Autism and the Culture of Therapy: The Politics and Practice of Applied Behaviour Analysis

The first empirical study of applied behavior therapies for autism interventions.

Applied behavior therapies are highly proscriptive and controversial evidence-based autism interventions that have, in many settings, become the standard of care. Autism and the Culture of Therapy is the first empirical study of applied behavior therapies. To understand such therapies, they must be assessed in everyday practice, through multiple interpretations, ethical frameworks, and applications.

Julia Gruson-Wood examines how applied behavior checklists, forms, protocols, and plans shape professional consciousness, how managerial governance strategically appropriates clinical data, how the rise of para-practitioners democratizes science, and how gender, sexuality, and identity politics imbue clinical practice and social responses to autism.

Drawing on Ontario as a case study, Autism and the Culture of Therapy reveals the fascinating and complex workplace culture of therapy providers, telling the story of a clinical field that has risen along with rates of autism diagnosis, and redefined what autism means.

Julia Gruson-Wood is a research partnership officer at the University of Toronto, Scarborough and adjunct faculty member in the Social Practice and Transformational Change program at the University of Guelph.