FEAR, TERROR, ANXIETY, PHOBIAS, TRAUMATIC STRESS AND POST TRAUMATIC STRESS

The Politics of Pain Infliction, Punishment and Control I was innocent. I didn't know about the wordsmiths, coersive persuasion, the hush-ups by parents, the reputation of certain programs of being "cults." That is, using cult tactics to recruit and maintain groups of parents to promote a treatment method (of all things). "Sell it by Zealot! --- (I learned in the aftermath of our trauma) is the formula of organizations using this type of tactic to grow and expand.

I should have realized something was dreadfully wrong after my son was diagnosed. Being told at that time at the hospital that my son would need "treatment" I began my search as I was instructed by contacting the Autism Society in my area. I was then told by a parent that I should seek out an ABA program. I was directed to a group of parents that raved about how ABA was helping their kids. Only after my child was traumatized did they admit that others had been traumatized before my child. A parent whose child had been traumatized before mine told me "the group turned on me when I spoke openly about my child being traumatized." They told me to shut up, don't give ABA a bad name." Only after reading the Autism National Committee's article (now in Academic Seminar) did I realize where these parents got the idea for covering up injuries. The same place they got the idea for starting the parent cult groups. The entire script has been written by the professionals profitting from ABA, accessing lucrative streams of funding, and also lots of the time bankrupting poor vulnerable parents that believe their exagerations about recovery.

Other parents have reported their children developed phobias, avoidance of parts of the house where time-outs were inforced, avoidance of favorite toys used in or during the program, panic and crying at the sight of food used as "reinforcers" in their program and avoidance of people. One of the "cult network" attorneys (there are attorneys profitting off of suing for ABA funding) told me that she had seen a particular program make "eye contact aversive" for so many children [by forcing it with "physical prompts"]

Consider some quotes that should cause any parent to pause: "

"As I "hold" their child in the seat the parents sometimes get very upset with me as the child becomes very upset sometimes yelling "help me!"

"No matter how DESPERATE he sounds don't respond!"

Not only are children being abused by restraint and aversive treatment (now renamed "prompting") but parents are sometimes viciously verbally attacked when they instinctively and healthily respond to their child's cries for help. "You are getting in the way of your child's recovery! You are doing your child a "disservice!" Or even more pernicious, blaming the parent or the child himself for his own distress, self-defense, or deteriorating condition caused by artificial manipulation of rewards (ie. freedom, basic needs, food or drink), restraint, entrapment, and aversive "prompting." Since small children have such poor time conscienceness, a few minutes of withholding wields the same power as a few hours or few days may for an adult. Now is forever for a small child. Childhood trauma has long term effects.

Parents have reported their children losing all inititative and independence after having basic needs withheld from them in order to force compliance. We found the agency that abused my son using something I call "kleenex torture," upsetting the child to the point of crying and then purposely withholding the kleenex from the child to reduce him to a begging humiliated victim without even the freedom of personal agency to wipe his nose without being granted permission. A beast-like "consultant" actually stated to the students she was supposed to be training "you have to be MERCILESS."

I have heard of several parents going bankrupt or spending their inheritences to pay for programs of false and exagerrated hope. Where are the ethics and morals of the self-appointed "expert" saviors? They have none and they are ANTI-FAMILY. The main reasons for children with autism to be put out of their homes and into institutions is "poor impulse control" and "aggression"-- both of which are the CERTAIN results of boundary violations, coersion, humiliation and over-control. Both of which are surely by-products of programs that use intrusive or aversive treatments and restraint, devaluing EVERY child that carries the label "autistic."

TO BE CONTINUED....

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