Rom Houben, the unfortunate fellow with severe brain damage who doctors claimed to be conscious via facilitated communication, is silent again. Investigators did the trivial experiment of sending his facilitating communicator outside the room while they showed Houben a series of simple objects, then brought her back in, and asked him to name them. Suddenly, facilitated communication failed…to nobody’s surprise, except perhaps to the gullible medical staff.
I’m amazed it took them so long to do something so trivial and so conclusive.
Poopyhead, the link’s b0rked.
I think you meant http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/11/really_this_guy_is_conscious.php
Hard to believe people are still falling for this.
I seem to remember an episode of LA Law from, well, a LONG time ago, where they dealt with a similar situation with a similar test.
While I don’t take LA Law as my source for medical information, it shows that this kind of test is an obvious thing to do, and that people realized that a long time ago. I’m sorry for the family; it is easy to let hopes and wishes blind you to cold, hard reality, but the incompetence or outright deception of some of the medical professionals seems pretty inexcusable, if the articles I read are accurate.
It’s always surprising how a simple, obvious test trips up the woosters.
blf – your link goes to the original story; one of the updates can be found here
Wait, better source at NPR
The gullible medical staff did learn, though. I give them credit for correcting their mistake.
You are? I’m not; we’ve still got people who believe their religious leaders, after all.
Another link to the story, for anyone interested:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/journalists/rebecca-smith/7274179/Coma-victim-was-not-really-communicating-say-doctors.html
And the poor guy was being exploited all along. Sad.
Actually, it goes to Pee Zed’s original post (which in turn links to an original story). It’s what it seems the poopyhead is linking to (albeit I didn’t inspect the fecked up HTML too closely). I agree that’s an odd link, but there are comments at the end (from you, I think?) pointing to some updates.
In any case, thanks for the additional updates.
@ blf
LMFAO. “Borked” is an understatement. It looks like this:
http: //scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/11/really_this_guy_is_conscious.php%3Eunfortunate%20fellow%20with%20severe%20brain%20damage%3C/a%3E%20who%20doctors%20claimed%20to%20be%20conscious%20via%20facilitated%20communication,%20is%20silent%20again.%20Investigators%20did%20the%20trivial%20experiment%20of%20sending%20his%20facilitating%20communicator%20outside%20the%20room%20while%20they%20showed%20Houben%20a%20series%20of%20simple%20objects,%20then%20brought%20her%20back%20in,%20and%20asked%20him%20to%20name%20them.%20Suddenly,%20%3Ca%20href=
I broke it a little more so it isn’t all hyperlinky.
@ Carlie
That’s where PZ’s link was pointing, sort of. (The one that blf posted.)
Thanks for a new story link.
Nice. The bad link wanders right off the page 3 km before wrapping back.
So many links now. Let’s hope the Telegraph and the Guardian don’t run into each other here…
More to the topic: Dumbasses.
blf – sorry about that, the first time I read the story I didn’t see the second link (none of that sentence looked blue, but I’m sitting in front of a window with some glare), and I thought the first link was supposed to be the update instead of the background.
Oh, it must be understatement day, or I’m just in silly land (both?).
NPR:
May have skewed!
I’m still waiting to hear from this “facilitator”.
Carlie, no problem! As F explained, there was (I note it’s fixed now—thanks!) apparently a double-bork, which also explains the seeming oddity of the unborken link I suggested: That was just one of two, the second being an update.
Don’t ouija boards use facilitated communication?
Zis iz what we find.
I’m not. It seems that most people view the world through what makes them feel good, not through evidence. I don’t think the family would want to risk this “miracle” being wrong.
Am I the only one who thinks that caretaker should lose her license? (If she has one, of course.) What she did seems so despicable that it borders on criminal. I’m assuming they paid her for a service it’s quite clear now she didn’t provide. I wonder if the family could sue her for her wages and punitively for emotional distress?
It is curious that it took them 3 months to carry out a test that only takes about 10 minutes to perform.
