Uploaded July 2025 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
This is a brief overview of facilitated communication: what it is, why it's pseudoscience, and why, despite being perennially discredited through scientific testing, it prevails as an idea—even in spite of high profile cases where lives have been ruined because of its use, like the Anna Stubblefield case.
Patreon: patreon.com/GeorgRockallSchmidt
Leave a tip: paypal.me/GeorgRockallSchmidt
Twitter: twitter.com/grockallschmidt
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/grockallschmidt.bsky.social
Prisoners of Silence documentary: youtube.com/watch?v=OMn_sDCFAuI
Sources
Facilitated Communication: Mental Miracle or Sleight of Hand? –Gina Green
Skeptic Magazine Internet Archive
web.archive.org/web/20021217224216/http:/www.skeptic.com/02.3.green-fc.html
Chapter XI. Scientific Affairs – American Psychology Association
apa.org/about/policy/chapter-11
An Activist Approach to Debunking FC – Sage Journals
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1540796914556779
Facilitating a Dangerous Delusion at MIT – Skeptic Dictionary
skepdic.com/skeptimedia/skeptimedia138.html
Voices from the past: Comparing the rapid prompting method and facilitated communication – Taylor And Francis Online
tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3109/17518423.2012.749952#d1e187
Rosemary's Baby – Andrew Rule, Herald Sun (Archive Copy)
https://j.b5z.net/i/u/10196230/f/LISA_Rosemarys_Baby.pdf
The persistence of fad interventions in the face of negative scientific evidence: Facilitated communication for autism as a case example – Taylor And Francis Online
tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17489539.2014.976332?scroll=top&needAccess=true
Why experts say evidence cited by facilitated communication advocates is flawed – Daily Orange
dailyorange.com/2016/04/why-experts-say-evidence-cited-by-facilitated-communication-advocates-is-flawed
Sound and Fury: When Opposition to Facilitated Communication Functions as Hate Speech – Anna Stubblefield
dsq-sds.org/index.php/dsq/article/view/1729/1777.
Systematic review of facilitated communication 2014–2018 finds no new evidence that messages delivered using facilitated communication are authored by the person with disability – Sage Journal
journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2396941518821570
This is a brief overview of facilitated communication: what it is, why it's pseudoscience, and why, despite being perennially discredited through scientific testing, it prevails as an idea—even in spite of high profile cases where lives have been ruined because of its use, like the Anna Stubblefield case.
Patreon: patreon.com/GeorgRockallSchmidt
Leave a tip: paypal.me/GeorgRockallSchmidt
Twitter: twitter.com/grockallschmidt
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/grockallschmidt.bsky.social
Prisoners of Silence documentary: youtube.com/watch?v=OMn_sDCFAuI
Sources
Facilitated Communication: Mental Miracle or Sleight of Hand? –Gina Green
Skeptic Magazine Internet Archive
web.archive.org/web/20021217224216/http:/www.skeptic.com/02.3.green-fc.html
Chapter XI. Scientific Affairs – American Psychology Association
apa.org/about/policy/chapter-11
An Activist Approach to Debunking FC – Sage Journals
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1540796914556779
Facilitating a Dangerous Delusion at MIT – Skeptic Dictionary
skepdic.com/skeptimedia/skeptimedia138.html
Voices from the past: Comparing the rapid prompting method and facilitated communication – Taylor And Francis Online
tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3109/17518423.2012.749952#d1e187
Rosemary's Baby – Andrew Rule, Herald Sun (Archive Copy)
https://j.b5z.net/i/u/10196230/f/LISA_Rosemarys_Baby.pdf
The persistence of fad interventions in the face of negative scientific evidence: Facilitated communication for autism as a case example – Taylor And Francis Online
tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17489539.2014.976332?scroll=top&needAccess=true
Why experts say evidence cited by facilitated communication advocates is flawed – Daily Orange
dailyorange.com/2016/04/why-experts-say-evidence-cited-by-facilitated-communication-advocates-is-flawed
Sound and Fury: When Opposition to Facilitated Communication Functions as Hate Speech – Anna Stubblefield
dsq-sds.org/index.php/dsq/article/view/1729/1777.
Systematic review of facilitated communication 2014–2018 finds no new evidence that messages delivered using facilitated communication are authored by the person with disability – Sage Journal
journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2396941518821570
