More Than Two Options

Trigger Warning: Passing mentions of ABA and similar therapies

I keep seeing people (mostly people who support therapies that base themselves heavily on compliance, like ABA) arguing that not doing these therapies means leaving Autistic people untaught and providing them with no help. I don't know how it happened, but I keep seeing people assume that there is a binary choice. We can:

1. Provide intensive therapies to teach an Autistic person "skills" that are really more like "acting neurotypical" 
2. Do nothing.

The idea that there are only two choices is reflected in comments people make about how compliance based therapies are necessary . No, they aren't. Teaching is important, education is important, learning is important. Compliance-based therapies are not, and are often in direct opposition to what we really need to learn. People tend to compliance type therapies are needed and important because either compliance is convenient or because they do not realize that compliance in the sense it is used in most autism therapies is not a prerequisite for teaching or learning and can inhibit education! Yes, really. Some people consider education to be learning how to learn and think, and that is not something that can be taught through compliance. Only compliance and rote can be taught that way, and the cost of compliance is unreasonable.

What people are missing is a third choice, the choice of providing supports (some of which might be therapy-related) to autistic people in order to help us navigate the world as autistic people and to set the boundaries we need to set. Before you ask, yes, there is a difference between this and most therapies, which tend to ask autistic people to act like their non-autistic age peers or to repeat the same tasks over and over. Acting not-autistic is usually either impossible or requires so much work that little else can be done, the repetition leads to boredom, frustration, and eventually acting out from frustration. Remember, every behavior is the act of an autonomous being who has reasons for acting as they do, and understanding why violent outbursts happen is going to be much more useful than simply punishing them. For everyone involved.

When someone gives you a binary choice between ABA or similar therapies and doing nothing, call them on it. Either they are willfully misleading you or they have been misled. When someone tells you that no therapy is dooming a child to a life of suffering, call them on it. Either they are willfully misleading you or they have been misled. When someone tells you that compliance based therapy is the only way to teach a disabled person, call them on it. Either they are willfully misleading you or they have been misled. There is an option C.