FC - Behind the Glass - Session 1
It is not uncommon for educators, when they are learning their craft, to be observed by their instructors and colleagues. In Reading Recovery, for example, this is known as going “behind the glass” in a specially designed room with a table for instruction separated by a one-way mirror behind which sits the observers. The point of the exercise is to help the instructor learn their teaching strengths and weaknesses and correct any (teacher) behaviors that may be inhibiting the advancement of their students. It can be a bit nerve-wracking at first, but done with compassion and in the spirit of becoming a better teacher, the experience can actually be quite rewarding.
With that in mind, I want to introduce a video in which a facilitator is using facilitated communication with her client, but makes some visible errors that calls into question authorship of the types messages. I take it on face value that the person is well-meaning and believes the letters called out are the ones intended by the person being facilitated. But, if facilitated messages are to be believed as the independent words of non-speaking individuals, then facilitator influence must be ruled out. (So far, it hasn’t, since FC, by its nature, is a facilitator influenced technique. Without the facilitator present, the odds of it “working” as promoted are essentially nil).
This is a YouTube video entitled “QWERTY” - Linsey Pollack, Peter Rowe, Terri Delaney (December 8, 2009).
The video opens with Linsey Pollack and Terri Delaney tickling Peter Rowe, which, for me at least, feels a bit creepy. I’m not sure why this is necessary or if it is appropriate. But, anyway, the three are standing outside in front of some trees. Rowe is holding a board, which turns out to be a paper photo copy of the alphabet. Delaney exits the scene and the instant Pollack takes his hand, Rowe starts poking at the board. Practically the only time Rowe looks at the board is when they first start facilitating. I’d be more likely to believe the communicated messages are Rowe’s if the tables were turned and Rowe was looking at the board, but Pollack was not.
Note that the board is being held in the air, which subjects letter selection to inadvertent facilitator movements via the ideomotor effect, or non-conscious muscle movements. In this case, both Pollack and Rowe are holding on to the board and both of them are influencing where the board is in the air. Normally, I’d say that because Pollack is constantly looking at the board she is directing letter selection, but this is an unusual case where, most likely, no letters are being selected to correspond with what she is saying (more explanation below).
Linsey Pollack and Peter Rowe using facilitated communication.
Within three or four seconds, Rowe looks away from the letter board and stays that way throughout the rest of the video. Pollack, however, keeps her eyes glued to the letter board, seemingly unaware of Rowe’s inattentiveness. He does, however, maintain his tapping on the letter board and, at times, pounds so hard that, through earphones, I found myself reflexively closing my eyes. I wonder if this happened to the facilitator as well and, if so, how was Pollack able to know which letters were typed with eyes closed?
It’s worth watching the video to understand that Rowe taps on the board with such rapidity that Pollack’s slow and steady recital of what he is supposedly saying cannot possibly match. A close up of the letter board shows Rowe’s fingers slapping the board with no clear evidence of letter choices. The tapping is simply too quick to process whether his finger is hitting the desired letters or whether he’s pointing in between the letters. I tried to get a screen shot, but the rate of tapping was so quick, all I got were blurred images when I paused the video.
To Pollack, Rowe is typing out “We’re QWERTY and I’m Peter Rowe and we are using facilitated communication to talk. QWERTY is all about risk taking, breaking down walls, and looking at the nature of improvisation. Yes folks, we have no idea what we are doing or going to do when we step on the stage. The beautiful Terri reads my letters and then turns those letters into words and then turns those words into song to the delicious of the magic maestro, Mr. Lindsey Black.” But, Rowe isn’t looking at the board. Instead, he’s looking over her shoulder at something happening off screen and even looking directly into the camera. There is no evidence, from this video at least, that Rowe understands what the letter board is for, what letters are for, or if he has the language and literacy skills to comprehend what Pollack is saying. He’s simply learned to stand there and point on cue when she takes his hand.
I find it troublesome that, assuming Delaney is also trained as a facilitator, at no time during the video does he stop Pollack and call attention to the fact that Rowe is not looking at the board. While it is possible to type on an actual keyboard without looking (once the typist has visual confirmation that their hands are on the “home row”), it is impossible to type this way on a photocopied letter board using the hunt-and-peck method. This is an example of poor technique that’s gone unchecked and the only reasonable explanation for the words being expressed are that the facilitator is improvising them.
I find it interesting that, in the comments for this video, someone mentions that “this isn’t facilitated communication” while asserting that Sue Rubin’s facilitators do it correctly. Facilitators will, occasionally, admit to facilitator influence and, admittedly, the Pollack example is one of the more obvious ones. As a former facilitator, I understand that it is easier to see facilitator control in others than it is to see it in oneself. But, Sue Rubin is also being subjected to facilitated communication, as seen in the movie “Autism is a World” (reviewed here) and questions remain as to whether or not the messages obtained using FC are, in fact, her own, regardless of what proponents claim. To date, there is no evidence that any of the individuals being subjected to facilitated communication are expressing their own thoughts, but rather, controlled testing demonstrates facilitator authorship over messages obtained using FC.
So, from this video, we know that facilitator cuing and control can come in the form of:
Holding the letter board in the air (e.g., the ideomotor effect);
Constantly looking at the letter board without an awareness that the person being facilitated is not also looking at the board;
Guessing at the letters being selected because the speed of letter selection prevents actual processing time (e.g., the facilitator can’t tell which letters are selected and/or if the person pointed in between letters);
Allowing facilitation to continue without proper redirection.
Relying solely on facilitator confirmation of the messages being read out with no input from the person being facilitated.
This is quite a typical list of critiques and though this is, admittedly, an extreme example, facilitators have a long way to go in terms of regulating and preventing facilitator control (the burden of proof is on them). We’ll be looking at more examples of facilitator behavior in the future.