Has FC changed since the early 1990s? Part 2
This blog post is a continuation of a series in response to a reader’s question: Has FC changed since the early 1990s? (See Part 1 here). When I started the series, my intent was to use the 1993 documentary Prisoners of Silence and the 2023 film Spellers (See Katharine’s review here) as points of comparison throughout the series. However, as I thought about the serious topics raised in Prisoners of Silence, I find it better focus on one film at a time. I will circle back around to discuss Spellers, but not in this blog post.
FC founder Douglas Biklen watches as Jeff Powell is supposedly selecting letters with “support” from a facilitator while looking at the ceiling. (Prisoners of Silence, 1993)
The documentary Prisoners of Silence marked one of the first critical investigations of Facilitated Communication (FC) that aired on prime-time television in the United States. Because the mechanics of FC has changed very little since its inception, the documentary is still relevant today. Not only did Prisoners of Silence capture the religious-like fervor of proponents at FC conferences hosted at Syracuse University, the documentary also debunked the idea that individuals using a one-finger hunt-and-peck style of typing can accurately select letters to spell out words without looking at the board (they cannot…no one can). It also showed FC founder Rosemary Crossley “facilitating” with someone in a coma.
In addition, the documentary featured former facilitators from the O.D. Heck Center who participated in reliably controlled testing to rule out facilitator control and (they thought) establish authorship. I’ve written previously about this study so I won’t detail it here, but the results convincingly (and devastatingly) showed that the facilitators (many of them Syracuse trained) authored the messages, not the individuals being subjected to FC.
The O.D. Heck study replicated prior studies that demonstrated facilitator influence and control over letter selection—studies that Biklen himself must have known about (see The Unusual and Excessive Hype of FC) when establishing the Facilitated Communication Institute at Syracuse University. At the very least, Biklen knew about the critical studies during the filming of Prisoners of Silence, because Jon Palfreman, the documentary’s producer, sent him the studies.
Note: The FCI was rebranded the “Institute for Community Inclusion” in 2010 in response to a spate of false allegations of abuse cases, and then rebranded again around the beginning of 2020 to “Inclusion and Communication Initiatives.” They’ve also reduced the mention of FC on their website and generally use the term “supported typing,” instead.
Facilitators at the O.D. Heck Center tested FC authorship by preventing the facilitator from seeing images that the clients saw. The client and facilitator could see each other and the keyboard. All the responses to the tests were based on images the facilitators saw. (Prisoners of Silence, 1993)
To understand how egregious and irresponsible Biklen’s response was to the studies (which he characterized them as “failures” and dismissed the studies outright) and to the false allegations of abuse cases featured in Prisoners of Silence (he blamed the facilitators for being “poorly trained”), it is important to note that Crossley and eight of her trained facilitators were among the first in Australia to bring false allegations of abuse against the family of one of their clients. Reporter Paul Heinrich covered the story for The Sunday Age, an Australian newspaper (see references below). After more than a year of investigating the case, the Guardianship and Administration Committee in Australia ruled categorically that the messages could not have come from the person being subjected to FC. That left only the facilitators to blame for the false allegations. The board said of the case:
“Facilitated communication is seen by workers in the field as a program to liberate people with intellectual disabilities. In this case, the board believes it has caused ‘Carla’ (the disabled woman) to become a victim…” (Heinrich, February 16, 1992)
The board also pointed out that the one step that could have prevented the case from occurring—prior verification of authorship—had not been done. But did losing that court case stop Crossley and her facilitators or Biklen from promoting the use of FC? No. Sadly, Crossley died in 2023 still promoting her beloved FC. Biklen retired from Syracuse University (to be replaced by FC disciple, Christine Ashby) without addressing the problems with FC that he admitted to on Prisoners of Silence.
