Call for a Rigorous and Scrupulous Investigation of FC/S2C/RPM Whenever the Techniques are Used in the Courtroom
Over the past couple months, I’ve personally had interactions with individuals fighting FC/S2C/RPM use in U.S. court cases that either involved false allegations of abuse and/or custody and guardianship issues. In at least one of the cases, the child involved is being facilitated (by a parent) in counseling sessions. In another, medications are being prescribed based on FC-generated feedback about the mood and behaviors of the child.* In these and other cases I know about, the parents/facilitators have refused court ordered controlled testing to determine authorship. I find it quite telling that these people would rather drop allegations of abuse charges (usually levied at a family member expressing doubts about FC) rather than rule in or rule out facilitator influence and control over letter selection as part of an investigation into the alleged crimes. At least some of the judges in these cases regard both sides as having “beliefs held to be true,” and, from a legal perspective, are not interested in exploring the validity of FC.
Image by Clare Andersen (stock photo)
However, one of our contacts sent us an article (thank you!) titled “Pursuing Justice for Children with Disabilities: Exploring the Risks of Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) and Advancing the Field” which was published in the International Journal on Child Maltreatment outlining the strengths and weaknesses of using evidence-based AAC devices in the courtroom and the dangers of using unproven and disproven techniques, like FC, for witness testimony. I’m highlighting the article today in hopes that it will open a discussion with those involved in the legal system (including police, lawyers, judges) who may or may not be aware of these issues.
FC and the legal system is a particular interest of mine since, in the early 1990s, I was a facilitator in what turned out to be a false allegations of abuse case that was featured in a 1993 Frontline documentary called “Prisoners of Silence.” I also wrote about it in an article titled “Facilitated Communication: What Harm It Can Do—Confessions of a Former Facilitator.” It may sound strange to some for me to say this, but I believe the children’s guardian ad litem, Phil Worden, absolutely did the right thing by pushing for authorship testing immediately upon hearing about the case, even though, at the time, I believed in FC. And, though I have no doubt the family was traumatized by the experience, there is some small consolation knowing that they were not falsely arrested and detained. Nor did they spend months in jail before the issue of authorship could be resolved. Other victims of FC have not been so lucky. See “A Life Shattered by Pseudoscience” to learn about a man who spent 10 months in jail because of FC-generated false allegations of abuse. The charges were eventually dropped and his record expunged but not before life-long damage had been done.
Frontline Prisoners of Silence (1993)
The case I was involved with was one of about 5 dozen allegations of abuse cases in the early to mid-1990s that sparked research into the validity of FC as an independent form of communication. I honestly don’t know why the protocols Phil Worden used for addressing FC authorship weren’t adopted nationally. As I’ve learned, the so-called “wheels of justice” are put into motion once that phone call is made to the Department of Human Services. Educators, acting as facilitators or communication regulation partners, are mandatory reporters and feel justified in reporting FC-generated allegations of abuse. Parent facilitators feel like they are protecting their child from abuse by a family member. And police, often unfamiliar with individuals with profound autism or other developmental disabilities, must act in these situations as if the abuse has occurred, despite claims that, in the American justice system at least, individuals are innocent until proven guilty.
In their article, Friedman-Hauser and Jacobson express concern that children with disabilities who also have complex communication needs are among the most vulnerable and the most exploited in the court system. AAC, when used correctly, can be an effective means for supporting these individuals who might have difficulty expressing themselves verbally or understanding questions being asked in the courtroom. They note several “promising” evidence-based AAC approaches that may be employed in these situations, including “eye-gazing and eye tracking, mechanical and touchscreen boards, respiration signals, and brain-computer interface.” And, though these approaches are being used successfully by some, the authors highlight some barriers to effective communication via AAC:
Attitudes and support of professionals, family members, and society
User’s attitudes, socioeconomic status, and culture
Cognitive and movement deficits or difficulties
Inadequate use of low-tech and unaided AAC systems
Complexity of programming required by traditional AAC technologies that may hinder their effectiveness in courtroom settings
FC comes in a variety of forms using a keyboard, letter board or other device while a facilitator holds the person's wrist, elbow, back, shirt sleeve, (or the letter board in the air).
