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The Controversy Around ABA

There is a lot of controversy around a therapy called ABA. This m ainly comes from those in the autistic community. There are other scenarios where ABA is used where people are crying out for those interventions. But in the autistic community, it is seen as a form of conversion therapy.    The reason people dislike it, is that it is b lamed for being punitive and controlling in a way where identity and idiosyncrasies are not accepted.  For example, ABA is famous for the saying "quiet hands," where students are expected hand flapping. However, advocates argue, this is not socially relevant for them because it is actually a self-regulation strategy. Just because it might be uncomfortable for others, doesn't make it wrong.     There is a m isconception around ABA, that it is jsut for kids with autism. This is actually just an applied arm of ABA. There are many other settings where ABA is used without any controversy at all and has been proven to be effective....
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Gap Analysis in a School Setting

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When I was working as a teacher aide, one of the greatest challenges was trying a huge number of strategies to try and help a struggling learner never feeling like progress was being made. This happened all the time with the neurodiverse learners I was working with. Occassionally you would have a small breakthrough and find a way to get a concept across to a learner, or succeed in setting up a positive behaviour change.   So often as a reaction, I would end up blaming the students. This came from a feeling of inadequacy and hopelessness. After long meetings with specialists and the families, management and other aides, there was always a feeling of frustration as the conversations hardly ever led us to meaningful solutions.  Then, it became much easier to blame a 'problem child' than admit that we are incompetent in some way and that our best efforts have not been effective. I've been learning about something called "The Gap Analysis" framework. This is a evidence...
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Reflections on Angela Duckworth's Writings About Grit

I've been learning about a key concept in the science of learning and motivation, made famous by the popular psychologist, Angela Duckworth.   It's been sobering to learn about. I've always been the type of person who could not settle on a single goal. There were always so many interesting things to pursue and explore! As was explained in my class, sometimes this is legitimate. Everyone needs to go through a journey of discovery, which may involve looking into many different subject areas and path without a coherent thread linking them altogether. Maybe you want to be a doctor. The next morning you decide to be a musician. The next, it's engineering.     I actually did know someone who pursued both music and medicine successfully and simultaneously. I wondered whether this was something that she sat down and carefully planned out, drawing out a map of goals order in a hierarchical way. Does everyone who is successful create a structured, disciplined pursuit? Or do some ...
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Neurodiversity and Digital Learning

As someone who has discovered many digital solutions for my own executive functioning issues (my ability to plan ahead, remember tasks, organize myself in a coherent and consistent way, recognize and properly calculate the time things take), I have developed a deep appreciation for the power that machines have to support and improve our lives. It took me a long time and a lot of struggle, but once I got the hang of tools like Calendar, digital alarm clocks, Pomodoro (a digital timer that breaks work into chunks), Excel, Trello (project management software), and Tiimo (personal time-management and planning software for neurodiverse people) to name a few, I began to feel confidence that if I set my mind to or committed to something, I couuld achieve it.  It's partly thanks to technology that I have aquired skills the average person might take for granted. When I worked in the school system, I saw the power of technology to help all sorts of children who didn't fit the norm.  For...
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