Why apraxia can’t explain away the need for physical touch, held-up letterboards, or hovering prompters

(Cross-posted at FacilitatedCommunication.org).

The most helpful comments we receive on this blog are ones that point us to specific articles that we haven’t yet reviewed here and may not be aware of—and that may be of possible relevance to FC.

Last week a reader, commenting on this post, suggested that we “familiarize [ourselves] with some of the most recent research regarding developmental dyspraxia (what some folks refer to as apraxia) in autism to understand the unique motor challenges in autism.” This commenter, who characterized herself as “a PT who has a PhD with the focus on differentially [sic] brain connectivity in autism,” referred us to three articles: Dziuk et al. (2007); Mostofky et al. (2011); and Torres et al. (2013). These articles are not currently included on our website, and so I went and read them a few days ago. In this post, I’ll discuss each one in terms of its connections to claims made in support of FC.

Malapropism watch, continued

(A follow-up to my earlier post.)

“transcend” for “extend beyond”

“account for” for “take into account”

“fringe on” for “hinge on”

“affiliated with” for “associated with”

“suspect of” for “suspicious of”

“on par with” for “in line with”

(Mostly heard on National Public Radio).

Falling for Happiness Falls: Is it too much to ask we overcome our skepticism and just believe?

(Cross-posted at FacilitatedCommunication.org).

In Happiness Falls, a new book by Angie Kim, a 20-year-old college student, home for the COVID lockdown, recounts the mystery surrounding the disappearance of her father. The last family member to see him is Eugene, one of the narrator’s brothers, a 14-year-old with a diagnosis of autism and Angelman syndrome. Eugene, consistent with his dual diagnosis, is nonspeaking and, according to standard assessments, significantly cognitively impaired. (Indeed, Angelman syndrome, even as a single diagnosis, entails significant cognitive impairment).

Angelman’s syndrome is real, but Happiness Falls is a work of fiction. Why review it here? This is, after all, a website about what science tells us about the pseudoscience of facilitated communication (FC, RPM, S2C, et al.). Fiction, of course, is neither science nor pseudoscience.

So let’s start by skipping over the 372 pages of fiction to the author’s note at the back.  Here are some excerpts:

Spellers but not Readers–update re peripheral vision

(A follow-up to an earlier post).

I’ve just encountered another claim about how facilitated individuals read–this one in reference to a person with FOXG1 Syndrome, a rare neurological condition that can cause significant intellectual impairment and autistic-like symptoms.

This individual, currently a student at Columbia University, is facilitated not via a held-up letterboard or by a facilitator’s hand on some part of his body, but by the facilitator holding his torso and directing it towards one of six large, color-coded buttons that, pushed in combinations of two, select specific letters on a computer.

You can see it here, starting at around the 54-minute mark.

The claim is that this person, while refusing to wear his prescribed glasses, can read through peripheral vision. From the above-linked video we hear the Dad say:

He can read, like, a book. It’s really hard for him. You have to mask all the other lines so he reads one line at a time. It’s really difficult with his movements to look at something consistently. He does I think they call it “keyholing” where he looks out the side of his peripheral vision. He’s better than I am for sure but with his peripheral vision he sees everything.

As Janyce Boynton has discussed, it is highly unlikely that anyone can read via peripheral vision.