Positive approaches involve alternatives to behaviorism and the medical model on which it is based.
To practice positive approaches is to yield the current paradigm of power and control over people and their behavior for a paradigm based on building supportive relationships with people by respectfully viewing their behavior as communication. As a corollary to this concern with the basic human need to form supportive relationships, the Committee believes in the power of people to forge accepting communities around those who are endangered. We refuse to accept the view that people with autism cannot be part of everyday life, and that they belong only in special, separate programs and places. We reject the old notion of advocacy that consigned parents to the task of lobbying and fundraising to maintain these special places and to protect the special decision-making prerogatives of professionals who run them. An organization should model what it advocates.