The University of California posts a lecture supporting facilitated communication
As part of UCSF’s 2024 Developmental Disabilities Conference, Vikram Jaswal, Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia, promotes facilitated communication.
By MC
I'm an adult diagnosed with autism who has also worked as a direct support provider for children with autism. For both reasons, I have a strong interest in evidence-based approaches to autism interventions.
Last week I came across a video. "Helping Non-Speaking Autistics Flourish," from the University of California's UCTV station, recorded from a UCSF developmental disabilities conference. I was immediately skeptical about where this was going to go because of the ideological terminology used and the fact that UCTV tends to lean towards neurodiversity rhetoric.
But I didn’t expect it to be nearly this bad.
From the get-go, the speaker, Vikram Jaswal, professor of Psychology at University of Virginia, and who is known for his promotion of facilitated communication, preaches “lived experience” of “non-speaking” autistic people despite such people not usually having the communication or awareness skills to describe their experiences. He also says only “non-speaking” and “autistic” are the right words to use because they are “preferred by the community” (not to mention that “community" is very high-functioning verbal autistic if even autistic in the first place, and only people who agree with the neurodiversity movement at that).
The professor went on to insist that the lack of speech was not due to lack of motivation to speak (I agree it isn’t) or cognitive disability (he gives no reasoning to show that severely and particularly profoundly autistic people are not by and large cognitively disabled), but rather due to “physical disability.”
Of course, ASD has never been shown to be a motor disorder, and he should know that. There is absolutely no evidence of physical disability (severable from the mental disability) caused by autism in severely or profoundly autistic people. The “apraxia of speech" theory is a widely contested diagnosis and it was applied first in terms of autism by one of the founders of FC. Furthermore, there are people who have been diagnosed with Childhood Apraxia of Speech and their impairments look way different than “nonspeaking” autism. He also never postulates any ideas for the cause of this so-called physical disability or why it’s never identified by developmental pediatricians, neurologists, or other specialists.
Two things in Dr. Jaswal's talk I found especially disconcerting are the assertions that PECS and verbal-based intervention are “ineffective” and “don’t allow the person to express their ideas fully,” and of course the promotion of Rapid Prompting Method/FC.
Now I can’t say much about verbal-based intervention as I’ve never used it as a registered behavior technician/direct support professional or seen it used (I am somewhat familiar with Verbal Behavior intervention in ABA but haven’t really used it, and I’m not sure if that’s what the professor is referring to, but from my understanding VBI can be very effective), but from my understanding it’s widely used by SLPs, who obviously have a lot of experience with early interventions/autism when it comes to acquiring speech, so I assume this type of intervention is used for a reason.
As for PECS, I have personal experience with using that and it is very effective, especially for young children learning speech/having no speech at all. The assertion that it is “very limited” is in part true — often many users have to switch from a “physical” PECS book to an iPad app, which can be difficult. But the iPad app can store hundreds to thousands of different pictures, so this helps with this issue. I think what many people who object to it are really concerned about is that it doesn’t make the autistic person look as “smart” and this hurts the image they’re trying to put out that all people with autism are geniuses. Which of course, the lies/pseudoscience of FC/RPM just reinforce. The fact that FC/RPM has been debunked countlessly over decades and proven to be dangerous and still is something a lot of professionals believe in is really disheartening.
What I don’t understand is if severely and profoundly autistic people do have the intelligence of normal people (or as often claimed, above normal intelligence) and are supposedly supposed to speak so eloquently, then why don’t they, given the technology we have?
One of the head coaches on the Special Olympics basketball team I volunteered for was severely physically disabled (probably had CP) and was clearly intellectually “intact” and only physically disabled. He used an eye-gaze device that generated speech (he did this of course with no one else’s help, unlike FC/RPM) and though it took him a long time he was able to communicate effectively. Mind you, this was someone so profoundly physically handicapped that he could really only move some of his facial muscles and eyes.
Severely-profoundly autistic people are not physically disabled, let alone nearly at that level, so if he could completely communicate just like someone who could speak, why couldn’t they? They can move their eyes, fingers, etc. Why isn’t there technology that can take advantage of that?
The research that Dr. Jaswal describes entirely skirts the obvious questions: where is the simple blinded testing of the person who is assisted? Why does his research look at esoteric footnotes like eye tracking instead? How did UCSF present Dr. Jaswal's work so un-critically without asking any of the obvious questions?
I’ve seen similar dubious autism content on UCTV before. An ECHO webinar (a webinar series for autism professionals to learn more about issues related to the condition) and though most of it was very informative there was one presenter who spent the entire lecture telling us the terms we should and shouldn’t use (you probably know exactly the ones). For example, she insisted “comorbidity” was a dirty word because “morbid” means “death” and that we shouldn’t associate “neurodivergence” with death. When she was listing off the conditions that counted as “neurodivergency” I asked her if cerebral palsy would count. She said, “No, because it’s not brain-based.” I was thinking, “It’s literally brain damage! ‘Cerebral’ is literally in the name!” So we see something insidious here: many so-called professors are ideologues who are presented as “experts” due to dubious research or their “lived experience.”
I find UCTV's inclusion of a pseudo-scientific talk especially concerning because a lot of people/professionals trust UCTV, and anything coming from the UCs. The fact that this is being said by a person with a PhD in psychology and that I as someone halfway through my Bachelor’s can clearly see the gaping holes in his logic should deeply concern all of us who care about scientific integrity and the realities of autism.
MC is the initials of a young man with moderate autism who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. He has worked as a registered behavior technician/direct support professional.
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