behaviorism | Henny Kupferstein

Look out, behaviorism lovers. We the autistics are monitoring your insistence on rebranding ABA. No matter what you will call it (neurodiversity informed, trauma informed, compassion informed, etc.), we see you. We will continue to publicize our concerns, as clearly, those who practice ABA are not perfect enough, and rely on feedback from their patient group to correct their misbehaviors.

There is no scientific method in place that considers ‘listening to the voices’ as primary source data. If they want to include our concerns in their research, they should survey us. Behaviorists who keep flagging my 2018 study are most likely to cite Leaf’s critique, while neglecting to cite Chown’s response to the editor.

Oxford Languages defines Compassion as “sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others” i.e. “the victims should be treated with compassion”. Yet, we have a growing body of behaviorist-led papers that propose adding “compassion” as the 8th principal in their standards of practice. Specifically, this month’s latest publication suggest: “Adding compassion as a definitional dimension of ABA will help behavior analysts find their way back to implementing interventions in a responsive, collaborative, and humble manner that includes working with our consumers and our critics, and listening to perspectives that can help us improve our practice.”

A google scholar search reveals a sublime trend of 17,000 results to the search of “compassion” in “ABA”. As behaviorists are not trained in conducting scientific research, their publications are typically proponents of change, directed at modifying their own. In the realm of adding “compassionate care or therapeutic relationship building” to their standards, we the consumers will be led to believe that we are a subject of their pity.

Compassion is an engineered concern for our “suffering,” without extinguishing their agenda to modify us. With compassion in their work, we the autistics are the “consumers” of their services, and we are informed to be grateful for their consideration to help us, the ones with the “misfortunes” of being autistic. One compassion-suggesting behaviorist is cited as an early hero, where Wolf and others (1963) “taught a young boy to wear his glasses so that he would not lose his vision”, as an example of application of operant conditioning. If this makes you gag, please comment.

Hi, I’m Henny Kupferstein, and this video is a short response to the self-confirmatory tactics employed by behaviorists, to justify their practice. In my recent paper (PDF), it is discussed that (1) an autism diagnosis comes from a parent who fills out a questionnaire about their child’s behavior and (2) the evidence for effectiveness of ABA comes from the behaviorists themselves. So—if the parent can purchase or create an autism diagnosis, (and I know this as a parent myself) and the behaviorist can fabricate an effectiveness, then I can use the survey as instrument to check for symptoms and to check for effectiveness, and to check for parent satisfaction. Behaviorists use the exact same instruments to prove their worthiness, but they are challenging my use of the same instruments to test for ineffectiveness.

It is well documented that the tobacco industry funded and used scientific studies to undermine evidence linking secondhand smoke to cardiovascular disease. Tobacco-company-funded studies have been conducted specifically to support the development of so-called “reduced-harm” cigarettes. Back in 1971, president Nixon appointed a special committee to push the increase for corn farming to sustain an income to farmers who were influential in the voting and representing their dying industry. Burgers became bigger, fries were cooked in corn oil, and corn syrup was used to sweeten cereals and 90% of foods eaten by Americans. The government initiative sponsored research to insist that corn does not contribute to obesity and to refute the effectiveness of low-carb high fat diets. Some studies even suggested that such diets were directly linked to the increase of heart disease!

Autistic people and autistic parents should be advised to keep the faith alive. You are not going to be hurt for much longer. Trust your intuition, follow your heart, and do right by your child. When you stand up to a so-called professional who says you must listen to them to prevent lifelong disability and dependency, check with yourself if those are outcomes that you are aligned with. Do you wish for your child to be normalized and be made “indistinguishable from his peers” by subjecting him to an intervention that was used for conversion therapy, and to support the practice of pray the gay away?

Behaviorism is no longer allowed for animals and it is unethical to train animals with rewards and punishment for scientific exploration. Know the facts, and stick to your guns. It’s your life. You should be in the driver’s seat when deciding on what your needs are. How you coexist in the world is of nobody’s concern except yours. YOU MATTER!

To all other ethical researchers out there—here is a call for you to propose research to demonstrate effectiveness of your work. However, when using the voice of the people you claim to help, you need to justify why you are excluding the voice of the people who you regard as incapable of providing informed consent or owning their narrative, in whichever way they relay it.

As an autistic researcher, mother of autistic children, and practitioner to nonspeaking autistics who rely on radically different means for communicating, a counterstudy must be able to account for the bias that is glaringly obvious. Thank you for sharing. Please subscribe to my channel to stay up-to-date on my research.