The parents of an autistic boy have released a statement explaining that they subject him to a cruel and humiliating therapy designed to make him behave less like himself – because they love him.

Graeme Hart, 42, and his wife Karen, 43, issued a joint statement about their son, Finley, five, saying: “You don’t understand how hard Finley’s autism is on the whole family. Do you know how many times we’ve seen the same episode of The Octonauts?”

“Finley’s symptoms are debilitating,” the statement elaborated. “He talks non-stop about fire engines, picks green bits off his food. Whenever we give him an arbitrary command, he asks ‘why?’ The only loving thing to do was go full Guantanamo.”

They continued: “Before you judge us, this isn’t the bad ABA, where they train them with electric shocks. This is the good ABA, where they just have to stop stimming, eating when they’re hungry and will come with us to Thorpe Park so we can use their autism to get out of queueing.”

“We’ve heard stories about traumatised adults who’ve been through ABA,” they added. “But Finley hasn’t said anything like that, so we’d rather follow his lead – apart from when it comes to him doing autism at us.”

Finley Hart could not be reached for comment, as he’s been trained to shut up about his feelings. 


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