Didn’t it occur to them that if this was true it would be a major discovery?
I think that it could be viewed as criminal: the communicator used his body without his consent and to his/her own ends, which I’m pretty sure is concordant with the definition of slavery. There are some major bodily autonomy boundaries that were crossed, and the poor man was treated basically as a puppet. However, it would be complicated by the fact that the communicator probably didn’t do it entirely consciously (much like the Ouija board example); they wanted the guy to communicate with them, so every minor tick and muscle spasm was “interpreted” to tell the story that was emerging from the communicator’s imagination. But then again the Baptists in Haiti prove that screwing with other people isn’t excused just if you have good intentions, so maybe if a prosecutor really wants to shut down this whole “facilitated communication” field they could prosecute hard and use it as a scare case.
Perhaps worst of all is that the meme has escaped into the wild. Lots of people are going to remember what they heard first — that (some)(all) people in (coma)(persistent vegetative states) (are)(may be) (somewhat)(fully) conscious.
The correction and caveats will most likely be missed, ignored, or forgotten by many people.
The result could be even greater reluctance by loved ones to allow discontinuation of care from patients who have no chance of recovery, increasing their emotional and financial burdens.
I wonder in such instances how surprised the “facilitator” was. I suspect that most of them are self-deluded and really thought that they were in communication. The next thing I wonder is whether the discredited facilitator came to her senses or if instead she’s spinning like a top, coming up with all kinds of lame excuses.
I suspect the excuses will flow.
What about this article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/03/AR2010020302887.html?hpid=topnews
It is interesting research in its early days.
It has no bearing on facilitated communication.
MS @2
“I seem to remember an episode of LA Law from, well, a LONG time ago, where they dealt with a similar situation with a similar test.”
I believe it was from an episode of Law & Order.
ADA Jack made the lady communicator turn her head when he showed the patient a picture of something I can’t recall.
When I saw this a few months ago on video I remembered the L&O episode and I was yelling at the screen “make her leave the room”!
At that time I thought this was complete BS. But the article seems to indicate that this works sometimes? Is that true?
They may have attempted more robust tests earlier, but ran into a problem: An un-cooperative
facilitatorscammer. According to Carlie’s link@5, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123813455Based on that, kudos to the second facilitator, whilst the first one seems to be a good target for flung poo.
It strikes me that one of the key things here is wishful thinking, and this is something that all us new, radical, hardcore, strident, commi-nazi atheists should be scrutinizing more carefully.
Wouldn’t it be great if this guy communicated after all those years? Wouldn’t it be great if something recognizably us survived in a more perfect form after death? Wouldn’t it be great if the universe had a truly noble purpose that we could sign up to? Wouldn’t it be great if you could cure cancer by drinking a couple of drops of water? Wouldn’t it be great if angels loved us?
Scientists want to explain the world as it is, theists want to explain the world as (they think) it ought to be.
Personally, I’d take a real cold, impersonal universe over a fake Eden any day of the week. But I suspect I’m in a vanishingly small minority.
People very close to me work with disabled people and people with communication problems. What that “facilitator” does is cruel and disgusting. Exploiting injured people and their families for fame and money is low.
I’m glad that in the end it was exposed. Yes, maybe it tugs at the hearstrings a bit but then it is a lazy and cheap shot too. Because there are lots of people with a host of problems that leave them with very limited options for communicating with other people. Stuff like this undermines the work done there because the results are not so stunning. Tremendous amount of work some times goes into just getting a simple yes and no, and this is from people who are very far from vegetative.
It’s not just wishful thinking that powers this kind of fraud, it’s people’s general laziness too. Just sit back and wait for miracles to happen, no need to do anything with less than stunning results.
#19:
Well… maybe. But don’t forget that the patient was “writing a book”. How much money and fame did the facilitator expect to make from this?
Where’s is the Media? Three months ago, the “Miracle” was all over the news. Today, for the most part, all the news organization have been very quiet.
