An Authentically Autistic Perspective: A Critical Memoir about Empire, Empathy, and ABA

In this critical memoir, I claim that Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) is a fundamentally abusive and coercive practice used on autistic people en masse for neuroconformist purposes.Therein, I offer my perspective as an autistic person who was both subject to ABA as a child while also having aided its practitioners as an adult. I also explain the historical development of ABA as well as what ABA as a practice entails with regards to its therapeutic means and its neuroconformist ends.

Additionally, I expound the disparity between the material success of ABA as an institution, and the consistent opposition and criticism ABA practitioners and institutions have received from autistic advocates (such as myself) and organizations. I even explain the long-lasting psychological effects and sequela I have experienced in adulthood as a result of being enrolled in ABA as a child.

I contrast ABA with other similar historically oppressive systems that emerged in the United States, and I frame ABA as a tool used by Empire as a means to condition biases and behaviors into people (especially autistic people) in an effort to assimilate us into more controllable, understandable, and marketable subjects. Afterwards, I provide two alternatives to ABA, and I explain how ABA as an institution could be abolished in service of autistic liberation.