Social Skills Training & ABA

I've started attending a social skills training workshop for parents; so far I'm not too crazy about it. Even before I started to sort out what the different therapies were, I didn't care for the techniques I was reading about, or the specific "social skills" that seem to be required.

I don't see the value, for instance, in forcing kids who find eye contact alarming to make eye contact. Or forcing them out of comfort-oriented behavior like stimming. Why the hell are these "target skills?" I really have a problem with that. For god's sake, teach your child to fake the eye contact if you want to improve how people perceive him or her. Likewise, the reward system is a bit appalling. I have a thinking person to raise, not a dog.

The way in which the social skill set for training is presented to parents is repulsive. It's essentially to try to train an autistic kid to blend in and be exactly like all the other kids. It's that old square peg, round hole business. Why would you want your unique little person pounded down to fit? I have news for them anyway: your unique little person is never going to be like all the other kids no matter what training torment you put her through. Leave her alone!

I can see behavior observation and therapy being effective if a kid has a truly problematic behavior, one that is dangerous to himself or others. I can see it being helpful, with an older child's awareness and consent, if there are moderately problematic behaviors, or ones that the child him/herself wants to work on. The worst thing about a parent or therapist deciding to train a child out of anything other than a dangerous behavior or without the child's permission is the damage to the person - the child's autonomy and dignity. Not to mention the long-term effects of stress - you're talking about kids who have a lot of stressors. If the actual stress response can't be controlled, but only the external behavior to make people around them more comfortable, what you're training a child into doing is bottling up stress.

I'll continue in the class for now, see how it goes, see if there's anything helpful. We'll take the opportunity to work on a skill the ABA way and see how it is - being able to identify the pauses and gaps in conversation, so that Rose can tell when not to interrupt, if she can. With her full consent, of course. I know it's hard for her to identify these things, and without a clear understanding of exactly why it's hard, it's a little difficult to know how to approach improving it. It seems to me that if you're going to try to improve a specific behavior, you ought to know the mechanism behind the behavior in order to approach it in a humane and respectful way. Autistic kids get even less respect for their personhood than the typical kid gets, which isn't much in most families as far as I can see.

I believe this topic makes me cranky.