Chicago Medical Malpractice Lawyer Blog

As a medical malpractice lawyer in Chicago I have seen some strange and sometimes bizarre things. But the practice of facilitated communication (FC) has shocked even me. It seems that there are still psychiatrists and psychologists that use this technique to treat people that cannot speak or write due to severe mental retardation or autism. These practitioners claim that the disabled person can communicate when the facilitator places his hand over the hand of the patient and guides it on a keyboard or with a pen.

This practice has been thoroughly discredited and was featured in the program Frontline as far back as 1996:

The Frontline program showed facilitators allegedly describing what their clients were viewing, when it was clear their clients' heads were tilted so far back they couldn't have been viewing anything but the ceiling. When facilitators could not see an object which their client could see (a solid screen blocked each from seeing what the other was seeing) they routinely typed out the wrong answer. Furthermore, FC clients routinely use a flat board or keyboard, over which the facilitator holds their pointing finger. Even the most expert typist could not routinely hit correct letters without some reference as a starting point. (Try looking away from your keyboard and typing a sentence using just one finger held in the air above the keyboard.) Facilitators routinely look at the keyboard; clients do not. The messages' basic coherence indicates that they most probably are produced by someone who is looking at the keyboard.

The problem with this junk science is that while wasting time on FC the patient is not getting the therapy he needs. The result is that desparately disabled people are the victims of this unscientific fad. It is psychological malpractice.