system.
About honesty, integrity, dedication, focus, creativity, spirituality, fairness.
Were we born 'broken'? Or did society break us?/

I work with autistic people all day, every day.
Autistic professionals. Autistic artists. Autistic spiritual leaders. Autistic people in hospitals and care settings. Autistic people who have MH situations or learning disabilities.
Absolutely wonderful people/

So:
The new PBS is now focused on making autistic people fit in, to please the majority. No point in denying it - the facts are in their own materials. And, in pressuring people to fit in, we're damaging them.
I find that unethical.
You should, too.

One of the basics of ABA and its new brand name of PBS is 'planned ignoring'.
If you don't like what someone is saying, you just ignore them, and you deem it to be a 'problem behaviour'.
It's kept the ABA/PBS industry pretty safe, because if there's criticism, they just ignore it

Ask good questions.
Ask them why external researchers cannot find evidence of their Behaviourist hypotheses actually making that positive difference.
Ask why so many autistic people are very against this stuff.
See if you get ignored...

And, if you do just get ignored, ask yourself whether - in a world filled with ways to actually improve autistic lives, you'd want to buy this product.

Thank you for reading.