Planned Ignoring is Actually Emotional Abuse

In new/modern Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), therapists may utilize a technique called “planned ignoring” to reduce undesirable or problematic behaviors. These therapists may also recommend that parents adopt this technique at home for consistent treatment of these unwanted behaviors.

Planned ignoring, also known as attention extinction, follows the ABC’s of ABA. The antecedent (“A”) are the two adults talking. The behavior (“B”) is the autistic child bidding for their attention (and in most cases, the unwanted behavior is perhaps yelling or screaming to get your attention). The consequence (“C”) is when the adults plan to ignore the child. Here is a video by an ABA company called Behavior Frontiers that demonstrates this technique using actors. The video is only 39 seconds long.

In this video, we see a mother and her autistic son approach her son’s teacher to talk about how he did. The young child immediately starts saying “Mom” over and over again, and the adults continue to have a conversation as if he wasn’t there. The video concludes by saying the child would not be reinforced and would eventually stop yelling because it doesn’t work to get what he wants.

In a scenario described by ABA Parent Training, the behavior they intend on changing is an autistic child’s tone of voice to be “more respectful”. This is literally the definition of tone policing which is to dismiss a message because you didn’t like its delivery.

Why Do We Ignore Others?

There are a lot of reasons people ignore each other. Think back to a time you’ve ignored someone and ask yourself why. Maybe…

1. You are low on energy and don’t have the mental capacity to “deal” with anyone right now
2. You are busy, focused, and don’t have the mental capacity to multitask your thing with their thing right now
3. You are busy, focused, and cannot stop what you’re doing to address their thing right now
4. They hurt you in some way and you want them to leave you alone
5. You don’t care about the person and/or their message – one or both of those things are not important to you

And that’s just the ones I could come up with. So reasons for why we ignore other people include not caring, too busy, fatigued, or having been hurt by them. As you can see, some of those reasons are temporary (like being busy at the moment) and some are more permanent (maybe they just don’t like/love you). So when you’re on the receiving end, perhaps someone is giving you the silent treatment, it’s difficult to pinpoint why. Especially when they aren’t talking to you.

How Does It Feel to be Ignored

I believe both autistic and non-autistic people can understand how much it hurts to be ignored. When you get blatantly ignored as the child does in that video, the message that they’re sending is, “I don’t care about what you have to tell me.”

When someone communicates that to you, you feel silenced. You are being told that the message you have for them does not matter. You don’t know why, because there are many reasons for that, all you know at the moment is that you and/or your message don’t matter, and it’s possible that they don’t matter for reasons you can’t control.

They reject you and it hurts.

How Does It Feel to be Ignored When You’re Autistic

When you’re autistic, you might use moments like this to define your global life rules. We are very literal thinkers and that comes with boolean thought processes. This may mean that the social constructs we witness set the tone for how we behave in the future under similar circumstances. Now what we’ve defined as “similar” may not be the same as a non-autistic person’s definition because we may see patterns that you don’t.

For example, my mother was on the phone and she ignored me when I tried to tell her that I accidentally cut myself while attempting to shave my legs. This led me to determine that nobody cares about my needs. Is it considered “extreme” to jump to that conclusion? Probably. But when you’re a child, an autistic child, or even an autistic adult, you may not be able to parse that nuance. That is what literal thinking looks like.

I came to the conclusion that if my mother, my most loved, trusted, and sacred of all people, could ignore me, that anybody can. That’s how my global rule statement got from just “my mother” right here and now to “anybody/nobody” for all times in the future. I’ve been told not to bother adults unless someone was bleeding, and since there was blood in my situation, and it was ignored, that proved to me that there are zero reasons to bring attention to myself because even the one exception to that rule was not an exception. Therefore, “my needs” meant nothing. So my life’s rule became, “nobody cares about my needs” and the action that resulted is that I never told anyone when I was hurt. I just bottled up all those feelings and handled medical situations by myself. At least I never broke a bone in my youth.

