To 'Low-functioning' Autistics:

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Thank you for sharing about your kids WelcometoHolland. It is very interesting to see how Autism runs in families.

I can be. It's complicated.

Okay, here's the deal with FC: A person with a movement problem, who can't talk, wants to use a communication device. They are literate or they can use pictographs, but they can't control their movements well enough, or they have mental fatigue that makes it hard, or they tend to perseverate and get stuck. So somebody else can hold their hand and do most of the work of moving it toward the pictures or letters.

The trouble with FC is that it is sometimes used by people who want non-verbal kids to communicate and, rather than the actual child communicating, it's the facilitator either deliberately producing movement, or more often, using the person's hand like a ouija board pointer (cf. the ideomotor effect). That is a problem because not only does it shut off whatever communication the person was capable of, because the text communication is seen to supersede it, but it puts words in their mouth that they never meant to say. Instead of facilitating communication, it silences them.

FC should always be carefully checked to make absolutely sure the message is coming from the client. When someone is holding a client's hand to help them use a communication device. there is always the chance of contaminating the message or fabricating it entirely. So it is best for the facilitator to be completely unaware of the conversation, perhaps by wearing noise-canceling earphones so they do not know what is being said and cannot unconsciously manipulate the reply. Some of the FC scandals have been uncovered as quackery by the simple method of asking two different questions, one to the facilitator and one to the client, and seeing which one was answered. The facilitators were often completely innocent, as deceived as anyone else, because to them it really felt like the client was the one doing the pointing.

Many people who initially needed help to use a communication device move on to typing independently. Assistance of this sort should not be ignored as a possibility, but everyone involved needs to be educated about the problem of fabricated messages or contaminated messages and every step needs to be taken to move the client on to either independent typing or using an assistance animal for any direct contact that needs to be made.

Facilitated communication does work for some people.

Although facilitator influence can occur, it can also help people who need help with potentially purposeful movement.
Some FC users have gone on to type independently.

Thank you for explaining KOR. What you said about how you feel like an electric shock is in your head with mental pain, I think I can kind of understand how that might feel. When I am feeling backed into a corner or verbally attacked, I get a type of pressure buildup feeling in my head. It can feel sharp sometimes and the only way to make it feel better is to bang my head. I usually use the palms of my hands. This way it is more effective and can be less prone to injury. I do feel the physical pain from hitting my head though and I will have a headache afterwards but the physical pain is better to feel than the mental pain.

Tito is a beautiful chicken. It made me really upset when I read that someone had taken him from you.

I feel very close to the animals in my life as well. I feel like they are friends and family and I bond very very deeply with them. Even my cats who passed away years and some even decades ago, I still feel very close to.

I really think that even though we are on opposite ends of the Spectrum there are things that we experience in a similar fashion. I really like that. I think it's really cool. And as I learn more, when I meet and see people who are more severely affected than I am, I can relate to them better and treat them with even greater understanding, sensitivity, dignity, and respect.

I think that FC is a scam, and there are ways to learn to language for communication other than FC.
Before I learned that FC is a scam, I wondered why the written thoughts of severely autistic people were so neurotypical.