Link to the full text here:
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/fc06/322a4751cc6b994ba4b0f25ce9543de9eed7.pdf
Re-reading it, it is so bad. Like they just changed criteria and items based on gut feelings and didn't even run psychometrics on the new measures.
Wow- so many flaws/threats to to internal validity. I'll be assigning this one in my Research Designs class for the research review project!
As a board certified and licensed behavior analysts, I do find it important and useful to look a little beyond these design flaws and consider the "what ifs" about such studies. What if this finding is real? What if recipients of ABA services were traumatized? What if there is something about the therapy that I do, teach, and research that is damaging (or at least results in people who received it going on to, later in life, remember it as traumatic)?
I think there is certainly a big problem with how any study operationalizes "ABA" when use as an independent variable. It is such a broad field with many different concepts and practices (and not all of them agreeing with each other). Heck, I just got the latest edition of the gold standard ABA text, and the damn thing is almost 1000 pages long. I think this study was focusing on (or trying to at least) Early Intensive Behavioral Interventions (EIBI) with children with autism. EIBI is certainly less broad a field than ABA in general, but there is still HUGE variation in how things are done in practice. Saying "I received ABA" is akin to saying "I received psychotherapy"- not precise enough to know what exactly went on.
Also, the field has changed dramatically in the years since many of the subjects of the surveys in this study received "ABA" as children. Most of the Autism Insurance Mandates (law requiring ABA coverage for ABA) didn't go into effect until ~2010. This led to better and more consistent standards for credentialling and licensure. It really has only been in the past 5-10 years that not just any schmuck could call him-herself a behavior analyst. I'd seriously question who was doing the "ABA" and what their specific training was for anything that occurred before 2010. I got my first ABA job (a "behavioral specialist" helping to design and implement behavioral program in a brain injury rehab center) literally because I did not have enough experience to sell tacos or foutons (my first and second choice jobs at the time). The field has tightened itself up since, with the BACB- and now ABAI- implementing increasingly strict standards for training and supervision.
As far as EIBI being traumatizing, I really do wonder what these families have experienced. Yes- I occasionally have asked a toddler to do something he didn't want to do and was met with a reaction akin to his witnessing his favorite pet being run through a paper shredder. Just this morning I gently removed my toy hammer from the fist of a 1.5 year old who was trying to take it home with him, and he fell to the ground screaming as if he played striker for Liverpool. I then made a silly face and stomped my feet like a dinosaur, and he giggle and chased me down the hall in the direction of the exit we wanted him to be heading to all along. If this stuff leads to PTSD/S later in life, then there's going to be a huge need for adult trauma therapists in Western Mass in 2038! Most of the EIBI that I've done results in an increase of bubbles, interactive play, smiles, and giggles in the kiddos environment, with a lot less tears and chaos than before I showed up. In those rare circumstances where it doesn't, we try something different (rather than physically forcing the kiddo to do something).
