When the ABA Market Calls It Growth, We Call It What It Is
Applied Behavior Analysis for Autism Market Surges with Impressive 6.9% CAGR…
That’s the headline from a news release pushing ABA as a booming industry through 2032. It lists corporate “leaders” like CARD, BlueSprig, Centria, Hopebridge. It calls this growth “opportunity” for stakeholders.
Nowhere does it mention the people who live with the consequences.
Growth Framed as Progress — Without Proof
- ABA = commodity. Autistic people are reduced to units of service consumption.
- Growth = good. Expansion is presented as a sign of progress, not a signal to examine harm.
- Stakeholders = corporations. The “market” is the client, not the autistic child or adult.
- Silence on ethics. No acknowledgment that ABA is compliance-based, contested, and rejected by many autistic people.
The Missing Realities
- Consent. Autistic people are not positioned as decision-makers.
- Harm data. No mention of trauma, burnout, or long-term mental health impact from compliance training.
- Alternatives. No discussion of support models that prioritize autonomy over normalization.
- Power analysis. Who profits when “demand” rises? Who pays the human cost?
How Market Language Masks Harm
When market reports talk about “early intervention,” “behavior modification,” “classroom management,” they’re not talking about creating space for autistic ways of being. They’re talking about shaping those ways into something easier for others to manage — and selling that as a service.
The mechanism is clear: pathology frame + investor appetite = scale without safeguards. The beneficiary is the corporate provider. The cost is carried in autistic bodies and lives.
Questions That Should Be Driving the Conversation
- What if “growth” meant more autistic-led services, not more corporate control?
- What if the metric was dignity and self-determination, not revenue?
- What would the ABA market look like if consent was a barrier to entry?
Not All Growth Is Progress
A market can surge for a harmful product just as easily as for a helpful one. When ABA’s global footprint is celebrated in investor language, we’re not seeing a win for autistic people. We’re watching the industrialization of forced compliance.
The revenue chart is going up. That’s not the same as progress.