In the majority of controlled studies, practitioners were unintentionally cueing the facilitated person as to which letter to hit, so the resulting letter strings did not represent the thoughts of the students but the expectations of the facilitators. Similar responses to possibly unconscious cues were seen in the "Clever Hans" case, where a horse gave correct answers to math problems by watching the reactions of its owner. However, some studies did report positive or mixed results, i.e., valid authorship by FC users,and much debate ensued among scholars and clinicians In the opinions of proponents of the method,positive results were generally seen in more naturalistic settings, and negative results in more controlled settings.
FC proponents argue that in most of the negative studies, the laboratory setting was itself the confounding variable: i.e., communication is inherently very difficult for autistic people, so they can't necessarily be expected to replicate their successes under unfamiliar or even hostile conditions (e.g., those in which continuance of access to FC was contingent upon passing or failing the test). However, not all negative findings were obtained in clinical settings only; some tests were smoothly embedded in familiar surroundings and daily activities in which participants sometimes did not even know they were tested. In their 1997 book, Contested Words Contested Science, Biklen and Cardinal (and others) attempt to shed light on why some controlled studies support FC while others do not.
Critics of FC question why people who can give speeches in public and go to college cannot answer a series of simple questions under controlled conditions.[citation needed] Critics also argue that positive results are typically obtained using "qualitative research methods" in which standard experimental controls for bias and subjectivity are weak or non-existent.[citation needed] Proponents argue that FC users have indeed passed controlled tests, often under duress, and as a condition for having access to basic human rights such as educational services and even freedom from institutionalization (e.g., McDonald, 1993;Crossley and McDonald, 1984 and Dwyer, 1996
Harvard University psychologist Daniel Wegner has argued that facilitated communication is a striking example of the ideomotor effect, the well-known phenomenon whereby individuals' expectations exert unconscious influence over their motor actions.Even FC users and proponents do acknowledge the possibility of facilitators at times "guiding" users, consciously or unconsciously.Other theorists (Donnellan and Leary, 1995) argue that autism is in significant part characterized by dyspraxia (a movement disorder), and that there exists a synchronistic "dance" to communication in all mammalian social interaction which accounts for the mixed results in validation studies.
Still, the most significant concern with FC was, and remains, that of authorship: the question of who is really doing the typing. Numerous controlled studies have unambiguously established that facilitator influence does occur. FC users and proponents acknowledge this phenomenon; Sue Rubin, an FC user initially diagnosed as mentally retarded but who now attends college and types without physical support (see below), has described her own experience with facilitator influence.proponents point out that the fact that cueing occurs under certain conditions with certain FC users does not necessarily mean that it always occurs with all FC users. A few controlled studies since 1995 reported instances of genuine authorship by FC users. These studies, and the emergence of independent typing in some FC users, demonstrates in the opinion of proponents that at least in some cases FC is valid but that given the experimental evidence, it is impossible to say just how rare or how common such cases are.
FC proponents argue that in most of the negative studies, the laboratory setting was itself the confounding variable: i.e., communication is inherently very difficult for autistic people, so they can't necessarily be expected to replicate their successes under unfamiliar or even hostile conditions (e.g., those in which continuance of access to FC was contingent upon passing or failing the test). However, not all negative findings were obtained in clinical settings only; some tests were smoothly embedded in familiar surroundings and daily activities in which participants sometimes did not even know they were tested. In their 1997 book, Contested Words Contested Science, Biklen and Cardinal (and others) attempt to shed light on why some controlled studies support FC while others do not.
Critics of FC question why people who can give speeches in public and go to college cannot answer a series of simple questions under controlled conditions.[citation needed] Critics also argue that positive results are typically obtained using "qualitative research methods" in which standard experimental controls for bias and subjectivity are weak or non-existent.[citation needed] Proponents argue that FC users have indeed passed controlled tests, often under duress, and as a condition for having access to basic human rights such as educational services and even freedom from institutionalization (e.g., McDonald, 1993;Crossley and McDonald, 1984 and Dwyer, 1996
Harvard University psychologist Daniel Wegner has argued that facilitated communication is a striking example of the ideomotor effect, the well-known phenomenon whereby individuals' expectations exert unconscious influence over their motor actions.Even FC users and proponents do acknowledge the possibility of facilitators at times "guiding" users, consciously or unconsciously.Other theorists (Donnellan and Leary, 1995) argue that autism is in significant part characterized by dyspraxia (a movement disorder), and that there exists a synchronistic "dance" to communication in all mammalian social interaction which accounts for the mixed results in validation studies.
Still, the most significant concern with FC was, and remains, that of authorship: the question of who is really doing the typing. Numerous controlled studies have unambiguously established that facilitator influence does occur. FC users and proponents acknowledge this phenomenon; Sue Rubin, an FC user initially diagnosed as mentally retarded but who now attends college and types without physical support (see below), has described her own experience with facilitator influence.proponents point out that the fact that cueing occurs under certain conditions with certain FC users does not necessarily mean that it always occurs with all FC users. A few controlled studies since 1995 reported instances of genuine authorship by FC users. These studies, and the emergence of independent typing in some FC users, demonstrates in the opinion of proponents that at least in some cases FC is valid but that given the experimental evidence, it is impossible to say just how rare or how common such cases are.
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