I think the comparison with a ouiji board is apt. I remember playing with ouiji boards as a kid and the only time you ever got anything legible was when somebody decided to play silly-bugger and purposely spell out so-and-so is a poo-face or something like that. In other words I don’t buy the idea that the facillitator was simply driven by the ideomotor effect. The ideas, phrasing and vocabulary are all far too elaborate. Throw in the evasive maneuvers during attempted tests and it appears this person knew exactly what they were doing.
I also have suspicions about this case of an apparently autistic boy who some hail as a miraculous, messianic poet. In this case I think his mother is the facillitator.
Steve, to put it in Matrix terms: do you prefer a blue or a red pill?
Anyhow, this article (in Dutch) says the Belgian skeptics organisation SKEPP was involved in the experiment. The original facilitator declined to participate in it and was replaced by her FC-teacher, who was duly surprised when it didn’t work. Here’s an article in English on the SKEPP site.
His doctor, dr Laureys, has already admitted that there’s no actual communication. He maintains, however, that he has detected some activity in Houben’s brain.
Like any good scam, the dupes scam themselves. How sad for that whole family.
Sigh, here we go again. The reason they didn’t do this experiment before is the scientists involved weren’t interested. They were doing an fMRI study, and the facilitated communication guff became attached to the study by media laziness. They did it now to dissociate themselves from the facilitated communication guff.
This is just damned ridiculous! I thought it was a joke when I first saw it a few months ago. But as I kept watching the video about it, I realized that they WEREN’T kidding. It makes me nauseous that medical doctors could have been THIS gullible. I swear this borders on insanity.
Seriously PZ, how can people be this stupid?
I’m shocked! Shocked, I tell you!
So how do they determine that he’s uncommunicative but conscious? Self-delusion?
Facilitator looks like a new career possibility for John Edward.(The douche bag phony psychic not the douche bag phony politician.)
He wouldn’t even have to pump the room by making inane suggestions like “Did your relative like dogs?”
He could just type it out “I like dogs.” And when the desperate family saw it they could shout “Yes! Bob likes dogs!”
If Bob hated dogs previously Edward could just have “Bob” type out all the reasons he loves them now.
Maybe Edward could even work the shtick into a TV program. I’m sure he would have no problem dragging some poor zombie out on stage in front of a live audience and TV cameras.
After all it would “help” so many people have “hope” and he’s all about helping people.
Does this mean no more using brain injured patients as Ouija boards?
Or will it still have partisans in the medical profession?
Donnie B. #20
This was the thing about Terry Schiavo. Her parents and various other people wanted her to be conscious so they decided she was conscious. Houben’s case is similar. People, including the first facilitator, really wanted Houben to be conscious so they acted as if he were conscious.
From the article:
His family and caregivers acted out of desperation. If it’s true that she refused to leave the room to test the patient’s ability to communicate, the original FC acted out of greed.
Preying on the hopes of desperate family members is despicable.
Pygmy Loris,
You just don’t understand. Like John Edward, the facilitators are all about giving people “hope”.
Who are you to dash those hopes?
Of course false hope is a cruel gift but some people will cling to it in the face of all evidence to the contrary.
Good thing the Facilitated Communicator wasn’t a fundie xian.
The patient would have immediately converted to fundi-ism and started babbling on about how the earth is 6,000 years old and all the scientists are going to hell. Then he would become an internet troll.
That is what they did to Anthony Flew when he came down with Alzheimers or some other dementia.
Episodes of this nature should IMMEDIATELY be regarded as fraudulent… unless the initial communication is something like “Would somebody PLEASE scratch my fuckin’ nose, fer crissake”
From the NPR article:
Apparently, the above “answers” were given by Houben with the help of his facilitator. These responses evidence an outright attempt at deception, on the part ofthe facilitator, when it became clear that he/she did not know the answers to Laureys’questions.
JamesTiberiusKirk:
Captain, we disagree with your assertion that John Edwards (the sleazy politician) is phony. Studies show that douche-bagginess is the default setting for politicians, making Edwards undeniably authentic.
