Does Linguistic Analysis Confirm the Validity of Facilitated Communication?
Focus on Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities
Published online on May 02, 2016
Abstract
Facilitated communication (FC) has been interpreted as an ideomotor phenomenon, in which one person physically supports another person’s hand and unconsciously affects the content of the writing. Despite the strong experimental evidence against the authenticity of FC output, several studies claim to support its validity based on idiosyncrasies found in the texts produced. A review of these studies showed that, because of the logical circularity of the reasoning proposed in the studies, no decisive evidence that validated FC was presented. In addition, the idiosyncrasies found were better explained as by-products of the unusual writing process itself. Finally, the studies did not fulfill the quality standards proposed by the FC field itself.