For Parents of autistic kids

Unfortunately, parents in the US especially are led to fear autism, as though it were a disease that has “taken” your child rather than the neurotype that it really is, and so are coerced into forcing their children through a lot of expensive and exhausting behavioral therapies (Applied Behavioral Analysis or ABA and its retooled successor: Positive Behavior Support, aka PBS) designed to make them mask and pass as more neurotypical. (To conform with an artificial “norm”.)

THIS IS OUTRIGHT HARMFUL TO AUTISTIC KIDS as you’ll learn from the links below. One center in Massachusetts actually uses cattle prods on the children there, still, in 2024! Yes, you may achieve YOUR goal, of a quiet child who masks and passes successfully for YOUR comfort, but at great harm to them. However, they may be too terrified to tell you this, and not recognize their trauma fully until decades later. Even just overly strict authoritarian parenting without additional therapy can lend to Complex PTSD (aka CPTSD) later on – I speak from experience. It can also leave them vulnerable to predators and manipulative people as they have been trained to reflexively fawn and people-please as a result of losing their autonomy.

Obviously, our kids need support and some training around staying safe (occupational therapy, physical therapy e.g.), and communicating well (speech and language therapy, e.g.), but shutting down all stims and communication is actually traumatizing. Stims are needed for self-regulation. And there are less harmful ways to help autistic children and adults to get along in the world. I’ve included a section For Parents beneath this one to that end. Last updated November 26, 2024

About ABA and PBS:

For Parents especially recommended by autistics: