Facilitated communication is bullshit and there is strong evidence to support it is greatly influenced by the facilitator. Just because you can cherry pick one example of a high functioning person that can utilize the system doesn’t change the many times it has failed blinded studies or the significant harm it has caused. I would bet this person could also communicate with pecs or some other system of alternative communication
Essentially there are blinded studies that have had the facilitator and communicator on either side of a “wall”. At the end of said wall they will place images and ask for descriptions. Sometimes the images are the same and sometimes they differ, causing the facilitator and the communicator to see separate non matching images
The overwhelming majority of the time when the images differ the description of the image matches what the facilitator sees.
This matters for a few reasons. one is because when fc was huge in the 90s and early 2000s several individuals were charged with sexual abuse claims based on fc. The facilitators had invented narratives about abuse that never occurred (in at least one case a wild claim of a satanic cult that no evidence of which could be found). But the primary reason is because it appears you’re giving a voice to someone who cannot speak and the majority of the time that does not appear to be the case
This is why basically every speech and pediatric association has firmly spoken out against fc, which is resurging for some reason
Facilitated communication is bullshit and there is strong evidence to support it is greatly influenced by the facilitator. Just because you can cherry pick one example of a high functioning person that can utilize the system doesn’t change the many times it has failed blinded studies or the significant harm it has caused. I would bet this person could also communicate with pecs or some other system of alternative communication
Interesting. Can you share more about that strong evidence?
Essentially there are blinded studies that have had the facilitator and communicator on either side of a “wall”. At the end of said wall they will place images and ask for descriptions. Sometimes the images are the same and sometimes they differ, causing the facilitator and the communicator to see separate non matching images
The overwhelming majority of the time when the images differ the description of the image matches what the facilitator sees.
This matters for a few reasons. one is because when fc was huge in the 90s and early 2000s several individuals were charged with sexual abuse claims based on fc. The facilitators had invented narratives about abuse that never occurred (in at least one case a wild claim of a satanic cult that no evidence of which could be found). But the primary reason is because it appears you’re giving a voice to someone who cannot speak and the majority of the time that does not appear to be the case
This is why basically every speech and pediatric association has firmly spoken out against fc, which is resurging for some reason
https://www.asha.org/slp/cautions-against-use-of-fc-and-rpm-widely-shared/