Applied Behavior Analysis as Treatment for Autism Spectrum Disorders: Topic Modeling and Linguistic Analysis of Reddit Posts.
Monica L Bellon-Harn, Ryan L Boyd, Vinaya Manchaiah
PMID 36188818WHAT IT FOUND
Online discussions about ABA therapy focus on personal experiences and opinions rather than research evidence.
Parents ask questions, while autistic adults and professionals share more emotional and social perspectives. Clinicians should expect families to bring these subjective narratives, not data, to appointments.
Key findings
01Reddit discussions about ABA are dominated by personal experiences and opinions, with no themes related to research or evidence-based practice.
02Posts from parents, professionals, and autistic adults differ linguistically: parents use more social and health-related words, while autistic adults use more 'I-words' and negative emotion words.
03Pro-ABA and anti-ABA groups are more engaged (higher word count) and emotionally charged than undecided users, with anti-ABA posts containing significantly more negative emotion words.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study analyzed anonymous public posts, so user identities (parent, professional, autistic adult) were self-reported and could not be verified. Reddit users are predominantly younger and male, so the sample does not represent the general population of families or clinicians. Automated linguistic tools cannot understand context, sarcasm, or the nuance of why a specific word was used. The study describes the content of online discussions but does not measure how this information influences actual treatment decisions or patient outcomes.
Declared interests
The authors declared no commercial or financial conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret the prevalence of negative or positive emotions in these posts as evidence of ABA's efficacy or harm. This study describes how people talk about ABA online, not how well it works clinically.