Facilitated Communication (FC) has been rebranded as “supported typing” and repackaged as rapid prompting method, but remains a disproven intervention for people with disabilities. Despite the absence of supportive evidence and abundant evidence that facilitators always author the messages, FC has experienced resurgence in popularity among families, professionals, and advocacy groups. Strategic marketing, confirmation bias, pseudoscience, anti-science, and fallacy explain this troubling renewal. We briefly discuss each of these and contrast the method with authentic augmentative and alternative communication to illustrate differences in values and practices. Our intention is to persuade readers to resist or abandon FC in favor of validated methods and to encourage advocacy organizations to advance agendas that emphasize genuine self-expression by people with disabilities.
BiklenD. (1990). Communication unbound: Autism and praxis. Harvard Educational Review, 60, 291-315.
2.
BiklenD. (1992). Typing to talk: Facilitated communication. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 1, 15-17.
3.
BiklenD. (1993). Communication unbound. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
4.
BiklenD.CardinalD. N. (1997). Reframing the issue: Presuming competence. In BiklenD.CardinalD. (Eds.), Contested words, contested science (pp. 187-198). New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
5.
BiklenD.SchubertA. (1991). New words: The communication of students with autism. Remedial and Special Education, 12, 4-57.
6.
BiluY.GoodmanY. C. (1997). What does the soul say? Metaphysical uses of facilitated communication in the Jewish Ultraorthodox community. Ethos, 25, 375-407.
7.
BonkerE.GreenE. (2011). I am in here: The journey of a child with autism who cannot speak but finds her voice. Ada, MI: Revell.
8.
BorthwickC. J.CrossleyR. (1993). The validation of facilitated communication. Caulfield, Australia: DEAL Centre.
9.
BoyntonJ. (2012). Facilitated communication-what harm can it do: Confessions of a former facilitator. Evidence-Based Communication Assessment and Intervention, 6, 3-13.
10.
CarrJ. E.FirthA. M. (2005). The verbal behavior approach to early and intensive behavioral intervention for autism: A call for additional empirical support. Journal of Early and Intensive Behavioral Intervention, 2, 18-27.
11.
CrossleyR. (1994). Facilitated communication training. New York, NY: Teacher’s College, Columbia University.
DaviesM. F. (1993). Dogmatism and the persistence of discredited beliefs. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 19, 692-699.
14.
DawsonG. (2008). Early behavioral intervention, brain plasticity, and the prevention of autism spectrum disorder. Development and Psychopathology, 20, 775-803.
15.
EmersonA.GraysonA.GriffithsA. (2001). Can’t or won’t? Evidence relating to authorship in facilitated communication. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, 36(Suppl.), 98-103.
16.
Facilitated Communication Institute. (2000). Facilitated communication training standards. Syracuse, NY: Author.
FrostL.BondyA. (2010). The picture exchange communication system training manual (2nd ed.). Newark, DE: Pyramid Educational Consultants.
20.
GanzJ. B.Earles-VollrathT. L.HeathA. K.ParkerR. I.RispoliM. J.DuranJ. B. (2012). A meta-analysis of single case research studies on aided augmentative and alternative communication systems with individuals with autism spectrum disorders. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 42, 60-74.
21.
GevarterC.O’ReillyM. F.RojeskiL.SammarcoN.LangR.LancioniG. E.SigafoosJ. (2013). Comparing communication systems for individuals with developmental disabilities: A review of single-case research studies. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 34, 4415-4432.
22.
GraysonA.EmersonA.Howard-JonesP.O’NeilL. (2012). Hidden communicative competence: Case study evidence using eye-tracking and video analysis. Autism, 16, 75-86.
23.
GreenG. (1994). The quality of evidence. In ShaneH. C. (Ed.), Facilitated communication: The clinical and social phenomenon (pp. 157-226). San Diego, CA: Singular Press.
24.
GrossP. R.LevittN. (1998). Higher superstition: The academic left and its quarrels with science. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
25.
HaskewP.DonnellanM. (1993). Emotional maturity and well-being: Psychological lessons of facilitated communication. Madison, WI: DRI Press.
26.
HigashidaN. (2013). The reason I jump: The inner voice of a thirteen-year-old boy with autism (YoshidaK. A.MitchellD., Trans.). New York, NY: Random House.
JacobsonJ. W.MulickJ. A.SchwartzA. A. (1995). A history of facilitated communication: Science, pseudoscience, and antiscience. American Psychologist, 50, 750-765.
