Often students with Severe Intellectual Disabilities are taught communication in the context of ABA (Applied Behavioral Analysis. This type of therapy is focused on getting children to produce predetermined behavioral responses to certain stimuli in an attempt to correct "undesirable behaviors" that may be natural responses to the situation. This paradigm undermines the child's agency in the pursuit of performing normativity.

State University of New York at Binghamton

Bottema-Beutel argues that the possibilities for interaction available to disabled students are not entirely inherent to their specific abilities or disabilities. Instead, these interactions are shaped by the constraints educators place on students, which serve to limit their possibilities for participation and choice-making. Through this lens, Discursive Psychology provides the insight that such activities are shaped by institutional norms and interactional practices rather than fixed biological traits.

Context A: Special Education - The Core Constraint (Structure vs. Impairment)

Applied behavior analysis is a subfield of psychology that emerged in the 1960s to apply the principles of the experimental analysis of behavior to practical, human-focused research. By utilizing single-subject research methodologies, this discipline seeks to develop and evaluate interventions for real-world issues. It plays a critical role in contemporary applied research across various domains, including the treatment of developmental disabilities, education, health, and organizational behavior.

Applied Behavior Analysis

Lester, J. N. (Ed.). (2021). Discursive Psychology and Disability. Palgrave Studies in Discursive Psychology. Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Reference For: Discursive Psychology and Disability

The problem is that current pedagogical practices often preclude and deny children’s agency. This leads to misconceptions where research often views limited interaction as an "inevitability" of the disability rather than a result of teaching practices. Addressing this problem starts with the need to "denaturalize" these pedagogical practices (stop viewing them as natural/neutral).

Context A: Special Education - The Critique (Agency & Practice)

The Origins of the "Correct Response"

Controversy around ABA

Early behaviorism posited that a stimulus would prompt a response in a simple cause-and-effect manner; Skinner later argued that the stimulus directly following a behavior (the antecedent) is just as important, if not more important, than the stimulus that came before it. Using Skinner’s principles, ABA was first coined in the 1950s, with a 1959 journal article becoming the first official study on its effectiveness. Early ABA studies focused predominantly on reducing self-injurious behaviors in patients with schizophrenia and neurodevelopmental disorders by providing positive and/or negative reinforcement* after the patient behaves in a way that the researcher wants to encourage. 

*Reinforcement refers to a stimulus that encourages a behavior. Negative reinforcement differs from positive or negative punishment in that it is supposed to encourage the behavior by taking away a dislikable stimulus.   

History of ABA

Operant conditioning is a form of associative learning in which the motivation for a behavior occurs after the behavior is demonstrated. An organism learns to associate a voluntary action with its subsequent consequence, which can be either a reinforcer or a punisher. This consequence then modifies the likelihood of the behavior being repeated in the future.

Operant Conditioning

Applied behavior analysis principles drove educational practices. This ideology permeated all classroom interactions. The authors argue it harms both students and teachers.

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