If a child turns away, the session stops

In 2022, the professional ethics code for behavior analysts (the BACB) required for the first time that specialists obtain a child's assent to take part in a session and respect the child's will throughout the work. The child's dignity is named directly as one of the profession's core principles, alongside benefit to the client.

The word "training", as in animal training, comes up next to ABA almost every time, and behind it there's usually something specific: hands holding a child in place, a reward for sitting quietly, an adult who decides everything and never asks whether the child is ready right now. That did happen, and the anger and fear that come with it are justified.

In our practice, this isn't watched over by the specialist next to the child in the moment — it's built into the program from the very start: it's designed around what the child is already interested in, so that assent is real rather than forced. A parent isn't a specialist and can't react in a behaviorally correct way to every signal instantly, so they aren't loaded with theory from day one — the signals are learned gradually, in practice, by working through specific moments with their own child together with a specialist, not from a textbook. This kind of start can move a bit slower: that's a deliberate choice, not a shortcoming.

A child's refusal is just as important a signal as their assent — it isn't worked around, it's listened to. This also applies to rocking, hand-flapping, and other self-stimulation, which isn't stopped as "bad behavior" if it helps the child calm down. With older children, less noticeable ways to calm down or get energized are sometimes added to the list of skills being developed — not because stimming is bad, but because the world is still rarely ready for inclusion, and a child doesn't need another reason to be bullied.

Behind this attentiveness is the whole point of working with behavior at all: not to make the child convenient for adults, but to help them get what they want in a way that's within their reach. This isn't only learned by parents — it's for the nanny, the teacher, everyone who's around the child at home, at daycare, at the dinner table, in playtime.