Really?! I think we understand perfectly… these people are selling false hopes, literally, in an effort to do nothing more than make money. It’s utterly despicable, and deserves to be debunked. Would you have no one refute those who wish to fleece their fellow humans, in any arena (psychic surgeons, homeopaths, and the ilk)?
Personally, I’d rather not see people waste their time and money on a reanimated corpse of a relative, and I will encourage them to honour the memory of their loved one without drawing out the suffering of all involved.
#24: In my memory, it was on LA Law. However, it was a long time ago and since you’ve apparently seen it much more recently than I have, I’ll defer.
Assuming you’re right, isn’t it interesting how memories get conflated?
Legion@44: You’re conflating John Edwards, philandering politician, with John Edward, fake psychic/cold-reading expert/biggest douche in the universe.
Say what you will about Senator Edwards’ flaws, at least he doesn’t make up lies about your dead grandma for fun and profit.
What happened to your facilitator, man?
Has this fucking charlatan been getting paid? I hope they sue for every single cent and damages.
She’s no better than a medium.
Yeah? Where is this facilitator now? I want to hear what he has to say about his part in this. After all, he sure had plenty to say when he was speaking as a 23-year-comatose car accident victim, so it’s not like he’s shy or anything.
It’s hard to believe that Laureys, an expert in consciousness didn’t correct the media 3 months ago when he was made famous by the FC story. Saying now that he wasn’t involved in that aspect of his patient’s care, but being ok then with his name all over the story is a bit dishonest. Seems like all he cared about was about the media attention. When enough scientists finally attacked him for it, he was forced to give in.
Apparently it is not conclusive enough for Laureys – this is merely one situation in which FC didn’t work after all, but there could be other situations in which it works …
I am still very suspicious of Laureys; anyone basing their own work on his had better replicate his experiments and check his methods very carefully. There are very successful frauds in science such as that guy with the Bell Labs (whose name I can’t recall).
The facilitator’s fraud was a benefit to Laureys. He is all about his ability to detect brain function where others can’t. Having determined that the victim read out as high functioning, possibly with a fair amount of self deception right there, it was easy for him to encourage and or accept the deception of the facilitator.
He isn’t giving up on the idea that his tests found brain function. His livelihood depends on finding hidden brain function.
FC was discredited back in the early 1990s. But that has not even slowed it down. For example, here’s Dr. Doug Biklen’s FC institute at Syracuse:
http://www.inclusioninstitutes.org/fci
FC has gone from almost mainstream to mostly fringe. no, it doesn’t actually ever work. Ideomotor effect will see to that. Johnny or Jill (or Rom in this case) will always point to what the facilitator wants, even if the facilitator doesn’t consciously want anything.
JDubb@ 54:
How convenient that we have three anecdotes right on the front page, begging us to believe in the man behind the curtain. “I’d be nowhere without FC” says the facilitator, through his ventriloquist’s dummy.
Carlie @ 19
Yes, this sort of thing is known as “fraud”, when not specifically advertised as “for entertainment purposes only”.
Donnie B. @ 20
Further complicated by the fact that, in this case, the poor fellow is indeed conscious, though not actually communicating.
MS @ 46
There are 2 episodes from the L&O franchise that work with this concept, I cannot speak to LA Law at all.
Episode of L&O where autistic child is supposedly communicating through typing-style FC, debunked in courtroom.
Episode of CI where they fake responses from a brain damaged wife to elicit a confession from the husband using the eyeball-tracking method. (Looking at the yes card or the no card?)
F – I think it could go beyond fraud – that facilitator specifically used another person’s body without their consent and for profit (the book written). I want at minimum molestation charges, preferably human trafficking charges.
SQB
It facilitated off to the east a couple klicks.
You can check page source for the wider map view.
MadScientist @ 52″
Jan Hendrik Schön?
#61
Yeah, you heard me, 52 inches.
Carlie:
I wouldn’t disagree.
Beth @ 22
Yes?
These individuals still cannot communicate via FC. It is true, however, that some individuals are still conscious and capable of cognition, to varying degrees of both.
