I’ve been reading a lot about therapies and autism. I know there is strong indication that ABA, in the extremes, could be regarded as emotional mistreatment for autistic people.

I have been trying to find information about CBT applied to autistic children and adolescents, and have mostly come across neutral or positive articles and opinions. Granted, most of those are in publications that share similar views of ABA.

Is there a general consensus or impression on the use of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy in the treatment of social issues (addiction, social isolation, …) on autistic children and adolescents?

I would appreciate any insight and/or links to articles, opinions, studies, etc.

Thanks!

  • @thechadwickEnglish
    2•1 year ago

    Hey so I’m not a therapist but I have some personal experience with CBT as an ADHD haver. I’m my humble opinion, people really need to not get their advice from an internet posting when it comes to this stuff. There’s so much bad info (even in this thread) that I’m not sure how useful this reply will be, but CBT is a demonstratedly effective tool set for retraining internal dialog and consistently produces measurable improvements in mental health across a variety of metrics.

    That said, only a licensed therapist will be able to judge whether or not it’s the right fit for any one specific person. More importantly, CBT is only one of a variety of approaches and what seems to make even more of a difference is finding a good fit with the provider. That is to say, the best technique with a poor provider is going to be much less effective than a different approach from a provider you click with.

    There are some really valuable tools in the CBT tool case. But there are a lot of valuable tools out there in general, and finding a provider who can help lead their patient to learn to use them is much much more important than which shelf they come off of.

    All the best. It’s not an easy process regardless, but well worth the effort.