Research and Practice for Persons with Severe Disabilities 2014, Vol. 39(3) 195–202 © The Author(s) 2014 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1540796914556778 rps.sagepub.com Special Section Article Facilitated Communication Denies People With Disabilities Their Voice Jason C. Travers 1 , Matt J. Tincani 2 , and Russell Lang 3 Abstract Facilitated Communication (FC) has been rebranded as “supported typing” and repackaged as rapid prompting method, but remains a disproven intervention for people with disabilities. Despite the absence of supportive evidence and abundant evidence that facilitators always author the messages, FC has experienced resurgence in popularity among families, professionals, and advocacy groups. Strategic marketing, confirmation bias, pseudoscience, anti-science, and fallacy explain this troubling renewal. We briefly discuss each of these and contrast the method with authentic augmentative and alternative communication to illustrate differences in values and practices. Our intention is to persuade readers to resist or abandon FC in favor of validated methods and to encourage advocacy organizations to advance agendas that emphasize genuine self-expression by people with disabilities. Keywords Facilitated Communication, pseudoscience, autism, developmental disabilities, augmentative and alternative communication When the call for exchange papers on Facilitated Communication (FC) was announced, we approached the possibility of contributing a paper with trepidation. On one hand, debate about FC in the scientific com- munity ended almost two decades ago because every well-designed empirical study demonstrated that facilitators controlled the content of messages (Jacobson, Mulick, & Schwartz, 1995; Mostert, 2001). We worried our participation in the exchange might inadvertently lend FC undue legitimacy. We also consid- ered that we might be targets of ad hominem attacks characterizing us as uncompassionate, unfairly skepti- cal, or unreasonable. Ultimately, we decided to contribute this Exchange paper because we believe in an inalienable right to genuine self-expression. FC prevents self-expression by misrepresenting the voice of people with disabilities by displacing legitimate augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). Whether rebranded (e.g., “supported typing”) or repackaged as another intervention (e.g., rapid prompt- ing method), the resurgence of FC is clear (Tostanoski, Lang, Raulston, Carnett, & Davis, 2014; Wegner, Fuller, & Sparrow, 2003). FC has infiltrated other disability-related disciplines (e.g., speech-language pathology, disability studies, social justice education) and found supporters who, despite good intentions, are misinformed and unwittingly misinforming others (e.g., Stubblefield, 2011). Popular promotion of FC also comes in the form of documentary films and online videos. Now, astonishingly, some state agencies and universities have endorsed FC as a form of AAC (e.g., Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, 2011; University of New Hampshire Institute on Disability/University Center for 1 University of Kansas, Lawrence, USA 2 Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, USA 3 Texas State University, San Marcos, USA Corresponding Author: Jason C. Travers, University of Kansas, Joseph R. Pearson Hall, Rm. 521, 1122 West Campus Rd., Lawrence, KS 66045-3101, USA. Email: jasontravers@me.com 556778RPS XX X 10.1177/1540796914556778Research and Practice for Persons with Severe DisabilitiesTravers et al. research-article 2014 by guest on January 18, 2015 rps.sagepub.com Downloaded from