There’s No Such Thing as “Trauma-Informed ABA”
Dr. Scott Frasard is an autistic autism advocate who is a published author and an outspoken critic of operant conditioning approaches to change natural autistic behaviors to meet neuronormative social expectations.
Introduction
Watching "Trauma Informed Care in ABA" by HowtoABA this morning feels like watching someone put a piece of tape on a leaking dam and call it a safety improvement. It gives the appearance of care while ignoring the structural flaws that make the entire system dangerous. The irony of ABA practitioners adopting the language of trauma-informed care, while continuing to uphold a methodology that is widely criticized for inflicting trauma, reveals not only a disconnect from the lived experiences of those impacted but also a troubling attempt to rebrand without reform. It is not just tone-deaf; it is epistemically dishonest and ethically evasive.
ABA Is the Trauma
To speak of "trauma-informed ABA" is to ignore a growing body of research and lived experience that identifies ABA itself as a source of trauma. Numerous studies and surveys (see examples: Jonkman, 2025; Kupferstein, 2018; Marshall, 2024) have documented PTSD and similar symptoms in autistic individuals exposed to ABA. These reports are not isolated or anecdotal; they represent a troubling pattern of harm that continues to be downplayed or dismissed by those within the ABA industry. When a therapeutic approach regularly results in trauma symptoms, it demands critical examination, not cosmetic rebranding.
Autistic adults across social media platforms have testified to the emotional, psychological, and sensory trauma caused by extinction protocols, compliance training, and the routine invalidation of bodily autonomy and communication preferences. These experiences are not simply byproducts of poorly implemented ABA; they are baked into the approach's very structure. By rewarding suppression of authentic autistic expression and punishing behaviors that are often adaptive or protective, ABA enforces a form of coerced normalization.
What this video never grapples with is the foundational violence embedded in ABA’s core logic: the idea that external observers get to define and engineer "appropriate" behavior, and that a person’s internal experience is only valid insofar as it aligns with externally preferred outcomes. This framework renders the autistic person invisible except as a target of correction. No amount of soft lighting, empathetic tone, or caregiver collaboration can erase the underlying pathology-based premise of behaviorism. The harm is not in how ABA is delivered but in what it is designed to do.
Social Constructivism Rejected, Again
From a social constructivist standpoint, trauma-informed care demands a radical shift in power away from practitioners and toward the lived realities of those receiving support. This means centering the perspectives, knowledge, and meaning-making of the individuals most affected by intervention rather than merely interpreting their behaviors through a third-person, clinical lens. It demands co-construction of meaning rooted in mutual respect and cultural humility, prioritization of subjective experience over objective measurement, and the dismantling of institutional norms that define some behaviors as "challenging" or "inappropriate" purely because they deviate from neurotypical expectations or disrupt the comfort of the observer. These norms often reflect societal values about conformity and control, rather than the well-being or autonomy of the individual being served.
But this video never challenges the assumptions of ABA. Instead, it repackages them in gentler language and aesthetics designed to make coercion appear compassionate. Safety is reframed as behavior management, where the goal is to reduce perceived disruptions rather than understand or accommodate distress. Trust becomes another form of rapport-building in service of compliance, not mutual respect. And relationships? They remain fundamentally asymmetrical. The practitioner still holds the authority to define goals, evaluate progress, and deliver reinforcement, while the client's role is reduced to conforming to those expectations. The power imbalance is preserved, even as the language becomes softened to be more acceptable.
This is not trauma-informed care. This is trauma-polished compliance conditioning.
Borrowed Language, Not a Paradigm Shift
Let’s be clear: the language of trauma-informed care is borrowed here, not embodied. It is used as a veneer, giving the illusion of progress while avoiding any structural reckoning with the core principles of ABA. True trauma-informed care requires:
Recognizing the role of systemic oppression and marginalization in trauma
Centering the voices of those most impacted
Honoring autonomy, consent, and the right to say “no”
Understanding behaviors as communication, not merely data points to reshape
This video does none of that. Instead, it cloaks behavioral goals in the language of empathy without interrogating whether those goals are even ethical or appropriate. It avoids the deeper moral inquiry into whether the behavioral changes being pursued are in the best interest of the individual or simply serve the convenience of those around them. It never asks the most important questions:
Why are we trying to change this behavior in the first place?
Is the behavior truly harmful, or is it merely disruptive to a neurotypical norm?
Whose comfort is being prioritized?
Whose power remains intact?
And perhaps most crucially: Whose voice is missing from these decisions?
The Logical Absurdity of "Trauma-Informed ABA"
You cannot be "trauma-informed" while employing methods that induce trauma. It is a contradiction in terms that reveals a deeper unwillingness to critically examine the foundations of the approach. That’s like claiming a wolf is gentle because it wears a sheep costume before entering the sheep's pen. The threat remains just as real, only disguised to appear more acceptable. The harm is still present, just less immediately visible to those not directly affected. If a child melts down from sensory overload and you respond by reinforcing "quiet hands," you are not addressing the child's needs. You are reinforcing a social demand rooted in the need for compliance, control, and visual order, all at the expense of the child’s nervous system, autonomy, and authentic communication. What may appear to be calming from an external perspective may in fact be an act of suppression that worsens the child’s distress over time, reinforces masking, and conditions them to believe that their natural responses are wrong or dangerous. This kind of interaction teaches the child that safety is conditional on silence and submission, not mutual understanding or respect.
You cannot be "trauma-informed" while employing methods that induce trauma.
And when autistic people push back on this? We’re labeled “too angry,” “too emotional,” “too biased.” These labels are not neutral observations; they function as tools of dismissal, strategically used to undermine autistic voices and reassert professional authority. As if lived experience disqualifies us from the conversation instead of being recognized as essential expertise. As if our trauma must first be quantified, categorized, and translated into clinical language before it can be acknowledged by the very field responsible for producing it. This dynamic reflects a deeper epistemic injustice, where only certain ways of knowing are permitted a seat at the table.
Final Thought: Trauma-Informed for Whom?
The video ends on a hopeful note about collaboration and compassion, but it never interrogates who gets to define those terms. In ABA, it’s still the practitioner who determines the goals, selects the methods, and decides when progress has been made. It’s still the data sheet that documents whether a behavior is acceptable or needs intervention. It’s still a system where the client's voice is either filtered through a third party or omitted entirely. Trauma-informed ABA is, in reality, ABA wearing a trauma-informed mask. It uses the language of compassion without redistributing power or reimagining what support could look like if it were built on autonomy and trust rather than compliance and control.
And masks, as any autistic person will tell you, are exhausting, harmful, and unsustainable.
References
How to ABA. (2024, May 1). Trauma Informed Care in ABA [Video]. YouTube.
Jonkman, K. M., den Hartog, C., & Evers, S. M. (2025). Experiences of autistic individuals, caregivers and healthcare providers with ABA-derived therapies: A sequential exploratory mixed methods study. Research Innovation at Kingston University. Retrieved from https://researchinnovation.kingston.ac.uk/en/publications/experiences-of-autistic-individuals-caregivers-and-healthcare-pro
Kupferstein, H. (2018). Evidence of increased PTSD symptoms in autistics exposed to applied behavior analysis. Advances in Autism, 4(1), 19–29. https://doi.org/10.1108/AIA-08-2017-0016
Marshall, N. S. (2024). Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA): A transformative mixed methods analysis of experiences and perspectives from autistic people, parents, and ABA professionals [Master’s thesis, York University]. YorkSpace Institutional Repository. https://yorkspace.library.yorku.ca/server/api/core/bitstreams/22c99c35-aa38-4707-ae9c-c5575eed6f04/content
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