29.
KedarI. (2012). Ido in autismland: Climbing out of autism’s silent prison. Sharon Kedar.
30.
KoertgeN. (2000). A house build on sand: Exposing postmodernist myths about science. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
31.
KozloffM. A. (2005). Fads in general education: Fad, fraud, and folly. In JacobsonJ. W.FoxxR. M.MulickJ. A. (Eds.), Controversial therapies for developmental disabilities: Fad, fashion, and science in professional practice (pp. 159-173). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
32.
KuhnT. (1970). The structure of scientific revolutions (2nd ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
33.
MarcusE.ShevinM. (1997). Sorting it out under fire: Our journey. In BiklenD. (Ed.), Contested words, contested science (pp. 115-134). New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
34.
MargolinK. N. (1994). How shall facilitated communication be judged? Facilitated communication and the legal system. In ShaneH. C. (Ed.), Facilitated communication: The clinical and social phenomenon (pp. 227-258). San Diego, CA: Singular Press.
35.
Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. (2011). Guidelines for the preparation of teachers of moderate and severe disabilities: Instruction on the appropriate use of augmentative and alternative communication and other assistive technologies. Malden, MA: Author.
36.
MostertM. P. (2001). Facilitated Communication since 1995: A review of published studies. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 31, 287-313.
37.
MostertM. P. (2010). Facilitated Communication and its legitimacy—Twenty-first century developments. Exceptionality, 18, 31-41.
38.
MukhopadhyayT. R. (2007). The mind tree: A miraculous child breaks the silence of autism. New York, NY: Penguin.
39.
NickersonR. S. (1998). Confirmation bias: A ubiquitous phenomenon in many guises. Review of General Psychology, 2, 175-220.
40.
PalfremanJ. (Producer). (1993, October19). Frontline: Prisoners of silence. Boston, MA: WGBH Public Television.
41.
RosettiZ.AshbyC.ArndtK.ChadwickM.KasaharaM. (2008). “I like others to not try to fix me”: Agency, independence, and autism. Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, 5, 374-375.
42.
SheehanC. M.MatuozziR. T. (1996). Investigation of the validity of facilitated communication through disclosure of unknown information. Mental Retardation, 34, 94-107.
43.
ShermerM. (2002). The skeptic encyclopedia of pseudoscience. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.
44.
SimpsonR. L.MylesB. S. (1995). Effectiveness of facilitated communication with children and youth with autism. The Journal of Special Education, 28, 424-439.
45.
SingerC. (2011). A short history of science to the nineteenth century. Mineola, NY: Dover.
46.
SkinnerB. F. (1953). Science and human behavior. New York, NY: Free Press.
47.
SokalA. D.BricmontJ. (1998). Fashionable nonsense: Postmodern intellectuals abuse of science. New York, NY: Picador.
48.
SorcherP. (Director). (2012). I want to say [Documentary short]. San Francisco: Bodega & Goodby Silverstein & Partners.
49.
StratmannC. S. (writer), (no director). (2012). Strange behavior [Television series episode]. In BellatiC.LonghurstJ. (Producers), Taboo. Washington DC: National Geographic Society.
50.
StubblefieldA. (2011). Sound and fury: When opposition to facilitated communication functions as hate speech. Disability Studies Quarterly, 31(4).
51.
Sulzer-AzaroffB.HoffmanA. O.HortonC. B.BondyA.FrostL. (2009). The Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS): What do the data say?Focus on Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities, 24, 89-103.
TincaniM.DevisK. (2011). Quantitative synthesis and component analysis of single-participant studies on the Picture Exchange Communication System. Remedial and Special Education, 32, 458-470.
54.
TostanoskiA.LangR.RaulstonT.CarnettA.DavisT. (2014). Voices from the past: Comparing the rapid prompting method and facilitated communication. Developmental Neurorehabilitation, 17, 219-223.
University of Northern Iowa College of Education (n.d.). 2014 Midwest Summer Institute: Communication and Inclusion for All. Retreived July7, 2014, from: http://www.vpaf.uni.edu/events/inclusion/
WegnerD. M.FullerV. A.SparrowB. (2003). Clever hands: Uncontrolled intelligence in facilitated communication. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 5-19.
60.
WongC.OdomS. L.HumeK.CoxA. W.FettigA.KucharczykS.. . . SchultzT. R. (2013). Evidence-based practices for children, youth, and young adults with autism spectrum disorder. Chapel Hill: Autism Evidence-Based Practice Review Group, Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
