That is a problem indeed. All this proves however is that insurance companies know jack shit about healthcare. They could easily include other therapies under their plans as they include ABA now.

They need to drop ABA and include a whole swathe of mental healthcare for all kinds of people. ABA is a problem outside of insurance too, though. Autism Speaks is the biggest part of the problem as they are seen as the authority, but are closer to a hate group.

Sure. That doesn't mean children should be subjected to it. It just means that autism and related things need to have treatments brought up to date in general. ABA is still bad. UHC is just doing good by accident with this

ABA isn't conversion therapy - that's disinformation. No one in my practice or anywhere I have seen is trying to convert anyone. Imho it's deeper misunderstanding of the science of behavior which studies all people and how we learn, and assumptions about what standard ABA practices actually are.

Are you not aware of the history of ABA

Certainly am!

Apparently you are not. The Lovaas technique, created to force compliance from autistic children using electric shocks, was the foundation of conversion therapy. The Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis published a rebuke of the usage in 2020. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Electric shocks were stopped being used decades ago. Medical doctors also did a lot of bad shit in the past but we don’t reject them all today.

Acknowledging that negative reinforcement has fallen out of favor: how do you mitigate the harms of positive reinforcement, when the reinforcement is in the direction of enforcing neurotypical behavior?

(How do you, personally, in your practice, do so?)

Thanks for the question. I take into consideration what is functional for the client, to find what we call behavioral cusps: independent actions that open up new worlds of possibilities (communication, tolerating aversive situations, peer interactions, etc.) But it is child led as much as possible,

This means we evaluate the child’s wants and needs, sensory and otherwise. I only target behavior reduction when it risks self- or other-harm. e.g., instead of screaming, teaching self-advocacy, or instead of chewing a shirt, chewing something else that is safe and durable.

I had a kid who loved to hear himself scream, but it disrupted class or family life, so we worked on asking for a break or just going into his room to scream. He would come out feeling good, and his family was relieved.