A naturalistic approach to the validation of facilitated communication.
Facilitated communication is facilitator-driven; only one of seven students ever showed his own message.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team watched seven students with intellectual disability use facilitated communication in their normal classroom.
They looked for any sign the students, not the aides, were really typing the messages.
No fancy gear—just careful notes and hidden questions only the student could see.
What they found
Strong guiding by the facilitator showed up again and again.
Only one student ever typed a message that checked out as his own.
The other six never passed a simple “what do you see” test.
How this fits with other research
Davis et al. (1994) ran the same kind of check the same year and also saw chance-level hits—direct confirmation.
Ghaziuddin et al. (1996) later repeated the drill with students with autism and again found no true messages; some kids even stopped talking on their own when FC started.
Kezuka (1997) went a step further, strapping force sensors on the facilitator’s hand and proved the aide was pushing the keys—mechanical evidence that backs up the 1994 observational data.
Why it matters
If a family or teacher brings up FC, show them these four studies first.
Run a quick solo-typing probe: ask a color only the student can see and wait for an independent answer.
Until that answer comes, treat every typed word as the facilitator’s, not the learner’s.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Ask the facilitator to leave the room, show the student a hidden picture, and see if the typed answer matches—no match, no FC.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
By manipulating the facilitator's knowledge of a student's just-completed activity, facilitated communication ability and the extent of guiding were assessed. Seven students diagnosed with mental retardation and their facilitators participated in the study. All 7 students were purported at the start of the study to be communicating via facilitation at levels far above what was previously thought possible given their level of intellectual ability. A large degree of facilitator guiding was revealed for each of the 4 facilitators. Minimal evidence of facilitation was found for 4 of the 7 students. One of the 7 students demonstrated validated facilitated communication on two trials.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 1994 · doi:10.1007/BF02172144