Evaluating facilitated communications of people with developmental disabilities

A quasi-experimental message-passing procedure was used to assess the validity of the facilitated communication (FC) by people with autism and mental retardation or with mental retardation. The 23 participants were classified as having intellectual skills within the range of severe to profound mental retardation. Message-passing consisted of showing and verbally labeling a picture of a familiar object with the facilitator absent, and subsequent facilitation to generate a label or description of the object. Three-trial blocks were conducted with each participant on two different days. Blocks were conducted in the participants' normal FC setting, with their facilitators of choice, and no special apparatus was used. No participant was able to accurately label or describe the object shown to them with facilitation. Possible reasons for findings set forth by proponents of FC and findings from the emerging quantitative literature on FC are considered.