I am responding to the rebuttal (4/19/16) to The Daily Orange article on Facilitated Communication (FC). The Institute on Communication and Inclusion faculty who wrote to defend FC did so by claiming that they speak for the civil rights of the marginalized, by reviewing the maltreatment of individuals with disabilities, and by putting quotes around the word scientific.

None of those issues address the central question: “Does Facilitated Communication work to allow non-verbal autistic individuals to communicate?” The simple answer to that question is no, it does not.

We evaluate clinical interventions — and FC is a clinical intervention — with blinded trials.  This is the standard method of evaluation for drugs, therapies and assistive technologies.  FC has been subject to numerous blinded trials in which the facilitator was shown a different item than the autistic individual. In every study, the autistic individual typed the item that the facilitator saw and not the item that the autistic individual saw. The studies demonstrated that there was no actual communication.

The Institute on Communication and Inclusion faculty criticized those blinded studies as “scientific” implying that they did not believe in the results of the scientific method as applied to FC. When individuals believe in things that cannot be validated, we call that theology. I respect everyone’s right to their opinion and their metaphysical beliefs. But in the case of FC we have a fact: It does not work.

Sandra D. Lane, Ph.D., MPH
Laura J. and L. Douglas Meredith Professor
Professor of Public Health and Anthropology
Syracuse University
& Research Professor
Obstetrics and Gynecology
Upstate Medical University