Thanks, Carol. ;-)

I'm reading Evidence of Harm. Disappointing. I suppose I had some idea that since a New! York! Times! reporter was writing it, it would be better researched and have access to stuff I haven't been reading on the Schafer Report for donkey's years. Though maybe I haven't gotten to that part. The discussion of ABA didn't inspire confidence, either. From page 15:

The program employed a treatment method called Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), which was developed by Dr. Ivar Lovaas in the 1980s. [Well, no. It was published in the 1980's, and it's operant conditioning, which has been around a tad longer. Lovaas's breakthrough was in using it with autistic kids.] Basedon the revolutionary theory that autism is treatable, ABA has shown remarkable success in children with autism and severe developmental disorders....

Proper ABA therapy requires a team of experts to work one-on-one with the affected child for hours at a time. [No. Not in Lovaas's world, not in anyone's world. It requires trained therapists. And that's DTT, which is NOT synonymous with ABA. Sloppy.] The treatment is rigorous, exhausting, and prohibitively expensive; the cost for one year can reach a hundred thousand dollars. [Word: might have been a GOOD PLACE to mention the difficulty parents have fighting school districts for it, since IMO this is as big a disgrace as what may or may not be happening w/the vaccine companies. Not as sexy as Big Pharma stories, though.] The Lovaas method [sic] uses behavior modification principles to encourage "good" and appropriate behavior--proper language, communication, and play skills; better observation; and outward affection--while represing and discouraging problematic behavior like withdrawal, aggression, inattention, and temper tantrums. ABA therapists then break down each desired skill into small, discrete steps. This "discrete trial training" sysematically drills each step into the child's psyche through endless hours of painstaking, repetitive conditioning. [God help us. No wonder ABA has such a bad rap. This is NOT a definition: it's a description of a type of therapy program for a type of learner. Blech.] Teachers warmly reward children for good behavior, ignore then when they exhibit bad behavior [sigh. No they don't. Not if the kid's running in traffic.] and remove them to "time-out" when things get out of hand. [Another sigh. There are many ways of providing negative reinforcement.]

The method is not without its critics, who say it is little better than training a dog. But many parents have claimned complete success with ABA therapy, and it is the only nonmedical autism treatment endorsed by the U.S. Surgeon General. [Another big sigh. There is more than anecdotal evidence. There are good, peer-reviewed studies. He could have gone to any number of websites and gotten better information on this, and given the amount of time he spent w/people heavily involved in autism research, this doesn't impress me re his own evaluative and research chops. I could forgive more in a newspaper article, less in a book that's been endorsed and pushed by the autism community, including a campaign to make June 8 Evidence of Harm Day. Which I supported by going to B & N and buying the d*mn thing, even though I don't have much stock in the thimerosal connection. OTOH, we did do chelation years ago, and I don't regret it at this point.]