What we can learn about FC, the Pseudo-ESP Phenomenon, and Facilitator Cueing from Kezuka’s “The Role of Touch in Facilitated Communication”

In 1997, Emiko Kezuka published an article called The Role of Touch in Facilitated Communication in response to claims that nonverbal autistic children were “suddenly” and “miraculously” starting to type while being touched by an assistant or “facilitator.” In the early-to-mid-1990s, reliably controlled studies into authorship and FC revealed that “the subject’s responses were appropriate to the question asked of their facilitator when facilitator and subject were asked different questions.” (p. 571, emphasis mine).

Mechanism used to determine pressure exerted by participants and facilitators during letter selection in a study called “The Role of Touch in Facilitated Communication” (Kezuka, 1997)

As I’ve discussed in a previous blog post, some proponents explain this display of unexpected literacy as the product of telepathy or, as Kezuka wrote “something like extrasensory perception (ESP).” The so-called telepathic messaging in FC that appears to rely on touch is dubbed a “pseudo-ESP phenomenon” in Kezuka’s article. But even founder Rosemary Crossley balked at the idea of FC and telepathic messaging. As documented in her book Facilitated Communication Training, when it came to the paranormal, Crossley put aside her overall resistance to testing FC authorship under reliably controlled conditions and suggested that the “facilitation process” be “examined more closely.” (p.111, Crossley, 1994)

The purpose of the Kezuka experiments was to understand facilitator behavior during FC. It is likely that this facilitator-focused approach to examining FC is one of the reasons why proponents often do not include this study on their reference lists.

Please note, we have a summary of the Kezuka study in the Controlled Studies section of the website. However, if you have not read the article in full, we strongly suggest you do so.

The technique used in the study was not formally called FC, though it bore resemblance to the touch-based facilitator-assisted technique Crossley described in her book. Proponents might criticize the article for this point, but Crossley herself admits that her “initial use of facilitated communication had no theoretical basis” (p. 4, Crossley, 1994). The mother in Kezuka’s study, like others in the FC movement (including Soma Mukhopadhyay and Rosiland Oppenheim), had “discovered” FC (or something like it) on their own and then convinced themselves and others that it “worked” based on their own, anecdotal interpretations.

Kezuka reports that the facilitator (mother) provided support by touching her daughter’s (J’s) hand, shoulder, head, or shirt sleeve. Sometimes, J held on to the facilitator’s finger during letter selection.

J’s family and teachers, acting as facilitators, considered the “communications” successful. At the time of the study, J had been subjected to the technique for more than 6 years. The FC-generated output included daily conversation, letters, poetry, essays, foreign language, and arithmetic. Despite this seeming success, the duration of FC use, and her ability to press keys on the word processor independently (without being facilitated), J was unable to produce any messages on her own. (p. 573) This inability to produce independent communication with sophistication levels equal to that of FC-generated messages despite long-term use is documented in other “successful” FC cases as well. (See Analysis of “Evaluation of a Mechanical Hand-Support for Facilitated Communication”)

This study is, perhaps, the least naturalistic test of FC I’ve read to date. The researcher(s) used rods and ribbons attached to J’s finger and held by the facilitator to measure pressure exerted by the pair during the typing activity. In addition, Electromyography (EMG) was used to measure the muscle responses of the participant (right forearm) and the facilitator (right arm and shoulder). The sessions were also videotaped, which proved valuable in detecting J’s movements during letter selection. Since there was no mention that J was adversely affected by having a camera present, we can assume the videotaping did not interfere with the activities.

The issue of informed consent was not discussed in Kezuka’s report. However, because J’s mother served as the facilitator in the experiments, it is plausible that she, as the child’s legal guardian, understood and agreed to the procedures. Equally plausible is that she would have stopped the testing sessions had they become aggressive or adversarial. Kezuka mentioned one instance where J exhibited signs of distress (vocalizing) but attributed that to a difficult trial which included changes in facilitator “support.” It is impossible to know from the report how much J understood about the activity, since the tests showed that the assistant “applied a force to exercise control over J’s pointing responses, creating the illusion that J was typing.” (p. 574).

The activities involved in the test were set up as telepathy games conducted under two primary conditions: direct contact (e.g., physical touch between the participant and facilitator) and indirect contact (e.g., plastic rods and ribbons attached to the right little finger of the participant while the facilitator held the other end). It appears from the description that J was familiar with trying to “guess” and “type” the number and suit of cards randomly selected by the facilitator. During the test, the facilitator was not allowed to look at the cards.

