This article originally appeared in Vol. 2 No. 4 (Aug. 1994) of th Facilitated Communication Digest, [pp. 3-4].
RESEARCH BRIEF: PRELIMINARY RESULTS OF A VALIDATION STUDY
REGARDING FACILITATED COMMUNICATION
Donald N. Cardinal
Chapman University
Darlene Hanson
Whittier Union High School
The validation study presented here has been developed over
the past 15 months. The purpose of the study was to learn more
about why FC speakers were having difficulty passing messages to
"blind" facilitators as was reported in several published
studies. The data presented below are considered "preliminary"
in that some sessions for some subjects have yet to be entered
into the data set, although it is currently about 90% complete.
The researcher believes the addition of the final 10% of the data
will not significantly differ from what is presented here. The
data are also considered preliminary in that only the main
results are presented.
Background
The study's protocol was developed using collaborative
action research. In this case that means that several school and
university professionals observed students using FC for hundreds
of hours within the classroom, collaborated on those
observations, developed "mini" protocols, tested those protocols
under quasi-experimental conditions, collaborated again regarding
the results, redesigned the protocol, re-tested the protocol,
etc. The purpose of this process was to develop elements of a
procedure that served to capture facilitated communication rather
than suppress it.
Protocol
The protocol used for this study was designed to be
statistically experimental, sensitive to elements that may affect
the students' ability under the prescribed conditions, as simple
as possible, and able to be replicated in whole or part by
others for future studies. The protocol is as follows: 1) the
student was shown a word on a flash card by a "recorder," 2) the
recorder asked the facilitator to come into the room, 3) the
facilitator asked the student to type the word to which the
student was introduced, 4) the facilitator said the letters aloud
as the student typed them and the recorder wrote those letters on
the data sheet exactly as heard, 5) the student was always given
the same positive comment regardless of a correct or incorrect
response, the facilitator left the room and the recorder
introduced a second word and the process repeated.
Other important protocol conditions were: baseline data was
gathered on each subject without the use of FC prior to the
beginning of the study and again six weeks later; the correctness
of the answer was determined at a later time by a graduate
assistant; all data sheets were picked up each week; there were
100 different words available and there were never more than 90
trials per student so most students never had a repeat word; each
student was "tested" three times per week for six weeks; each
test session consisted of five trials; in all but five cases the
student's baseline was zero and it was one in those five cases.
Results
Only the most basic results of this study are presented
here. There was a total of 43 subjects ranging in age from 11 to
22 years of age. The diagnoses ranged from autism to mental
retardation to other developmental disabilities. Forty-eight
percent of the students were able to pass information correctly
to a blind facilitator at least 2 of the 5 times during a session
by the end of the six weeks. Thirty-three percent were able to
pass information correctly at least 3 of the 5 times. (A
"correct" response was a perfectly spelled word with no extra
letters.)
Discussion
This study does not prove the validity of FC but it does
suggest that protocols of past studies may have served to
suppress message passing abilities. This study also sets forth
the most basic argument regarding the validation of FC; that
given "ideal" conditions a person using FC who has previously
demonstrated that sh/e cannot pass a message to a blind
facilitator can do so under proper conditions. Finally, this
study supports the notion that a facilitator-user pair can
generate output that is completely originated by the FC user.
The next step will be to develop a protocol that asks the
subject to pass information requiring a higher form of cognition
- some studies are already under way but many more are needed.
The so-called ability to pass information with FC is viewed by
these researchers as very fragile; it is likely that one subject
may pass a test under one set of conditions and not under an-
other. In fact, the message passing capabilities of a person
using FC appear to be variable not only to environmental
conditions but also to a priori training of the test conditions
as well.
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