Read that cartoon carefully. It's true. And if we think about it, discriminatory and depressing. Did you know that behavior is currency in the disability world? The constant tracking & labeling of behavior is demoralizing for the individual and for the parent who has to read the data reports.  I'm sure my girls hear the click click of data takers in their sleep. Me? I let the BCBAs do their book learnin' thing, then I mostly ignore them. They mean well. But I've never seen a behavior "extinguished" that I can directly correlate with a bip, aka behavior plan.

I have 82 years of 24/7 experience between my 3 daughters (ages 30, 28, 24) versus a well meaning 27 year old with a BCBA degree that focused on birth to 3 and school age kids from a middle of the pack college program, likely completed online. Game. Set. Match. Parent.

Two years ago, a newly minted BCBA chirped at a meeting, "This is the LONGEST behavior plan I've ever written!" The plan was 10 pages of BCBA vocabulary and toddler age activities and solutions. I turned to her and said, "I'm sure your college professor would give you an A. But the staff who has to follow this probably reads at no more than an 8th grade level and doesn't have the wherewithal  to decode what you are saying, let alone implement it.  The plan is functionally useless." I don't parse words any longer.

I play the game. I listen. I nod. I file away the litany of behaviors knowing that they add up to services my daughters (and I) need. I'm happy to have the support. Still, I hope that one day, that the system will focus more on what they CAN do well and beautifully, what makes them terrific women, and not just the part of their autism that looks like "bad behavior."

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The Studies the CDC Refuses to Do

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The Wuhan Cover-Up: And the Terrifying Bioweapons Arms Race (Children’s Health Defense)
By Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

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