Discussion

As I previously stated, this test was unusual in that it employed mechanical devices (e.g., rods, ribbons, EMG) to measure muscle movement likely not visible to the naked eye. With these devices in place, Kezuka was able to infer that “what was transmitted from the assistant to J was not words, but physical force. That is, the assistant applied a force to exercise control over J’s pointing responses, creating the illusion that J was typing.” (p. 574)

While this is a novel and, historically, valuable approach, I can understand that some readers may be uncomfortable with some of the procedures. Certainly, these experiments do not meet the criteria for testing FC in a naturalistic setting. Perhaps, with changes in technology, there are modern, less intrusive, ways to replicate the experiments and test the physical movements of facilitator-client pairs. Regardless,, Kezuka’s experiments do give us information about how subtle cueing may occur in FC.

• J adjusted her body position, moved her arm, or pulled the word processor closer to her in response to facilitator movements, presumably to “receive the full weight of the assistant’s hand on her shoulder…” (p. 574, emphasis mine)

• Slowing the video to frame by frame, the researchers detected J’s tendency to make several fast, repeated movements above the keyboard before pressing the keys, presumably in response to “slight changes in force from the assistant that signaled her to drop her finger to the letter below.” (p. 576) In other words, J was responsive to the changes in pressure her facilitator exhibited during the letter selection process and followed the path of least resistance when selecting letters.

• When the facilitator was able to see the test cards, the responses were correct. (p. 579)

• The assistant applied force to the rod that restrained J’s movements and kept her from moving away from the desired key on the keyboard and/or pulled her finger back toward the desired letter if J overshot the letter on the keyboard. (p. 579)

Kezuka also conducted the testing with nondisabled people of differing ages and genders to determine whether pseudo-ESP occurred in nondisabled people (it did) and whether it could be explained by motor control. (p. 580) These further experiments determined that when the movements of the two people were not synchronized “a force was exercised on the partner“ which lead him/her to the correct answer. Indeed, “some of the receivers reported that their hands felt heavy when they moved past the correct answer, indicating a direction in which the sender did not want to go.” (p. 590)

Conclusion

Kezuka attributed the results of facilitator movements detected in the study to “a type of ideomotor response” or “unconscious muscular movement” which rendered “untenable” the claim that “a subject has a high level of intelligence or literacy just because very abstract concepts or sophisticated statements seem to be produced when someone uses FC with the subject.” (p. 592)

In addition to the subtle physical cues revealed in the study, facilitators also provided visual cues to their partners in the study: finger movements, head wavering, stopping of the eyes in the vicinity of the correct answer. (p. 591)

Kezuka posited that facilitator control in FC is a combination of the ideomotor response (or pressure on a muscular level) and operant conditioning (e.g., positive reinforcement by the facilitator for desired actions or responses). The cueing may start overtly (e.g., applying backwards pressure to the individual’s wrist, elbow, shoulder, or shirt sleeve), but with practice, over time, may become covert. As an example, Kezuka reported that J’s response to familiar letter selection activities and support was almost instantaneous during the test conditions. However, when the test conditions changed (e.g., a new method of support was introduced), J resisted. In the second part of the study (with nondisabled individuals), the activities were novel to most participants and took time to learn and master fluently. I find it particularly interesting that Kezuka attributed the “success” of FC to the facilitator’s motor control over letter selection and minimized the role of emotional or simple physical support as contributors to the “success” of FC. (p. 592, emphasis mine)

Some proponents want skeptics and critics to take on faith that the messages obtained using FC are miraculously, divinely, or telepathically produced. But Kezuka’s study provides a simpler, more down-to-earth and plausible explanation:

“In principle, one small point of physical contact is sufficient for the transfer of force from the facilitator. Even brief contact, such as a loose ribbon momentarily pulled taut, is sufficient. For an experienced subject and facilitator, it is sufficient for the facilitator to control the subject’s responses merely by sitting next to him or her. Even a single pencil pressed against the back makes this possible. Furthermore, it is entirely possible for facilitators to control their partners’ responses without direct physical contact using subtle visual or auditory signals.” (p. 592)

Reference and Recommended Reading

Burgess, C.A., Kirsch, I., Shane, H., Niederauer, K.L., Graham, S.M., Bacon, A. (January 1998). Facilitated Communication as an Ideomotor Response. Psychological Science, 9(1), 71-74. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40063250

Crossley, Rosemary. (1994). Facilitated Communication Training. Teacher’s College Press.

Hyman, Ray. (2003, August 26). How people are fooled by ideomotor action. Quackwatch.

Kezuka, E. (1997). The role of touch in facilitated communication. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 27, 571-593. DOI: 10.1023/A:1025882127478

Spitz, H. (1997). Nonconscious Movements: From Mystical Messages to Facilitated Communication. Routledge. ISBN 978-0805825633

Wegner, D.M., Fuller, V.A., and Sparrow, B. (2003, July). Clever hands: uncontrolled intelligence in facilitated communication, Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 85 (1), 5-19. DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.85.1.5