As I’ve mentioned before, I was one of the facilitators for the Wheaton case featured on Prisoners of Silence—the only one who underwent double blind testing. I was devastated to learn through that process that the FC-generated messages originated from me and not Betsy, my student. That experience set me on what’s turned out to be a life-long journey to learn as much as I can about FC. It doesn’t make sense to me anymore to think that facilitator-dependent techniques can lead to independent communication. I am part-fascinated and part-horrified that people still, with apparent blind faith, use FC and its variants, despite all that is known about the flaws in the technique and the harms it can cause.
“A Passion to Believe: Autism and the Facilitated Communication Phenomenon” by Diane Twatchtman-Cullen raises questions about authorship and facilitators’ belief in preserving the illusion of FC. (Westview Press, 1997)
You might understand my anger and dismay when I discovered information about the “Carla” case while reading Diane Twatchman-Cullen’s book A Passion to Believe: Autism and the Facilitated Communication Phenomenon (see Katharine’s review here) some twenty years after Prisoners of Silence aired. Crossley and her facilitators had made the exact same errors in judgement I had by believing in and acting on FC-generated allegations of abuse (or any facilitated content, for that matter) without testing authorship. In Prisoners of Silence, Biklen was quick to publicly blame facilitators, not FC, for its flaws and to call them out for having poor technique. (Alan Kurtz, the person who trained me in a workshop at the University of Maine, did the same on a 20/20 program that featured the Wheatons and me in April 1994). Reading about the “Carla” case for the first time, I wondered “Does this condemnation apply to Crossley and her facilitators as well?” And, “If Crossley and her facilitators influenced and controlled letter selection, then, how can they expect others who use the technique to obtain different results?”
Though memory is a fickle thing, reading about the “Carla” case seemed to back up a memory I have of FC workshop leaders Alan Kurtz and William Ashe (who worked directly with Biklen) telling us in a 1993 University of Maine facilitator training session that there was going to be some bad press coming out about FC and not to believe it. Could they have been referencing the “Carla” case? Or were they talking about the O.D. Heck report (or other studies) that were being conducted and published in the U.S. around that time? Or had Jon Palfreman started his investigation into FC for Prisoners of Silence? Could Kurtz and Ashe have known the documentary was not going to be favorable toward FC? How much did the workshop leaders know about the false allegation of abuse case(s) being investigated in Australia and the United States or the emerging authorship studies that revealed facilitator influence and control during letter selection? Were they aware that the judge in the Carla case specifically called out Crossley and her facilitators for not doing their due diligence?
Unlike Crossley, Biklen and other promoters of FC, Phil Worden, the guardian ad litem for Betsy and her brother in the case I was involved with, grasped the concept and importance of authorship testing in FC. As he stated in the documentary (this scene in the documentary still chokes me up):
“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?” (Phil Worden, Prisoners of Silence)
The clean, simple, and fairly quick way to solve that one narrow question was, in fact, accomplished with a file folder, some pictures, a key, and a list of questions that Betsy (my student) would likely know but I (the facilitator) would not. (See Howard Shane demonstrating the tests in Prisoners of Silence). No fancy equipment or headphones. No sterile laboratory environment. The tests took place at school, in a room Betsy was familiar with and was not long or drawn out. I think the whole thing took no more than 2-3 hours. In fact, the testing was so unlike what workshop leaders described (e.g., adversarial, too difficult and stressful for the student to handle) that going through the experience helped me realize that proponents of FC (knowingly or not) were way off base advising facilitators to avoid message-passing tests.
Unlike with Biklen, who did not let “failed studies” get in the way of promoting FC, I was personally affected by a “failed study” and (eventually) I wanted to learn all I could about the technique—something I still regret not doing before getting involved with it.
Gaining access to reports of reliably controlled testing (something workshop leaders did not/do not provide), plus my experience with the testing profoundly changed the way I view FC. I understand—in an equally profound way—how good intentions can cause harm and I think that’s why I harp on the need for facilitators to participate in reliably controlled testing.
