CN: abuse of children in schools, ableism, restraint, seclusion, BCBAs
When BCBAs are concerned meltdowns are "behaviors" to be "handled", and how much distress a child is in doesn't matter, but there are still rules in place. Rules they set up for themselves, but rules. Rules like whoever's the first adult in place for "managing a behavior" is in control of whatever is to be done for that "behavior". They control when restraints happen, and who restrains, and how transporting the child to the tiny room that the child gets put in to finish the meltdown in (because of course that'll help a meltdown). They control the decisions. They're allowed to explicitly hand it off to someone else, with consent of both parties, but otherwise, they have control.
This is a rule, an explicit rule, a rule that everyone is told, and everyone has to agree with, and everyone has to know that this is how it works, because this is apparently the safest thing to do. This means that everyone knows who to turn to, and people don't try to go in opposite directions in how they're managing a situation. There's someone in charge and everyone knows who it is and nobody has to make a decision of who it is ever when a "behavior" is going on, because they're more worried about the "behavior" (I mean not the kid of course).
But I mean, what happens if an autistic person is the first on the scene. What happens when a kid starts melting down, because of an entirely predictable reason to be melting down, because adults have pushed them into a position that is completely unreasonable for a child to be in and they cannot cope, and they're trying and trying and trying to cope, and they can't. What happens then? What happens when they're doing the best they can, and an autistic adult is helping them, because the autistic adult knows them, and is seeing their responses, and is seeing that they're calming down, and making it through, and it's working, and life is getting easier and more organized, because someone is there and helping them in ways that they need right now?
No, despite all these rules, these whoever's on the "scene" of a "behavior" first, if it's an autistic person, that's not allowed. An autistic person isn't allowed to be treated equally. The child isn't allowed to be respected that much. Nobody is allowed to have that much respect, because the BCBA needs the control of choosing who takes care of "behaviors" and how. Respect isn't allowed. You need the ABA, you need the restraints, you need the control, you need the abuse. You need to control the autistic people this way. You need to hurt both of them this way.
So instead, they take this autistic child, who's working through a meltdown, and grab, and restrain, and pull them across a room, and throw them into a tiny little space, for a meltdown that never even met the rules that they had claimed met the requirements of restraint was allowed for. Because control is necessary. Because helping children isn't the point. Because helping children was never the point. Because when children were actually getting helped, that wasn't allowed, that was giving too much power to people they didn't want to have any power.
Restraint, Seclusion, ABA, Abuse, children going through trauma, and living with this for the rest of their lives.
The point was always control.