Particularly of concern for the authors (and for FC skeptics alike), are tools like FC that have “made their way into mainstream use without empirical backing.” The authors focused on touch-based FC, but I would add that all facilitator-dependent techniques should be cause for suspicion, including but not limited to supported typing, spelling to communicate (S2C), Rapid Prompting Method (RPM), and the newly hyped “spellers method.” As the authors point, out these methods end up “posing a danger to their users and impeding children with disabilities from accessing their rights to justice.”
I’ve seen some comments on social media by proponents who think that critics need to know international law before advocating for authorship testing with FC/S2C/RPM. I’d argue that unproven, discredited, and scientifically unsound techniques should not be used on vulnerable individuals under any circumstances, regardless of the laws in individual countries. The problems with these techniques are universal:
Lack of reliably controlled evidence proving claims that FC-generated claims are independent and free from facilitator influence and control.
Evidence that FC-generated answers to questions during controlled tests are based on information the facilitator has access to, not their clients.
Facilitators use subtle physical, auditory, and visual cues that influence letter selection. The cues may be inadvertent and/or the facilitator may not fully understand the extent to which these cues affect letter selection.
Facilitators may (inadvertently) be substituting their own voices for those of their clients.
The authors of the article acknowledge that most facilitators are well-meaning. They (the facilitators) exhibit a strong desire to communicate with their loved ones and/or a desire to help someone (sometimes called the “savior effect”). But good intentions do not protect facilitators from co-opting the voices of individuals with complex communication needs who are being subjected to facilitator-dependent techniques.
The legal system is not designed to answer the question of whether FC is scientifically rigorous or not. However, because of the well-documented problems with FC, whenever FC-generated interviews, depositions, or testimonies enter the courtroom, all parties should be made aware of the strong opposition the scientific community has had since 1994-95 and continues to have to this day regarding these techniques. (See Opposition Statements)
As Phil Worden said in Prisoners of Silence:
I was most worried in my heart about were we going to do justice in this case? If the communications were real and she was being abused, the idea that on a legal technicality we might send the children back would be just absolutely horrible. On the other hand, if these were not real communications, the idea that all this would happen to this family and these children on a bogus idea was also unacceptable. So, to my mind, the stakes were extremely high on both sides and it was very important that we reach a quality decision based on the truth. And so I—you know, what I was looking for was a clean, simple and fairly quick way to just solve that one narrow question: Were these communications coming from the children?
Regardless of what proponents say, there is a “clean, simple and fairly quick” way to solve issues of authorship in FC/S2C/RPM. And that’s with reliably controlled tests designed to rule in or rule out facilitator behavior. Oddly, it’s the one type of testing proponents stubbornly reject.
To be clear, I believe all cases involving allegations of abuse should be rigorously and scrupulously investigated. But when a case involves FC/S2C/RPM, that investigation should include—at the earliest possible moment—reliably controlled authorship testing. Make sure the children are in a safe place, yes. But no charges should be brought until or unless it is proven that the facilitated messages are independent and free from facilitator control. Some critics believe FC/S2C/RPM messages should automatically be put in the same category as lie detector tests and prevented from being used as evidence in a court of law. I could stand behind that position as well.
*It should go without saying that no medical or mental health issues, guardianship or custodial issues, or relationship issues (including marriage and sexual relationships) should be discussed using facilitator-dependent techniques.
Recommended Reading
Finn, P., Bothe, A.K., and Bramlett, R.E. (2005, August). Science and Pseudoscience in Communication Disorders: Criteria and Applications. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology. 14 (4), 172-186.
Friedman-Hauser, Gal, and Jacobson, Ma’ayan. (2024, August 14). Pursuing Justice for Children with Disabilities: Exploring the Risks of Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) and Advancing the Field. International Journal on Child Maltreatment. DOI: 10.1007/s42448-024-00213-z
Gorman, B.J. (2011). Psychology and Law in the Classroom: How the Use of Clinical Fads in the Classroom may Awaken the Educational Malpractice Claim. Brigham Young University Education and Law Journal, 2011 (1), 29-50.
Jones, David P.H. (1994). Autism, Facilitated Communication and Allegations of Child Abuse and Neglect. Child Abuse and Neglect. 18 (6), 491-493. DOI: 10.1016/0145-2134(94)90002-7