EBP Speakers Corner: A revised imperative for curbing the lie of facilitated communication

Abstract

Lilienfield, Marshall, Todd, and Shane present a useful portrait of the continued promulgation of facilitated communication (FC) as an effective intervention for persons with severe autism and other communication disorders and provide some explanations as to why this is the case. In this response I suggest that to effectively counter the lie of FC in the twenty-first century, it is necessary to rethink how we might proceed with not only a renewed empirical push-back against FC, but, perhaps more importantly, to expand our opposition by attending to other less familiar strategies that hold potential for more effectively countering FC: (a) organizing opposition, (b) academic recommitment to opposing FC, (c) the use of prominent spokespeople against FC, (d) a renewed willingness to engage FC proponents publically, (e) a renewed commitment to empirically debunking FC, (f) professional and lay training debunking FC, (g) lobbying states’ departments of education and related professional organizations to oppose FC, and (h) attention to the ethical aspects of FC.

Keywords:

• Facilitated communication
• Autism
• Opposition strategies
• Ethics

Declaration of interest

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.