Science has found out more about this over the years. It is too bad that more people who are potentially conscious have only been found due to testing after this fraud. Mostly, however, there is not much that could have been done for them, aside from keeping them company (which is no small thing to them, I’m sure). If they can fairly consent, they could have their brains wired and be trained to communicate some through artificial means. But will their insurance pay for it?
@JohnnyCanuck#53: That’s why people like Laureys need to be watched very carefully. While there is an ethical case for doing our best to determine if someone who is severely handicapped is aware of their environment and able to think (and hopefully work out a means of communicating), it is an area which is prone to exploitation by the bullshit artists. At the moment I am more inclined to believe that Laureys is trying to drum up business by giving the friends and relatives of victims a false hope. I see there are already other papers out there done in collaboration with Laurey’s lab; the experiments need to be replicated by other labs with the technical capabilities required. Until then Laureys remains the only one with a lab that can do this miracle work – and that is extremely suspicious. (To be fair there are a few highly specialized labs on the planet which don’t have competition, but their claims can be tested by other methods.)
@Carlie
I don’t think it is criminal. The man is in a coma, so his family is his medical proxy. I’m sure they gave the facilitator complete rights to touch and move his body.
As to it being fraud, I am skeptical. Fraud is very hard to prove in cases like this. Granted this is the U.S. statute, but
As PZ and everyone here has said, the test of the facilitator’s abilities was very easy. The family could have done it no problem. Since the family could have used reasonable inquiry but elected not to, they may not be able to charge her for fraud.
However, like I said earlier, the facilitator did not fulfill her end contract. She made a claim that she could use her “skills” to make the coma guy communicate to his family. Clearly she did not do this, so she technically failed to fulfill the contract. Since she most likely knew she could not do this, that could be an example of bad faith, which is usually subject to additional punitive damages.
@25
“If you have answers like, ‘I don’t want to do the test’ or ‘You don’t trust me,’ those kinds of answers, well then, you cannot say anything,” Laureys says.”
Sure you can. I’d probably say something like, “Get lost, you lying sack of shit.”
There is simply no sensible reason why the patient wouldn’t want to participate in the test.
Are we expected to believe that after having been trapped in a paralyzed body for years, he just doesn’t feel like proving that he’s really conscious? I guess the chance to communicate with the world just isn’t all that important.
@Carlie #59
Human trafficking? That seems to be a little bit of a stretch. According to Common Myths and Misconceptions about Human Trafficking in the U.S in order to be considered trafficking:
Whoops. Last thing. By “doesn’t have a will” I meant it is accepted that he cannot express his will, so it is his proxy’s job to do it for him.
In all cases I’ve read about the “facillitator” was being paid by the hour or the visit, at standard outrageous medical procedural rates, which is just about all you need to know about this story.
This was all settled more than 100 years ago with a horse, Clever Hans, who could supposedly do math. Ask him to calculate the square root of 64, and he tap out 8 with his hoof. His trainer, a math teacher, Wilhelm Von Osten spent years training him at a blackboard. He also believed in phrenology–Von Osten, I’m not sure about Hans. Oskar Pfungst, a psychologist, disproved this when he noticed that Von Osten gave an unintended non-verbal facial clue when Hans tapping was at the correct number. When nobody but Hans could know the answer, he failed–every time.
Despite this, and here’s an example of how human nature hasn’t changed, many people still believed in Hans, who continued to make money for his owner long after he was discredited.
Seifer – I hadn’t thought about the proxy business. It just makes me so mad to think of him being used that way; aren’t the “keep them alive at all costs” people the ones who are supposed to value the dignity of life? How much more undignified can it get than to use a human as a puppet? It makes me physically ill.
I’d like to take a moment here to thank the writers, producers, etc. of shows like L & O, who occasionally do stories that show clearly that things like FC are bullshit. Amidst all the “ghost” shows and the “based on true events” medium shows and all the other crap*, it is good to know that some people realize that telling the truth makes a good story too.
