Facilitated communication

"Anne McDonald could communicate. She proved this beyond dispute in the Supreme Court of Victoria by passing a message that I hadn’t seen in front of the Court’s Senior Master."

"These early studies suggested that FC was susceptible to a somewhat unusual kind of abuse: Allowing others to impose their own wishes, fears, hopes, and agendas on nonspeaking individuals."

"FC is not a valid form of communication. It gives only the illusion of communication and denies people with disabilities access to their human rights of autonomy, self-determination, and freedom of expression."

"You cant be a one-finger typist and not look at the keyboard. You just cant get oriented. You dont have a home position. And when you watch children who are F/C – facilitated communication – users, they may not be looking at the language board, but the facilitators are not taking their eyes off it. Theyre fixed on it."

"The obligation of an investigator into a new technique is to show how it works. With FC, theres this basic assumption of "What can it hurt?" The Storch trial is living proof of how dangerous it is to embrace new science before it has been tested."