Therapist Neurodiversity Collective

.Therapy.Advocacy.Education.

IEPs, Ableist Goals and Parents’ Rights

A neurodiversity-affirming parent’s anonymous post to Therapist Neurodiversity Collective requested information that might help them advocate for their special education student in the IEP meeting. From the information contained in the post, it appeared that the school, although possibly unintentionally, was not aware of IDEA and Supreme Court decisions, and therefore violated parental rights to meaningfully participate in and contribute to the IEP meeting. Additionally, it is clear that our public school system is lagging in knowledge and application of contemporary research evidence about autism, and as a result, the kids are paying the consequences with poor mental health outcomes. 

Neuro-Affirming Support and Intellectual Disability: Where Do We Start?

Neuro-Affirming Support and Intellectual Disability: Where Do We Start? with Holly Sutherland, Autistic Autism Researcher Register $15 USD Topic: Neurodiversity-informed care for intellectually disabled autistic and wider-neurodivergent people.  Course Description: Environments, […]

A Parent’s Guide to Respectful Feeding Therapy: Part 2

ABA providers will tell you to break your child, to reward your child for eating food, to re-present food your child has spit out or vomited, to restrain your child in a chair and do not let them leave the chair. There are better ways.

Neurodiversity and Autism Intervention (ABA) can’t be reconciled.

And let’s talk about considerable ethical and financial conflicts of interest with this paper and its authors, shall we?

Reader, every single author of this paper is trained in ABA, (three of them are actually BCBAs), so clearly each author has a vested financial interest in duping people into believing that ABA is “Neurodiversity Approved”.
(It’s always about the $$$.)

ABA Call to Action!

Did you know that there is a Congressional Autism Caucus? This 141-member caucus includes members from both parties in the U.S. House of Representatives and in the U.S.
Now is the time to voice your opposition to ABA!
Contact your State Congressional Members of the Congressional Autism Caucus https://doyle.house.gov/issues/autism-caucus/autism-caucus-membership

Confessions of a Previous ABA Technician – 2

Through the pairing procedure, children begin to learn that doing things that feel good to them (e.g. autistic play, stimming, etc.) are less valuable than the things that make the therapist feel good (i.e. neurotypical play, compliance). They learn to ignore their feelings of distress when confronted with a task they find aversive and mask their distress to please their caregivers. They become motivated by the praise they receive when they “do the thing” and become reliant on external reinforcement rather than intrinsic motivation, regardless of how much they are suffering.