Parents, educators, researchers, and others concerned about the promotion of Facilitated Communication, a thoroughly discredited but persistent technique.
Joined May 2021
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Beyond the Buzzwords: How SLPs Can Evaluate Clinical Trends, Pseudoscience, and Evidence-Based Claims
tatyanaelleseff.com/beyond-t…
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Facilitated Communication is Not Science retweeted
Jun 14
You don’t have to be bad at mazes, number calculations, or shape puzzles to be profoundly #autistic. But you do need profound socio-communication impairment, incl. in production & comprehension of verbal lang.
Ergo… profound autism entails low verbal IQ; not low performance IQ.
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Actually there are published authorship results for S2C/RPM--and they aren't good.
facilitatedcommunication.org…
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Here are more questions that I wish reporters would address in their reports.
facilitatedcommunication.org…
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If S2C/RPM are not FC, like proponents claim, where is the reliably controlled testing to show communication independence? These techniques characteristically use facilitator cueing and control to "work." What if the facilitator isn't allowed to hear the test stimuli?
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We don't need another "Is RPM a Miracle or Mirage" story by reporters. We need someone who has the integrity to hold proponents accountable for promoting techniques with no scientific basis. Can they rule out facilitator cueing and control? Where's the evidence?
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Good question. I ask proponents to send me authorship studies that address facilitator cueing/control & prove their claims of communication independence, but it seems to be a big secret b/c no one has sent me anything of the kind. I'd review good FC/S2C/RPM if it existed.
Jun 12
The other day someone said we only target incompetent FC. This was a public demo by folks from Ashland U. Experts. Bigger issue: If there’s bad FC, and FCers admit it, why is the FC in abuse cases so strongly defended and direct testing rebuffed? How is justice served by bad FC?
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Facilitated Communication is Not Science retweeted
Jun 12
Yes, sadly, this is true
Sadly, that's not an unusual occurrence. FC/S2C/RPM use should be questioned and tested under reliably controlled conditions regardless of the FC-generated output to rule in or rule out facilitator cueing and control.
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Facilitated Communication is Not Science retweeted
Jun 12
Reasonable. A lot of the cases I do involve a spouse doing FC resulting in abuse accusations against the other. Works. An accusation with no other evidence can put people in jail, land a false conviction, deny custody, cost jobs. It’s dangerous pseudoscience. Treat it as such.
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Sadly, that's not an unusual occurrence. FC/S2C/RPM use should be questioned and tested under reliably controlled conditions regardless of the FC-generated output to rule in or rule out facilitator cueing and control.
A parent told me they informed a communication specialist that their spouse was FCing their child. The first thing the specialist said was to expect abuse allegations from FC.
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I've been involved with FC/S2CC/RPM for over 30 years and continue to learn new things about the topic and/or the facilitator mindset. You're willing to ask questions and consider the research (or lack thereof) of these techniques. That's a huge difference than most proponents.
I was so focused on justifying a facilitator’s way of life (freedom to FC) that I overlooked the obvious: FC violates comm. rights of people with disabilities. I’m out of my depth with FC sometimes (often?) but am doing a better job than @SecKennedy, which is interesting.
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Yes and also, the pattern of current-day false allegations of abuse cases seems to be ex-spouses w/a child who's being facilitated (usually by the mom). Expressing doubt about FC/S2C/RPM in these situations appears to increase the chances of FC-generated allegations.
I think it depends on how the facilitator got the idea of abuse in the first place. They can read an abuse story, let it slip out as an unconscious speculation, and remain open-minded. They can strongly suspect their spouse is abusive and facilitate out an allegation as proof.
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Classic. And if this is pointed out to facilitators, they claim their client has super human peripheral vision and/or attention skills--both known to be deficient in individuals with ASD.
Jun 12
He liked looking at cars in a dealership circular he’d found. At another point in the demonstration, he let them do FC with one hand while he paged through the magazine with the other. Needless to say, he wasn’t looking at the keyboard. His facilitator had her eyes locked on it.
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This YouTube channel features pro FC/S2C/RPM leaders and facilitators, inc. people who believe in telepathy. One interview featured a mother who believes her blind child communicates through remote viewing (when subjected to RPM). None of the claims are scientifically validated.
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This article seemed to clear up the question for the person:
researchgate.net/publication…
Jun 12
Huh? Please restate question less ambiguously and more clearly.
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Agreed. It sounds like the young man meant no. Sad that facilitators are taught to ignore people's verbal and nonverbal behavior and only focus on the FC-generated messages.
Jun 11
In an FC demonstration we were told to disregard the young man’s vocalizations. It’s true that some vocalizations aren’t conventionally linguistically meaningful. In this case, he was saying “no”and trying to pull away from the FC. It was probably OK to take that one literally.
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The current trend is that when false allegations of abuse claims are made via FC/S2C/RPM, current-day facilitators refuse to participate in reliably controlled authorship testing, even when court ordered. They'd rather drop the charges than participate in testing.
Jun 11
Do current proponents of “properly done” S2C accept without question that abuse allegations relayed by their nonspeakers are valid?
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I'm rereading Paul Heinrich's 1992 series on the false allegations of abuse case involving FC founder Rosemary Crossley and several of her trained facilitators. How is authorship testing for FC/S2C/RPM not mandatory?
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Facilitated Communication is Not Science retweeted
Jun 11
I’ve heard there’s a person (psychologist?) in Queensland Australia who regularly does message passing tests in connection w/ govt disability reimbursements. She might be the only person left on earth who conducts such tests. And apparently- surprise, surprise
-they always fail.
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Here's another blog post that addresses unreliable speech claims:
facilitatedcommunication.org…
Jun 11
You mean the 'no more" section where the voiceover talks about communication isn't what comes out of my mouth?
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