Positive Behaviour Support?

This confirms my concerns about it, although in our family we are all adults.  There remains, however, a great deal of vulnerability and, understandably after some of the experiences we've had with mental health services, a reluctance to engage.

So I'm basically casting about in desperation, looking for some support for neurodivergent families where all members are adults.  And, although I'm also autistic myself, I'm struggling to support young adults who are severely withdrawn, or angry, or both.  All of which has been compounded by not realising that we were autistic much earlier on in life.  

Even though PBS differs to ABA, most therapists still abuse it and because the client is a vulnerable young child they don't get to decide for themselves, so most of the time it still strips autistic children of their rights.

Nonautistic therapists and those who make the decisions usually apply nonautistic ways on people, assuming that what's good for them is good for the child which presses on the child "normative" behaviours even though we know by autistic adults sharing their experiences that the reason they refused normative behaviour is because it hurts them.

With communication and interaction been a two directional thing, I've always found it invalid to define autistic people as people with communication and interaction deficits, but should be described as different instead, it's hypocritical that when autistic people misunderstand it's a deficit, but when a nonautistic person misunderstandings an autistic person it's so natural and not a deficit. 

You might of heard of the double empathy problem by Dr. Damian Milton here on the NAS's site, scientific research shows nonautistic people find it just as difficult to emphasize with autistic people so they sometimes unintentionally press harmful methods on autistic children by not understanding their way of perceiving and interacting in the world.

Even though ABA and PBS both have good intentions, both organisations have fallacies they refuse to acknowledge that causes abuse. Some of their methods can be described as abuse with certainty according to what neuroscientists have discovered, but they ignore neuroscience, human biology, mental health and critical feedback so what needs alteration is not been altered because of we could say bigotry. 

All treatments are to be approached with equal caution because of unqualified practitioners, misusage of the service and the fallacies they fail to acknowledge.

The biggest fallacy I see in them is they treat autism as a "behavioural condition" even though they know it's "neurological," so all the neurological differences effecting brain functioning are disregarded.

Yes, I think that, especially in the States, various "therapies" are described as ABA in order to get past the insurers.  But is the PBS approach often promoted here in the UK just a more insidious version of the same thing?  

In the parents' group I'm in, PBS is described as very "person-centred" but I'm left wondering whether they mean "person-centred" in the same way as a Rogerian therapist might, or whether it just means that "support" is clustered around what are deemed to be the person's needs, and not necessarily with their agreement.  

Is PBS to be approached witht he same degree of caution?  I find it confusing.   

JennyButterfly,

Not all ABA is actually ABA, some use ABA loosely for insurance. The underlying intention is still “autism conversion therapy” as the father of ABA, Ivar Lovaas, claimed autistic people are not humans.

With autism been a spectrum what therapy helps one will not help all. The problem is “ableism,” autistic people are still being stripped of human rights and put in painful situations. When substituting a behaviour the autistic one find the behaviour chosen by others which is why they are “normative.” From my observation, therapists who concentrated on the child’s needs forgetting about normality tend to be the minority who give positive feedback, the ones who give negative feedback like feeling abused had therapists normalising the child and not enough concentration or acknowledgement of their needs.

ABA workers are not qualified to help autistic people, during their training they are not taught about autism so they often unknowingly give harmful treatments, like making someone hypersensitive to light stay bombarded by lights in shopping centres teaching life skills. ABA is unethical, because of their ignorance of internal constructs like neurocognitive functioning they have an incomplete ethics code, following an incomplete ethics code is unethical, they work outside of their scope.

ABA is to be approached with extreme caution, if the child shows any signs of distress they must stop and work at the child’s pace. Make sure their needs are acknowledged and observe the practitioner to make sure they’re not ableist as that’s what the majority tend to be.