Or what about a product of his facilitator’s conscious mind? What if his facilitator has an agenda regarding the care of the paralyzed/comatose, or worse, just want attention? Those could be reasons to fake communications from a comatose patient.

I’m not saying it isn’t real, but the more I read about this I’m unsure.

reCapthca sez: ignites Loving

If only one of them writes a book via FC as a young adult and his condition improves over the years due to endless hours of therapy and training, and he then, 10 years later is able to write a book on his own about how helpful the FC was, what is your answer? “Yeah, well maybe your helper was no scam, but all the others are!” “You’re hallucinating!”? “Shut up!”? “Who gives a toss?”?

Yes, there are several authors one the spectrum out there and yes, this applies also for “coma-man”. So please, cut them some slack before grouching about something you never did for yourself or even remotely know about.

-milkshake

It also can be a pretty disabling syndrome for the family to have to deal with, that often varies widely in severity with “good days” being bearable and “bad days” not so good. A lot of the interventions have been only weakly assessed, so any kind of intervention that seems to lead to a few more good days is likely given more credence than it deserves.

Some of the interventions that have been eventually been somewhat supported by research, like ABA, were of course once just woo-woo.

Not one person above has a single unkind word for Houben, and I think you are mischaracterizing the conversation so far with words like “Shut up!” and “Who gives a toss?”. Commenters here have criticized a technique that has been roundly disputed by the professional medical community. No one is denying Houben’s cognition.

There are clearly better and worse variations on the system (more or less provably authentic) and it seems that if blind, or double blind, facilitation was done, more consistant results might appear.

Perhaps if you have specialist knowledge to add, you could share it and enlighten us, rather than picking on something fairly prosaic and reacting like we’re monsters for opining in that direction. No one is suggesting turning our back on autism or coma victims, only arguing for better implementation of FC in appropriate circumstances.

“The procedure is controversial, since a majority of peer reviewed scientific studies conclude that the typed language output attributed to the clients is directed or systematically determined by the therapists who provide facilitated assistance. Some peer-reviewed scientific studies have indicated instances of valid FC, and some FC users have reportedly gone on to type independently.”
- wikipedia

If FC wants to be more than a ouija board with a special needs kid attached, all it has to do is perform reasonably above chance on any of the simple double blind exercises where it has thus far notably failed to do so.

It isn’t a difficult standard, nor an unfair one. It simply means that FC has to work even when the facilitator does not know the correct answer. Until that simple standard of proof can be met, the fact that FC is an excellent source of inspiring anecdote and a poor source of data will be suspicious rather than confirmative.

Any way, that’a a bit off course for this thread. The technique they used to help him “communicate” does seem dodgy, especailly since I believe the results would be more accurate with computer communication.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=5759694n&tag=contentMain;contentBody

Even Nancy Snyderman and Sanjay Gupta — trained physicians — fell for it, which reminds me of how easily the “experts” can be tricked. Read about Project Alpha, if you haven’t before. There’s a good writeup on wikipedia.

“What is amazing is how quick most folks — myself included — were to accept this story at face value.”

Interestingly, this also applies to James Randi…
;)

I had heard reports of the “coma” story in the background, but when I actually saw a video package, I simply couldn’t believe they took it hook, line and sinker. NO ONE questioned this woman jamming buttons on a keyboard faster than the guy could look at them… as he sat drooling and disaffected. In fact, AFAIK, BB is still the only place it’s been brought up.

Locked-in syndrome makes for great, scary news, but I wouldn’t trust this facilitation business as far as I could throw it. Randi FTW.

95% of FC is done within a family with reasonable success (in the eyes of the concerned) and thus has not deserved the same treatment (in sense of a public discrediting out of dissent) as those money grifting fainaiguers.

Reread this sentence you just wrote. Do it again until you understand why we (rightly) call it junk science.

Furthermore, even if that happened, it wouldn’t change that we know most FC is the facillitor and so that would still mean we should demand evidence in each individual case.

Houben has since proven able to answer yes-or-no questions with slight movements of his foot.

If he can answer yes/no questions accurately with his foot (and the accurately part is very important, obviously), then he can use at least one form of partner-assisted communication. Watch this:

Partner Assisted Auditory Scanning

By substituting a foot movement for the eye blink in the video (and by having the alphabet board visible to partner and patient), Tom could have a means of communication that would probably be more reliable than the facilitated communication thing.

The most important thing, of course, is that this system is able to be learned really easily. That means that more than one person can act as Tom’s partner, increasing the reliability of the interpretation.

If only we could find someone who speaks fewer languages..

Stand back Europeans, this looks like a job for an American!

There was another episode where they trick somebody into confession by pretending a person in a coma is able to respond to simple yes and no answers, but that episode was not about facilitated communication.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3439467496200920717