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Ableism and The Biopolitics of Neuronormativity
Autism, behaviourism, and covert methods of social control
The mistreatment of Misha
As I mentioned previously, in the Spring of 2020, a young boy named Misha was unable to attend his Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA)-intensive school after it closed due to Covid pandemic shut-downs. Despite the behaviourists’ grim warnings about the ‘risks’ of abruptly discontinuing ABA therapies, Misha’s father noticed a much different change from what had been predicted.
As John Summers writes in his heartfelt article, The Mismeasure of Misha, his son Misha appeared to experience the withdrawal of formal “special” education as an opportunity which freed him from the psychological “vice grip” that had been clamped around him.
ABA : A brief history
ABA is a type of therapy popularized through B.F. Skinner’s theories of behaviour published in the 1950s, but had been introduced much earlier by John Broadus Watson in 1913. In fact, Skinner published a tribute to Watson in 1959, shortly after his death. A prominent psychologist at the beginning of the twentieth century, John B. Watson was the first to suggest to parents they could shape their children into whatever they wanted by controlling behaviours through the…
