Autism Acceptance Month: FAQ

For many years, the conversation around Autism was focused solely on the parents of Autistic individuals. It framed the Autistic person as a burden and their parents as the ones who needed support. Therapies like Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) were used as an attempt to force individuals (usually children) to act less Autistic through any means necessary.

On the outside, it often appeared to work. Children learned how to force themselves to make eye contact even if it meant they couldn’t focus on anything else and caused them extreme stress. If a child threw “temper tantrums,” they were held down and sometimes beaten until they learned to keep their emotions inside. Parents thought it was helping their children act normal to better fit in with society, but many Autistic individuals who underwent this treatment experienced significant trauma. They still had the same big emotions, but instead of learning how to express their feelings productively, they held them inside and taught themselves to be numb and punish themselves for acting “weird.”

While ABA therapy has gotten more humane in recent years, it is often still used to force Autistic people into a societal box instead of helping them understand their thoughts and actions. Therefore, many Autistic individuals fight against its use, instead promoting therapies that teach understanding and self-acceptance rather than those that force conformity to neurotypical standards.