Tag: facilitated communication
NYT Article on Rapid Prompting Method
This is one of those stories that will not go away, and a recent NYT article is fresh evidence of that. The title is: An Autism Breakthrough, or an Illusion? The Fight Over Assisted Spelling.” I always approach such articles cautiously, bracing myself for the cringing experience of reading a non-expert butcher such topics in depressingly predictable ways. This article was not...
Decision Against Spelling to Communicate – A Small Victory for Science
Spelling to Communicate is just another form a facilitated communication, an invalid technique that was disproved decades ago but refuses to die.
Facilitated Communication Rears Its Ugly Head Again
Facilitated communication is pure pseudoscience that was debunked almost 30 years ago, but it keeps coming back, creating new victims.
Rom Houben: Not communicating through facilitated communication
Rob Houben, injured by a car crash over two decades ago, was claimed to be conscious but paralyzed rather than in a persistent vegetative state, and the discredited pseudoscience of facilitated communication was claimed to give him a voice. To the lack of surprise of skeptics everywhere, these claims were not true.
Communicating with the Locked-In
Facilitated communication is exploitation supported by false hope and good intentions. Brain-machine interfaces are progressing with agonizing slowness, but offer true potential in actually permitting paralyzed people to communicate and even regain movement.