Abstract
Twenty-one subjects participated in a study of Biklen's and Crossley's hypothesis that persons with autism show unexpected literacy and improved communication ability through the process of facilitated communication (FC). Repeated measures of literacy were conducted at (a) a baseline test of communicative ability before FC; (b) a pretest with facilitation; and (c) a posttest with facilitation after 20 hours of training. At both the pretest and posttest, the facilitators were screened from hearing or seeing the questions or pictorial stimuli. Although some facilitators reported newfound communicative abilities during training sessions, no client showed unexpected literacy or communicative abilities when tested via the facilitator screening procedure, even after 20 hours of training. Separate analyses indicated that some facilitators influenced the communicative output of their clients.
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We are grateful for the support and assistance of Martin Hamburg, John Werner, Mike DeFalco, our facilitators, the students who participated in this project, and John Amato. Special thanks to John Pomeroy, consulting psychiatrist, who provided the independent diagnoses on our subjects for the assessment of diagnostic reliability, and to Sarah Robinson for helpful comments in editing an earlier draft. We are also indebted to Canon, USA, for donating three Canon Communicators.
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Eberlin, M., McConnachie, G., Ibel, S. et al. Facilitated communication: A failure to replicate the phenomenon. J Autism Dev Disord 23, 507–530 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01046053
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01046053