aprilwitching:ink-and-daggers:My friend found this on reddit. Another reminder that behaviorists are
aprilwitching:ink-and-daggers:My friend found this on reddit. Another reminder that behaviorists are scary people with hero complexes.“There were many times where I would sit there and think, ‘What if he truly does not like bananas?!’ Heck, I hate bananas and would probably respond negatively if someone tried to force me to eat them.”OH MY GOD YOU WERE SO CLOSEdammiti think what unnerves and angers me about this most is actually the fact that this person absolutely cannot believe that the autistic kid’s preferences are real. that his communication can be trusted at all. it’s not just “this kid’s diet is dangerously limited, and we can’t just let him starve himself to death or give himself scurvy, it sucks but we’re going to have to find some way of getting him to eat other foods”, it’s like… “oh, obviously autistic people don’t have real likes and dislikes and sensory sensitivities. they’re just being ‘manipulative’ when they try to set a boundary, express a preference, or communicate an emotion. they aren’t, like, human beings. they’re sort of meat robots that fuck shit up for no reason, and that’s basically all.”not to mention, teaching kids about using their words to say “no thanks”/ “i don’t want to” / etc. only works if most people around them respect those phrases. this seems so obvious to me? if “no thanks” and “i don’t want to” get ignored, rebuked, and/or punished most of the time, eventually a kid is going to either go back to fighting and yelling and running away whenever they don’t want/don’t like something, or they’re going to start passively accepting everything anyone does to them or wants them to do because what’s the point in ever refusing or having an opinion about anything. or maybe one, and then the other. or a combination. depends on the kid’s personality/age/situation i think. but certainly the fact that a lot of people in charge of autistic kids either don’t appear to realize this, or appear to consider the second thing a really positive/ideal outcome, is telling. -- source link
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