FACILITATED COMMUNICATION - A FAILURE TO REPLICATE THE PHENOMENON

Twenty-one subjects participated in a study of Biklen's and Crossley's hypothesis that persons with autism show unexpected literacy and impr oved communication ability through the process of facilitated communic ation (FC). Repeated measures of literacy were conducted at (a) a base line test of communicative ability before FC: (b) a pretest with facil itation; and (c) a posttest with facilitation after 20 hours of traini ng. At both the pretest and posttest, the facilitators were screened f rom hearing or seeing the questions or pictorial stimuli. Although som e facilitators reported newfound communicative abilities during traini ng sessions, no client showed unexpected literacy or communicative abi lities when tested via the facilitator screening procedure, even after 20 hours of training. Separate analyses indicated that some facilitat ors influenced the communicative output of their clients.