Author Archives: Taryn Jaye

ONTABA recently released a report entitled “ABA in 2020-2021; current state of the research.” You can find that report here – https://mcusercontent.com/11863c24c0d9aa0c0dc6db898/files/bd3603b8-ef94-a929-c264-c0a302539c1d/ONTABA_2021_Current_State_of_the_Research.pdf Here is my response, originally written as a Twitter thread. Remember that JRC is shocking and abusing their “students” in 2021 – (current state of the research!!) and that ONTABA is affliated withContinue reading “A Response to ONTABA’s 2020 “Look at ABA Research””

I loved Big Comfy Couch. No exaggeration. I had the DVDs, the CDs, the games, I watched all the episodes well after it was socially acceptable to do so. I watched them at 3AM, forgoing sleep so that I didn’t miss an episode. I learned a lot about Alyson Court, the woman who played Loonette,Continue reading “A Clown and Her Dolly: My Love For “Big Comfy Couch” – Explained 15 Years Later”

I will never be ready to write this. I will never understand how this has to be written in the first place. Further, I don’t understand why so many organizations for autism run by non-autistic people are so silent on this. I don’t know how professionals who work with autistic people every day, who sayContinue reading “#ShutDownJRC and #StoptheShock”

Old post (originally written for Instagram on 01/02/2021) There’s a lot of discourse going around the #ActuallyAutistic community recently specifically concerning masking and whether or not this is a privilege. I’ve thought long and hard about this for many years and it’s been brought up again seeing this discourse.  Let’s do a refresh on whatContinue reading “Masking and Privilege”

I’m having a rough go at things today, I’m angry at my brain for things that I have figured out how to control most of the time but that I still find quite disabling other times. Today is one of those times, I guess.  I was scrolling Twitter recently and found a thread about maskingContinue reading “Masking and Shame”

I’ve never really talked about my grief, my bitterness, my anger, on this blog. Or… ever, I guess. The past few years since this journey of knowing I’m autistic started, I’ve been so focused on advocating for autistic kids, and other disabled kids. Because, well, I was doing that before I knew about autism. IContinue reading “What it Was Like to Grow Up “Not Allowed” to Be Disabled”

This is a complicated, nuanced topic, as are most things. While working in advocacy, I’ve come across a (somewhat) large amount of ABA professionals that are reform-minded. Some are doing the work, some are sticking the label on themselves as some kind of “get-out-of-acknowledging-harm” card, and there are levels to how “good” they are. ThereContinue reading “Why “Good” ABA Therapists Don’t Leave the Field, and Why We Really Need Them To”

I’ve been dreading talking about this. Dreading. I was a volunteer at an ABA school as part of my post-graduate certification. This ABA school was progressive – it used tactics like Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, it was well known in the area and frequently received praise for its work. And for a while, I wasContinue reading “My Experience With ABA”

Picking my battles is something I’ve forever struggled with. EVERYTHING matters to me. Every single thing has implications, and everything is “that deep” to my brain. So, when I see my community rallying against a mother’s use of the puzzle piece when speaking about her newly diagnosed child, I understand why they are “picking atContinue reading “The Bigger Picture in Advocacy”