The Messy Middle, Part Two: Intervention, Protection, and the Slippery Line Between Care and Control
In part one of the "Messy Middle" series, we looked at masking — the impossible trade-offs between safety and authenticity, between belonging and burnout. In part two, we turn to another terrain just as fraught: intervention.
There’s a cost to doing nothing. And there’s a cost to doing too much.
This is where families like Oscar’s live.
Oscar is eleven. He does not speak in ways most people recognize, except when he’s scripting the adventures he imagines. He depends fully on his parents, who are aging and tired but fiercely devoted. Lately, Oscar has been scratching his arm until the skin is raw. The wounds are starting to fester. His body is telling a story no one can afford to ignore.
Here’s the problem: the word most professionals would use for what Oscar needs now is intervention. And that word is loaded.
The Binary We Inherit
ABA says: stop the scratching. Replace it, redirect it, extinguish it. Use gloves, arm guards, reinforcement, even restraint if you must. The goal: compliance.
ASAN-style neurodiversity discourse says: don’t intervene. Behavior is communication. Scratching is regulation. To redirect it is to disrespect it. The goal: authenticity.
Both miss the point.
Because Oscar is bleeding. Because infection doesn’t care about ideology.
The Spectrum We Need
Intervention is not one thing. It stretches from coercive to protective, with a whole ambiguous gray zone in between:
- Coercive control: Restraint as punishment. Medication to sedate. Behavior charts that measure obedience instead of wellbeing.
- Ambiguous practices: Bandaging, redirecting, even gentle blocking. These can land as either safety or control depending on posture, intent, and consent.
- Protective scaffolds: Treat the wound. Cushion the space. Offer Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) so Oscar can express distress another way.
Same tools. Different logics. That difference matters.
Everyday Examples
ABA calls these “maladaptive”:
- Hand-flapping in public → “quiet hands.”
- Echolalia → “nonfunctional speech.”
- Rocking → “self-stimulatory.”
- Scripting → “off-topic.”
- Lining up toys → “restricted play.”
- Avoiding eye contact → “noncompliant.”
ASAN often defends them wholesale: harmless, valid, leave them alone.
The messy middle answer is harder: most of the time, yes — leave them. But sometimes the child themselves wants change. Sometimes the stim blocks a task they value. Sometimes they feel increasingly self-conscious when others stare at them. Protective logic asks: Whose choice is this? If it’s theirs, scaffold. If it’s ours, stop.
Edge Cases and Fire Alarms
There are moments when neutrality collapses. Shouting “fire” in a crowded theater goes beyond free speech. Digging into your own skin until it festers goes beyond autonomy, which is not a license to bleed to death. Here, protective intervention is justified — not to enforce compliance, but to guard life.
The difference is simple but not easy: act to protect, not to correct.
Why This Matters
If we let ABA define intervention, we surrender to control. If we let ASAN ban intervention, we abandon kids like Oscar to infection.
The messy middle is not compromise. It’s clarity: refusing the false binary and naming the cost on both sides.
We need language that lets families act in crisis without collapsing into coercion. We need practices that keep bodies safe while keeping dignity intact. We need to stop asking “How do we stop the behavior?” and start asking “What is this behavior telling us, and how can we make space for it without letting it destroy the body carrying it?”
Oscar doesn’t need to be silenced or the object of slogans. He needs scaffolds that protect his skin and expand his voice. He needs parents who are allowed to act without being conscripted into compliance training. He needs professionals who see a wound and dress it, but also ask what pain it is narrating, not how fast they can enforce neurotypical mimicry.
That’s the messy middle. It’s not clean. It’s not easy. But it’s the only place where both survival and dignity are possible.