Human Growth and Development / Unit 6 HGD 0764 review, 2 to 3 minutes
Autism, ABA and Neurodiversity
The idea
Applied behaviour analysis, known as ABA, has been the leading approach to autism for more than sixty years. It applies operant conditioning: therapists reward desired behaviour and coach social, motor and language skills, often intensively. Research on early ABA finds improvements in cognitive, social and language skills. Neurodiversity advocates raise several criticisms. ABA has in the past used punishment. It can be rigid, and programmes can demand many hours a week from young children. Most fundamentally, critics argue that its goal has sometimes been to make autistic children appear non-autistic, which may push children to mask, suppressing autistic traits to fit in, at a personal cost. The neurodiversity view treats autism as a lifelong difference in how a brain works, not a defect to be removed, and asks whether therapy serves the child's own goals or others' comfort. Autism is lifelong, with varied trajectories.
In practice
Two programmes for the same five-year-old: one rewarding eye contact and sitting still for hours a week, the other teaching the child to ask for help and to communicate needs in whatever way works for that child.
Where people slip
Both sides make claims the evidence supports. ABA's benefits for skills are documented, and so are the harms its critics describe when it pursues conformity rather than the child's own flourishing. The disagreement is partly about goals: which skills a programme should teach, and whose comfort it should serve. The course states both views and does not recommend a therapy. For the exam, know ABA as an application of operant conditioning, know that its early use improves measured skills, and know the neurodiversity critique of masking and conformity. Identity-first language, autistic child, reflects the preference of many in the autistic community.
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