S1E20: Sex Education, ABA, and Autism: How We Can Do Better

Special Needs Kids Are People Too!

My guest today is Madison Holcomb, an Autistic adult whose work focuses on offering an Autistic perspective to families and professionals.
Madison was a recent guest speaker at SEXABA, a conference focused on the importance of thinking ahead to the needs of not only the child, but also the adult the child will become! This must include giving thought to sex education.
Oftentimes we think of sex education as this "big thing." But in reality, sex education is often just taking ideas experienced in other platonic relationships and generalizing those ideas to a sexual relationship. The problem comes when we allow unhealthy or abusive treatment in platonic relationships that then gets transferred to a more intimate and vulnerable setting.
SEXABA is definitely an attention-getting title. Most people do not put the two ideas together: sex education and Applied Behavior Analysis.
But the conference explores some very important issues that we rarely talk about. I think one of the reasons we don't talk about gender identities and sexuality within the context of ABA is because when we think of ABA we think of children.
But children grow up to be adults. We must be careful to teach our children skills that will continue to serve them and not hamper them in adulthood.
See the Show Notes at https://amybodkin.com/podcast-episode-20
For more info about Amy Bodkin, a Special Needs Consultant for parents and professionals, visit our website:
Amy Bodkin Consulting – Seeing the Possibilities through a Neurodivergent Lens because Special Needs Kids Are People Too!