But it's TOTALLY BETTER NOW, you know because most of them don't use "aversives" to punish behavior they don't like (although their professional organization refuses to censure the Judge Rotenburg Center, which DOES still use electric shock)! Instead, what they do, is remove every source of pleasure in the victim's life--favorite foods, clothes they like, toys, everything-- and only dole it out as a reward for compliance during therapy sessions! And the fact that kids then ask for therapy (because it's the only time they are allowed anything pleasurable at all) means that it's totally good for them and not abusive or fucked up at all!

shudders

Oh! And it's not dog training for kids. Not even close. Because, although dog training uses some similar methodology, dog trainers have a code of ethics that requires them to consider if the thing they're training the dog to do is an ethical thing to train them to do, and also if the methods are ethical to use. ABA therapy has no such ethical constraints.