Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > Aspen Education Group
Ellen Behren's Industry Study Funded by AEG
Whooter:
The "Outcome study" DJ is talking about can be found right here:
Outcome Study
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Anne Bonney:
--- Quote from: "Whooter" ---The "Outcome study" DJ is talking about can be found right here:
Outcome Study
--- End quote ---
That was bought and paid for by Aspen. It's called a conflict of interest.
Whooter:
--- Quote from: "Anne Bonney" ---
--- Quote from: "Whooter" ---The "Outcome study" DJ is talking about can be found right here:
Outcome Study
--- End quote ---
That was bought and paid for by Aspen. It's called a conflict of interest.
--- End quote ---
Not according to the oversight committee and review board who oversaw the study and approved it. But you are entitled to your own opinion. I think most of us can agree that the main thing is to get people to read the study and decide for themselves. Getting the study in front of peoples eyes is most of the battle.
Outcome Study
...
Dysfunction Junction:
Even Aspen's lapdogs reject the findings. Never published, never peer reviewed and even their own slakeys blow holes in it.
--- Quote from: "Dysfunction Junction" ---I guess its pretty apparent in industry circles that the Behrens marketing brochure is not scientifically valid.
--- Quote from: "Family Light" ---Aspen, to its great credit, commissioned an extensive outcome study blanketing its schools, excluding its wilderness programs. A problem arises when the study is used to convince others of the effectiveness of one school or treatment center, ignoring the fact that the results of many schools have been lumped together.
Ellen Behrens, Ph.D. conducted the study. Dr. Behrens is well known to us at FamilyLight sm. We have utmost confidence in her competence and integrity. To all appearances the study was intended to address and counteract the impact of prior research that indicated that residential treatment is no more effective than outpatient treatment. Apparently a parallel design was used so the comparison to the earlier research would be "apples to apples" and “oranges to oranges” and not “apples to oranges.”
If the purpose had been to best document long term effectiveness of the schools and treatment centers at issue, we can think of various designs that would have yielded higher powered results. But that is not a criticism. The purpose appeared to be to provide a strong basis for comparison to the earlier research, a purpose well served with the design followed and, we believe, the study itself served that purpose extremely well. So far, kudos to Aspen and to Dr. Behrens.
Our problem is not with the study itself or with the result for the purpose intended. So far we agree. Our problem is with the uses to which Aspen’s marketing effort has applied the results of the study. In general, Aspen has used the results of the study to lead readers to believe that the study proves effectiveness of individual schools that participated in the study. This is simply not what the study is about.
Aspen might make the argument that the programs are similar enough that it is a fair conclusion to draw. Ok, that seems to us to be a bit of a stretch but we would also know how to defend that – if the programs really are similar. The problem is, they are not (similar). The programs ranged from recently defunct Mt. Bachelor Academy, an “emotional growth school” to the clinically intensive Youth Care. At Mt. Bachelor Academy, the school took pride in their history of emphasizing an “emotional growth” curriculum as opposed to primary use of credentialed therapists to effect change, as opposed to Youth Care which is hospital-like in its clinical intensity and its emphasis on psychiatry.
That is a general problem. We are specifically disturbed by the use of the study on the website of Turn-About Ranch (as of March, 2010). This is typically a 100 day program compared to all of the others which were intended to serve clients primarily (and in most cases only) in much longer term stays. To suggest that this study addresses success specifically at Turn-About Ranch in any meaningful way is simply misleading. That is the worst example. But when we have heard the study described at conferences, the point was made with some emphasis that [sie=150]it does not document success in ANY specific treatment program.[/size]
Remember: The point of the study was to demonstrate that for certain populations in residential treatment in general – not enrollment in any particular school – had an impact greater than home based family treatment. This was an “apples to apples” and "oranges to oranges" comparison to an earlier study suggesting that home based family treatment yielded superior outcomes to residential treatment.
On that point, the results are legitimate and convincing. There are very legitimate questions about whether the reporting methods of either the Aspen study or the study (ies) it was meant to refute produced reliable outcome data for any program or group of programs. What it did reliably and factually was to negate the conclusion of the prior studies claiming that outpatient work produces better results than residential.
Clever wording has, in general, avoided making objectively false claims in writing or on the web, while leading unsophisticated readers to conclusions not supported by the study. However, we had occasion to bring to Aspen executives an incident in which the then admission director (now former admission director) represented the study as an outcome study specifically about Turn-About Ranch, claiming the percentages of young people functioning better a year later were specifically results of Turn-About Ranch. That was outright falsehood. We do not claim that even Aspen was that outrageous over a period of time, but it did occur at least once. In fairness, we also believe that the Aspen executive we informed about this acted swiftly and firmly. But the web site entry is still in place today (3/18/2010) without sufficient clarification about what the study really says and does not say. Turn-About Ranch is an anomaly within the group studied.
--- End quote ---
These criticisms are very troubling. I believe others in this thread are even worse, but these are coming directly from an indusrty person, so they hit even harder.
--- End quote ---
Whooter:
The study that has everyone up in arms is this one here:
Outcome Study
Seems everyone is talking about it.
...[/quote]
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