As difficult as it was for me to come to terms with my own actions, by experiencing the testing for myself, I could no longer fool myself into believing that the FCed messages were originating from my student. Once there was a chink in my belief in FC, I found that the reports of facilitator influence and control during letter selection through physical, auditory and verbal cueing made more sense to me than the anecdotes and testimonials I’d heard at the FC workshop. And, while I realize some readers may point out (and rightfully so) that this blog post is, largely, an anecdote about one person’s experiences with FC, there are many controlled studies and systematic reviews to back up my claims that FC-generated messages were then and still are subject to facilitator influence and control. To date, there are no reliably controlled studies of FC/S2C/RPM proving otherwise.
In researching this series, I came across a short article I wrote in 1995 about my experience with FC. I’d forgotten some of the details. In the next installment, I will offer some comments about that article as it relates to FC in the early 1990s. As I write this, it looks like there will be one more blog post after that about false allegations of abuse before I move on to the film Spellers.
Recommended Reading
Boynton, J. (2012). Facilitated Communication—what harm it can do: Confessions of a former facilitator. Evidence-Based Communication Assessment and Intervention, 6:1, 3-13. DOI: 10.1080/17489539.2012.674680
Geschke, Norman. (1993, May 10). Report on the Investigation of a Complaint of Unjust Dismissal Because of Allegations Made by Facilitated Communication. Melbourne: L.V. North, Government Printer.
Heinrichs, P. (1992, February 16). Suffering at the Hands of the Protectors. The Sunday Morning Herald.
Heinrichs, P. (1992, February 16). State 'tortured' family – 'tragic'. Sunday Age (Melbourne, Australia) Late Edition, pp. 1
Heinrichs, P. (1992, February 23). 'Tortured' family may call for probe on facilitated evidence. Sunday Age, Melbourne, Australia, Late Edition, pp. 8
Heinrichs, P. (1992, February 23). More families take on CSV 'zealots'. Sunday Age, Melbourne, Australia, Late Edition, pp. 7
Heinrichs, P. (1992, April 12). Taxpayers will foot bill for 'Carla' case. Sunday Age, Melbourne, Australia, Late Edition, pp. 11
Heinrichs, P. (1992, May 17). US courts to rule on disability method. Sunday Age, Melbourne, Australia, Late Edition, pp. 9
Heinrichs, P. (1992, May 31). 'Carla' case prompts overhaul of system. Sunday Age, Melbourne, Australia, Late Edition, pp. 10
Heinrichs, P. (1992, September 6). New ordeal for 'Carla' family. Sunday Age, Melbourne, Australia, Late Edition, pp. 7
Heinrichs, P. (1992, September 13). Carla payment hope. Sunday Age, Melbourne, Australia, Late Edition, pp. 8
Heinrichs, P. US courts reject facilitated communication. Sunday Age, Melbourne, Australia, Late Edition, pp. 7
Heinrichs, P. (1993, January 17). 'Carla' cost may force family to sell home. Sunday Age, Melbourne, Australia, Late Edition, pp. 6
Mostert, M. (2012). Facilitated Communication: The empirical imperative to prevent further professional malpractice. Evidence-Based Communication Assessment and Intervention, 6 (1), 1-10. DOI: 10.1080/17489539.2012.693840
Palfreman, J. (2012) The dark legacy of FC. Evidence-Based Communication Assessment and Intervention, 6 (1), 14-17. DOI: 10.1080/17489539.2012.688343
Sigafoos, J. and Schlosser, R. (2012) An experiential account of facilitated communication. Evidence-Based Communication Assessment and Intervention, 6 (1), 1-2. DOI: 10.1080/17489539.2012.710992
Todd , J.T. (2012) The moral obligation to be empirical: Comments on Boynton's “Facilitated Communication—what harm it can do: Confessions of a former facilitator”. Evidence-Based Communication Assessment and Intervention, 6 (1), 36-57. DOI: 10.1080/17489539.2012.704738
Von Tetzchner, S. (2012) Understanding facilitated communication: Lessons from a former facilitator—Comments on Boynton. Evidence-Based Communication Assessment and Intervention, 6 (1), 28-35. DOI: 10.1080/17489539.2012.699729
Vyse, S. (2018). An Artist with a Science-Based Mission. Skeptical Inquirer.