About

Misbehaviorism is a humanistic endeavor that explores how psychology frames the translational value of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) for autism.

The focus of this project is not on adjudicating individual treatment encounters or clinical decisions. It is on examining how ABA represents itself—as a science, as an evidence base, and as the “gold standard” for autism intervention—often without the level of methodological transparency or theoretical grounding typically expected in the social sciences.

Behaviorism frequently presents its research as rigorous, objective, and outcome-driven. Misbehaviorism asks what those claims actually rest on. How are terms defined? What counts as evidence? How are findings generalized beyond tightly controlled contexts? And how are limits, uncertainties, or alternative interpretations communicated—or not communicated—to students, parents, and policymakers?

These questions matter because ABA is not merely an academic framework. It is embedded in insurance billing structures, educational mandates, and public policy. Undergraduate students encounter it as settled science. Parents are introduced to it as a necessity. Lawmakers are told it represents consensus. Yet many of the claims made about its evidentiary strength, scope, and ethical grounding are rarely examined outside behaviorism’s own professional literature.

Misbehaviorism exists to provide that examination.

The project offers pragmatic, accessible analyses of how behaviorist research is written, cited, and promoted, with particular attention to how confidence is conveyed in the absence of robust social-scientific inquiry. It aims to help readers distinguish between what behaviorism can demonstrate, what it merely asserts, and what it leaves unaddressed.

This work is relevant to multiple audiences. Students deserve tools to critically read doctoral-level writing that is presented as science. Parents deserve clear explanations of what intervention claims do and do not promise, especially when those claims are tied to insurance coverage and early-intervention urgency. Policymakers deserve analyses that separate institutional consensus from empirical certainty.

At its core, Misbehaviorism is concerned with how vulnerable populations become sites of confident intervention in the absence of corresponding epistemic humility. When stress, compliance, and adaptation are treated as measurable outcomes without sufficient attention to context, consent, or long-term meaning, the gap between technical success and human consequence widens.

The long-term hope of this project is not condemnation, but accountability. By making claims legible, assumptions visible, and standards comparable to those used elsewhere in the social sciences, Misbehaviorism seeks to support more informed public discussion about what humane, ethical, and meaningful support for autistic people should entail.