Leverage did a story about cold and hot reading a couple of weeks ago that was very, very good.
*Mind you, I love a good fantasy show, as long as it is clear that it is fantasy.
I’ve an autistic son and an autistic nephew – the other population that has to deal with “facilitated communication” garbage.
My son can communicate, but it took him a long time and a lot of frustration and physical therapy. It’s not imagined, and that’s what’s the best part. I remember the first full sentence he spoke to me – and it wasn’t imagined or through some mediator or a rehearsed repetition. It was spontaneous and because I was so thick I didn’t get what he was trying to say.
It’s sick to me that somebody would fake moments like that, even unintentionally. That moment is one that I will carry with me my entire life because it was such a breakthrough. I have no time or patience for these deluded individuals, no matter how much “good” they think they are doing.
Carlie @ #71
As far as I can tell, the “LET THEM LIVE!!!111!!!!” people don’t care about the dignity of life, only the fact that a person is alive, even if it’s only in the technical sense (i.e. heart beating, breathing on their own, but no brain activity showing some form of consciousness). Remember Terry Schiavo?
I would sincerely hope that Mr. Houben has not been conscious, but locked inside, as it were, for 23 years. To me, that seems a fate worse than death. My question is, can these scans that Dr. Laureys performed that demonstrated Mr. Houben is indeed conscious be replicated by other doctors and/or facilities? (I think that point was made further upstream, but I also think it bears repeating.)
Ben Goldacre expressed extreme scepticism about this as soon as it hit the press, in his Guardian Column
Bad Science 05/12/2009.
Oskar Pfungst, a psychologist, disproved this when he noticed that Von Osten gave an unintended non-verbal facial clue when Hans tapping was at the correct number. When nobody but Hans could know the answer, he failed–every time. – irarosovsky
It’s doubtful whether the facial clue was unintended – certainly Pfungst said so, but he could hardly say Von Osten was consciously cheating without clear evidence.
The tragic aspect of the sloppy science and sloppy journalism when this facilitated communication story was first reported last Fall.
My spouse had been asked to have power-of-attorney for a friend of hers. Later, this friend had attempted suicide and had lapsed into an irreversible coma (she subsequently died after several weeks in the hospital).
My spouse and other friends of the comatose patient were given false hope by this facilitated communication news story.
Last night, I mentioned PZ’s blog post on facilitated communication and the simple test that was used to illustrate that the therapist was communicating and not the patient.
My spouse said that there have been cases where facilitated communication is real and the doctors discover that the patient is conscious inside a body that cannot speak except through facilitated communication. She mentioned the case involving a man from Belgium and how that had given everyone involved in Lynda’s case such great hope.
A quick google search found that the case that was recently discredited had given them this false hope.
I understand the need to hope for better when better is pretty damn unlikely. In dire situations, people will grasp whatever straws are there for the grasping.
However, the medical and journalistic communities need to be responsible so they aren’t spreading false hope.
brotheratometc.,
I know the pain your spouse must have gone through, as my father recently passed away. He received a fatal head trauma, and was declared dead, though his body was kept alive by modern medicine in order to incubate his organs for donation.
I was lucky enough to see his body in the hospital, and for just a moment, I could have sworn I saw his eyes move. Fortunately, I had examined the evidence presented in the Rom Houben case for myself, and reason kicked right back in. If I hadn’t already looked at the “facilitated communication” quackery, I would have suffered doubts and additional emotional pain for many months after Dad’s death. As it stands, though, I was able to realize that, in these cases, it’s perfectly natural to look for things that aren’t there. I was able to move on a little bit, and avoid unnecessary suffering, for which I’m very thankful.
I’m also thankful that he was able to donate an organ to help another human being continue to live- something that might not have happened if I’d insisted that he be kept on the machines “just in case”.
