Problems with the Social Thinking Curriculum Part 2: Encouraging Use of Praise

Trigger warning: Mention of abuse and ABA

Social Thinking says to praise a student in a way that centers on how their behavior makes people have pro-social thoughts and to celebrate each little step. It also encourages students to do behaviors that make others praise them. This blog post talks about why praising and criticizing is a bad idea: http://suburbanautistics.blogspot.com/2014/03/why-i-dont-punish-or-praise-my-kids.html

If anything, students should instead observe people’s reactions when they are in a social situation, and then ask themselves if they are satisfied by the response.

One of the therapies Social Thinking recommends is ABA, which gives positive reinforcement for complying and gives no reinforcement when not complying. In fact, it says it is required for “Severely Challenged Social Communicators” and “Resistant Social Communicators” (Winner, Crooke, & Madrigal, 2011), and ABA can be especially detrimental to students with those labels.  Compliance therapy can make an autistic more vulnerable to abuse, make them try to please everyone, give them PTSD, and make burnout more likely.