The PBS program Frontline: Prisoners of Silence did a hatchet job on facilitated communication training (FCT) in 1993 (the program was also repeated in 1994 and 1996). The program has unquestionably done immense damage to FCT's acceptance as a legitimate technique for assisting people with severe communication impairment (SCI), and has thus caused great harm to many people with SCI.
Very probably, you think that's absolutely right and proper. If you've seen the program, you'll be coming to this page with a strong predisposition in its favour, and a general belief that anyone trying to defend such obviously unscientific nonsense as FCT is inherently unreliable. OK, that's fine. I accept that I have to prove anything 110% even to introduce a moments's doubt into your mind. I think I can do that. You're not going to take my word for anything you can't check yourself. I have no problem with that. You think that I'm biased (yes, I am) and that Jon Palfreman, the director, and the Frontline team are unbiased (and there we may have a problem).
Two people with professional qualifications spoke on that program. One, Howard Shane, had (perfectly good) qualifications in speech pathology, and these were listed on-screen. One, Arthur Schawlow, had a Nobel Prize for Physics, seven honorary doctorates, and a Presidential Medal for Science, and that wasn't mentioned at all.
Why?
You might, as a class exercise, try to come up with any reason other than that Shane attacked FCT and Schawlow supported it. What other reason could there be? Because the Nobel Prize wasn't relevant? Well, if a program uses the word 'unscientific' about a technique it might be thought relevant - even interesting - to find out what scientists, and particularly great scientists, think of that. Actually, Schawlow thinks that Palfreman and Shane have an excessively simple-minded view of science; he says, among other things, that
Any physicist knows that you must be careful to disturb the thing being measured as little as possible. To disturb the communication being tested is like looking for a ping pong ball on the floor of a dark room by shuffling your feet around. If you kick it even slightly, it's not there anymore and you can deny its existence.
You doubtless want to check whether I've quoted Professor Schawlow correctly, so his comments on the program are available on-line.
Ah, but you can't argue with science, can you? They did the experiments, and the experiments showed that FCT didn't work, that it was all an illusion. They even showed it on-screen! Rosemary Crossley seemed to be helping a person with disability point to letters on a board, but the Frontline people drew a line across the top of the board and showed that the board moved away from the line - that the disabled person wasn't moving the pointer to the letters, the facilitator was moving the letters to the pointer. Irrefutable proof! On-screen!
It's rare that you can actually show on-screen that someone's a liar and a cheat. Normally there's a lot of to-ing and fro-ing involved, and all sorts of questions as to who you believe. Palfreman is a liar and a cheat, and if you have a video of the program you, too, can prove it. On-screen. In class.
Frontline drew a line across the top of the communication board. Get a felt-tip and draw a line around the thumb that's holding the board. Play the tape. The thumb doesn't move. The bottom of the board doesn't move. The top of the board apparently does. What's happening? Has the board moved? Is the board shrinking?
What's happening is that you've forgotten that the TV screen is two-dimensional. If a board is held vertically in front of a camera, it shows as a square. If you tilt the top away from the camera but hold the bottom still, the top of the board will seem to drop. It's complicated to describe, and it's bloody difficult to draw clearly in two dimensions, but it's easy enough to demonstrate; pick a piece of paper off your desk, hold it up till the top's just level with the windowframe, and tilt it back. Hey presto. It's called perspective, and we've known about it since the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century. Palfreman knows about it. It didn't suit him to tell you. Crossley wasn't moving the board down, the man's pointer was pushing the board back.
I've just covered two points where Frontline's bias and distortion can be absolutely demonstrated without argument, just to get you to the point where you might believe that there's a genuine issue here rather than a simple con trick. There is, of course, a lot more. Most importantly, there's now a lot more research into FCT, rigorous, 'scientific', published in refereed journals, that has found valid communication where a lot of previous studies didn't. My interpretation is that the previous studies weren't doing it right, but that doesn't have to be your reaction. You can read the articles and work it out for yourself. It just can't be said, though, (well, it can be said - Frontline said it; it just can't honestly be said) that there isn't any scientific evidence supporting FCT: there is. The debate is back where a scientific/clinical argument ought to be, evidence and interpretation versus evidence and interpretation, rather than just being an attempt to king-hit one side out of the argument before it starts.
I've included a few pieces on the program by other commentators. If you want more information, there's a full FCT bibliography on-line, more material on FCT, and other FCT sites. Happy hunting.
All comments welcome - e-mail me at Chris Borthwick