My heart goes out to anyone in this horrible position, but we all need to realize that sometimes, it really is best to let go, painful though it is. And to PZ and everyone who mocked and derided the “facilitated communicator”: thank you so much. You’ve helped me more than you know.
irarosofsk @70
It’s worse than you think, many horse owners today buy into the ‘animal communicator’ pernicious woo. It’s gross, expensive and in my opinion, makes horse (and other pet owners) look stupid.
To be a trully sensitive skilled horse person takes a lot of (caution, four letter word ahead) work.
In my view, if one is handling an aniamal, they are communitcating with them. I find real studies of animal behavior to be way more useful than woo, but that’s just me.
Sadly, no suprise that the patient was found to not be comminicating. Also, no suprise that the family so wanted the opposite to be true.
Over at Orac’s place, commentator Jennifer B. Phillips offered a significantly different interpretation of the “I don’t want to” et al. refusals reported by NPR (my emphasis):
That is not at all how I originally read the article—I thought the stonewalling was directly from the
facilitatorscammer and not some“facilitated communication”invention—but upon re-reading the article it’s not clear. Ms Phillips could be right.Seems as if there is a ‘logic screw’ loose. If you are trapped in your own body, then, anyway at all that can prove you are there, such as a blind test, would be welcomed.
66: There is simply no sensible reason why the patient wouldn’t want to participate in the test.
People aren’t always sensible. I can see a frustrated patient saying “screw you!” in these circumstances.
From the article:
Uhm – shouldn’t it not matter one iota what the patient’s condition is? After all, what you should really be testing for is whether or not the facilitator is making it up (by being a deliberate liar or by being self-deluded by the ideomotor effect). In other words, facilitated communication shouldn’t be assumed to work just because the patient shows more brain activity than in this case. It’s still just as possible for the facilitator to be full of shit and making it all up.
In ALL facilitated communication cases the facilitators should be subjected to this very simple test. Maybe they’re all frauds, or maybe there’s a few cases where the communication is real, but the test should be carried out in all cases to find out for sure if the patient is really aware or not. I can’t believe this wasn’t already the case given how incredibly simple the test is – just do something where the facilitator doesn’t know what the question was that was being asked because the question was asked while the facilitator was not in the room. It’s incredibly simple and yet nobody thought to try it until now??? C’mon.
My comment on another blog seems appropriate to also make here:
http://samedifference1.com/2010/03/02/rom-houbens-care-home-bans-facilitated-communication/
Rom Houben’s Care Home Bans Facilitated Communication
2010 March 2
by samedifference1
“…a simple scientific test. Three paralysed patients were shown objects or told words while their facilitator was out of the room, and then asked to describe them with the help of their carer. This was repeated 15 times. Mr Houben did not give any correct responses.”
But was this “a simple scientific test” of Facilitated Communication? Or was it a test of his brain injury described by his sister as:
“We know that sometimes people with brain injuries sometimes lose the communication between words and images, or words and function. We also know that Rom has a big problem with his memory…”
It should be noted that one of the three paralyzed patients did pass this test and validated his Facilited Communication.
Nearly 16 years ago my own son Ben, then age 22 and with severe autism living in his birthplace of Boston, was given this same “simple scientific test” by its apparent developer speech pathologist Howard Shane PhD of Boston’s Children’s Medical Center and this test was claimed to invalidate his use of Facilitated Communication. Although completely nonverbal, Ben had some independent means of communication, which was not tested as a possible control.
I now wonder if this simple scientific test was really testing my son’s brain dysfuntion caused by his severe autism. I am thinking of trying to validate this “simple scientific test” with my own son, using his independent means of communication. I am not so “scientific” so I plan to consult with leading scientists involved with Facilitated Communication. By the way, Ben lives at home with us his parents in Jerusalem Israel and continues to use Facilitated Communication for his very sophisticated communication. He uses his independent means of communication for more mundane matters. It is such a shame that Rom’s Care Home has banned the use of Facilitated Communication, as did almost all such facilities in the U.S. in the early 1990s based on this simple scientific test, apparently developed as part of adversarial court proceedings of sexual abuse, and not as part of pure scientific research seeking the truth.
Arthur Golden