FACILITATED COMMUNICATION AND BLACK BOX PSYCHOLOGY
by Wade Hitzing
Imagine, if you can, the following situation. You and I are arguing about whether people with autism can fly. I say that they can, at least some of them... you argue strongly that they can't. Suddenly, in the middle of our debate a person with autism flies through the open window. The argument, as currently constructed, is over. Now, you could quite reasonably change the terms of the argument. You could, for example, argue that the person who just flew in the window is the only person in the world with autism who can fly. We could also argue about what it takes to teach a person with autism to fly, etc. But, unless you want to want to postulate that the person who flew through the window was misdiagnosed, or that the appearance of flying was the result of some sort of special effect, some slick illusion, you have to stop denying the validity of the "autistic" flying phenomenon.
The American Psychological Association (APA), or at least the band of psychologists that speak for the APA about facilitated communication, doesn't seem to understand that, negative studies not withstanding, people labeled by members of their own organization as having autism and other related severe disabilities are, in fact, using FC to communicate. Some of these folks are "flying!" It is indisputable that some studies have validated the communication abilities of people who are being physically assisted to communicate, while other people have progressed from physical dependence to independent communication.
I believe that there's more to the APA's denunciation of FC than simply their concern that there are not enough validation studies. Where were the calls for caution when the developers of the SIBIS device (note 1) were holding press conferences announcing that thousands of people with self-injurious behavior were in need of its electronic capabilities? Why doesn't the APA call for studies to question the validity of intelligence testing, the results of which, in the real world, are almost universally disregarded for any other purpose than to segregate and separate persons with intellectual handicaps?
While I understand that the APA has the right to issue resolutions, even misguided ones, like the one on FC, I do have suspicions about the motivations of at least some of the proponents of the FC condemnation. I believe that some of my behavior analysis colleagues, whose careers were in part established through their work with people with autism, are piqued that people outside the operant camp looked inside the "black box" (note 2) and found something important that we had missed for lo these many years. I think that many of them find it hard to accept that they have worked with these folks for 25 to 30 years and weren't able to accomplish, in fact didn't even try to accomplish, what a bunch of special educators have achieved. It must be very disconcerting to face the prospect that at least some of the people with autism that we subjected to our simplistic "ignore and redirect programs" were smarter than many of us. At least some of them were behaving according to complicated, idiosyncratic rules they had invented rather than merely engaging in simple "escape" or "attention seeking" behavior.
It has always been hard for those of us raised on books such as Behavior of Organisms and Schedules of Reinforcement to acknowledge that phenomena as complicated as FC even exist, and that it might be necessary to take into account the specific characteristics of the organism, and possibly even have to talk to it, to really understand its behavior. Many of us were taught that the way to measure behavior was to convert a key peck or bar press into a 40ms electrical pulse which was then used to move an ink pen on a cumulative recorder. It's obviously difficult to apply this type of analysis to FC. It's too bad they don't make really big Skinner Boxes. I just know if I could picture the person with the disability and the facilitator sitting in this large box with lights blinking on and off and reinforcers rolling down a chute, as the person communicates ... it would all make more sense. I just know it would.
Notes
1. A device that automatically delivers a painful electric shock as punishment of behavior that is self-injurious, without the need for human intervention.
2. Most of the "homemade" Skinner boxes we used to study the behavior of pigeons and rats were made of plywood and were painted black.
Reprinted with permission from the Facilitated Communication
Digest.
The purpose of Facilitated Communication In Maine is to promote the appropriate use of facilitated communication through education, technical assistance, and support to people with disabilities, parents, educators, speech and language pathologists support providers, and other interested individuals. The project provides up-to-date information on current best practices, introductory and advanced workshops on the technique, resources regarding theoretical and practical components of facilitated communication and ongoing support to a network of resource persons who provide local education and support to other facilitators.
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