Planned Ignoring Only Works With Repetition

To implement the planned ignoring technique means you’re anticipating the autistic person to behave in a way that you’ve decided is unwanted, and then you intend on ignoring that behavior. This decision is premeditated. The video states that the autistic child will eventually stop because they’ve learned it doesn’t work, which indicates that you and the child will be re-enacting this situation multiple times before their behavior is changed. The reason why this technique is powerful is due to its repetition. Doing it one time will not yield results. But doing it over and over again can. Consistency is key.

Long-Term Results of Planned Ignoring / Attention Extinction

Let’s look into why the autistic child will eventually stop yelling. Do we really learn that yelling doesn’t work? Of course not. Look at all of those Karens that yell at fast-food employees to get what they want. And the store manager caters to them. Yelling definitely gets you what you want. Yelling works.

So if we don’t learn that yelling doesn’t work, why do we still stop? Well, it comes back to nobody caring about my needs. People who have been subjected to being ignored repeatedly may…

1. show extremes in behavior, such as being overly compliant or passive (a “people pleaser”) – this was me, because now I’ve decided everyone else’s needs were more important than mine. Mine didn’t matter at all anymore.
2. show the other extreme in behavior: overly demanding and aggressive. Perhaps that’s why all the Karens yell!
3. act either inappropriately adult (like parenting other children) or stimming more (because we’re still stressed and struggling internally).
4. be afraid or unable to develop emotional bonds with other people because if our favorite people in the whole world can hurt/reject us by ignoring us, that means anybody can – avoiding making new friends is defending ourselves from potential pain.

Planned Ignoring is Science-Based

The research that developed this technique comes from the 1960’s studies with ABA founder, Dr. Ole Ivar Løvaas, famously known for torturing autistic children for science. He was convinced that forcing an autistic child’s outward behavior would have an effect on their inward psychology. The cited example was forcing a little 9-year-old autistic girl named Pamela to make eye contact meant that she was paying attention. When she stopped doing what the therapists asked her to do, and scolding and stern shaking did nothing to make her do what they say, they subjected her to shock therapy to induce enough anxiety to be frightened of them so that she’d become compliant again.

But planned ignoring is not one driven by physical abuse. However, when we look at a fact sheet by Child Welfare Information Gateway done in April 2019 on Child Abuse and Neglect, we can draw several parallels between this technique and emotional abuse.

Definition of Planned Ignoring: when the reinforcer (giving someone attention) is no longer being provided while the target behavior is happening.

Causes of Emotional Abuse: constant criticism, threats, or rejection, as well as withholding love, support, or guidance.

Ignoring someone is a form of rejection (we knew that, we feel rejected when someone ignores us and we purposely ignore those we want to reject – the ABA therapists are literally rejecting the autistic child’s targeted behavior), which is a cause of emotional/psychological abuse. Therefore, planned ignoring is also a cause of emotional/psychological abuse. But let’s go another step further.

Definition of Emotional Abuse: a pattern of behavior that impairs a child’s emotional development or sense of self-worth.

A Key Factor of Planned Ignoring includes consistency, “When using planned ignoring, parents should be committed to the strategy. If they occasionally give attention to the problem behavior, this could result in the child receiving intermittent reinforcement which may make the behavior even more difficult to get rid of.”

Pointing out that planned ignoring is intended to be repetitive shows that it also fits the definition of emotional abuse because it is now the parent’s pattern of behavior to consistently ignore their autistic child. We already understand the feeling of what it’s like to be ignored, we already know that being ignored impairs our sense of self-worth because we can’t know why someone is ignoring us if they won’t tell us why.

The Goal of Planned Ignoring: the targeted/ignored behavior will happen less often or be eliminated entirely (Sheuermann & Hall, 2008; Gable, et. al., 2009).

A Symptom of Emotional Abuse: is overly compliant, passive, or withdrawn (Child Welfare Information Gateway. What is child abuse and neglect? Recognizing the signs and symptoms. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Children’s Bureau. 2019).

So yes, planned ignoring and attention extinction are evidence-based and backed by science, but it is not ethical. It’s abuse. The science and evidence that ABA treatment centers allude to in their marketing and promotional materials is the same science and evidence on emotional maltreatment, child abuse, and trauma.

ABA is weaponizing trauma to train autistic children into behaving like non-autistic children.