Rom Houben’s story is sensational but, perhaps, not as much as you might think.
Doctors believed the Belgian man was in a coma for 23 years but, though paralyzed, he was fully conscious.
Four days ago, the world saw images of him typing out answers to reporters’ questions on a special keyboard with the help of a caregiver.
Now skeptics are balking at his supposed eloquence, dismissing it as an example of a technique called “facilitated communication.”
One outspoken skeptic, James Randi, says he “cannot understand how anyone, professional medical person or layman, can continue to believe that the farce known as “˜facilitated communication’ represents anything other than a fantasy…”
Randi is the latest in a long line of people who have criticized the technique.
Facilitated communication (FC) is a process in which a facilitator helps a severely disabled person communicate by supporting that person’s hand while he or she uses a keyboard to spell out words, phrases or sentences.
The underlying belief is that the language skills (as opposed to speech skills) of people with autism and other communication disorders are less impaired than commonly believed.
FC traces its roots back to the late 1970s when Rosemary Crossley, an aide at an Australian institution for the severely disabled, reported using the method to communicate with a dozen children suffering from cerebral palsy and other handicaps.
In 1986, Crossley established a centre to help people “with no speech or with dysfunctional speech find alternative means of communication.”
Three years later, Douglas Bilken established the Facilitated Communication Institute at Syracuse University in New York. He reported that the technique enabled severely autistic students there to compose entire paragraphs.
The technique exploded in popularity in subsequent years, but soon had as many detractors as advocates.
A growing number of studies discredited the technique.
One review of 45 controlled trials involving more than 350 subjects found confirmation of independent communication by just six per cent of the subjects.
The review also found that, in more than 90 per cent of the cases, responses were influenced by the facilitators rather than originated by clients.
Other reviews also found that well-intended facilitators unwittingly answered questions themselves, unintentionally cueing the subjects as to which letter to hit on the keyboard.
Daniel Wegner, a Harvard University psychologist, claimed that facilitated communication exemplifies the “ideomotor effect,” a well-known phenomenon in which individuals’ expectations exert unconscious influence over their motor actions.
These results led the American Medical Association and the American Psychological Association to issue statements that opposing the use and validity of FC.
A research review commissioned by the U.S. government in 1998 concluded that it would be hard to justify further research on facilitated communication.
The scientific community remains divided on the issue, with the majority being skeptical.
The technique has fallen out of favour in most educational and treatment centres in North America. But in parts of Europe, where Houben lives, it has retained greater acceptance.
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