Autistic genius novelist woos the literary world with novel composed using "Facilitated Communication"

[Vixen]

N

I'm not going from what the YouTube video said, I can see for myself from the interview clip that the mother is supplying the answer.

Plus of course the video creator is very careful to not make the argument you strawman her with.

The mother strongly denies she is the author of Woody's works. She simply transcribed it for him. For example, I recently sent off a magazine article. The editor sent me back a preview copy, heavily edited to fit their publishing style. However, I am still its author and composer of the thoughts therein. Yes, YouTubers feel strongly about whatever message they are presenting. It doesn't mean they've proven anything. Yesterday, I watched half a YouTube video claiming cats and dogs came back in spirit form after death, quoting Edgar Cayce as the authority in this. I mean, when watching YouTube, suspend credulity and view it as the 'entertainment' it is, instead of seeing it as gospel truth, and what could be more entertaining than controversy on a sensitive topic?

 

[Vixen]

Yes it has. Read up on facilitated communication, you are woefully ill-informed. Start with wiki, for instance (I linked to it above), and mayfollow a few of the links. Seek out specialist opinions via ASHA, or any ofta the similar organisations in Europe.

No one is saying Woody is a vegetable (a word I would not use about any human, btw). But  he is not speaking through his mother, so we do not know anything about his intellectual capabilities. That is why a reliable method of communication should be used. Not FC. Never FC. And the communication method should not be something that he can only ever use with one other person. Do you really not see how inherently unreliable such a method is?

People thought Woody was incommunicable with until one day, aged three, he formed the word 'cat' from random letters. Aged about eight in class the teacher asked for another word for 'sad' and he came up with 'melancholy'. The teachers then knew he was educable. His mother distracting him from his hi-intensity screens - his way of dealing with a highly stressful world - to help him get his thoughts down, an act he finds so threatening he can only do it in half-hour spurts, seems perfectly logical to me for someone with his disability. The YouTubers claiming sleight of hand think they've caught out a scammer but they haven't. I honestly think a YouTuber watching a two-minute demo video of a highly-autistic person who's graduated UCLA and Columbia and announcing he's a fraud based on their own concocted opinion is incredibly stupid.

 

[Olmstead]

Okay. Facilitated communication is a known pseudoscience. What she's doing looks like that pseudoscience. There's no other known method to do what she purports to be doing. So what exactly is she doing?

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

...if he is as intellectually challenged as is being claimed. He speaks four languages including Hungarian. You try learning Hungarian. The YouTuber thinks because Woody's autism is severe, he must be a hopeless case, but autism isn't brain damage, it is a neurological syndrome.

She does not say that. She says Woody waves his finger at random at a board he is not even looking at and his mother makes up responses based on the random waving. As demonstrated in the video clips.

 

[Helen]

I do no base my opinions on that youtube video. Facilitated communication is something i have bumped into in my professional capacity, so I have known for a long time that it doesn't work. It is pseudoscience. There are good methods, AAC among others, which make communication with others possible. His mother has chosen to keep him away from those methods; methods which may have made it possible for him to become more independent, and form other relationships. As it is, he is completely dependent on her. What happens if she dies before him? Developing functional communication gets harder the older you are

 

[catsmate]

No it has not been proven to be a scam.

Facilitated Communication has been disproved.

That is just the opinion of a YouTuber who probably thinks being severely disabled means you're a vegetable.

You really don't have a clue what you're talking about.

 

[catsmate]

The mother strongly denies she is the author of Woody's works. She simply transcribed it for him.

Except she didn't. Obviously.

For example, I recently sent off a magazine article. The editor sent me back a preview copy, heavily edited to fit their publishing style. However, I am still its author and composer of the thoughts therein. Yes, YouTubers feel strongly about whatever message they are presenting. It doesn't mean they've proven anything. Yesterday, I watched half a YouTube video claiming cats and dogs came back in spirit form after death, quoting Edgar Cayce as the authority in this. I mean, when watching YouTube, suspend credulity and view it as the 'entertainment' it is, instead of seeing it as gospel truth, and what could be more entertaining than controversy on a sensitive topic?

What has this rambling drivel to do with the topic?

 

[Darat]

The mother strongly denies she is the author of Woody's works. She simply transcribed it for him. For example, I recently sent off a magazine article. The editor sent me back a preview copy, heavily edited to fit their publishing style. However, I am still its author and composer of the thoughts therein. Yes, YouTubers feel strongly about whatever message they are presenting. It doesn't mean they've proven anything. Yesterday, I watched half a YouTube video claiming cats and dogs came back in spirit form after death, quoting Edgar Cayce as the authority in this. I mean, when watching YouTube, suspend credulity and view it as the 'entertainment' it is, instead of seeing it as gospel truth, and what could be more entertaining than controversy on a sensitive topic?

I'm not going from what the YouTube video said, I can see for myself from the interview clip that the mother is supplying the answer.

Plus of course the video creator is very careful to not make the argument you strawman her with.

 

[steenkh]

Yesterday, I watched half a YouTube video claiming cats and dogs came back in spirit form after death, quoting Edgar Cayce as the authority in this. I mean, when watching YouTube, suspend credulity and view it as the 'entertainment' it is, instead of seeing it as gospel truth, and what could be more entertaining than controversy on a sensitive topic?

What is the relevance of this?

 

[Helen]

What is the relevance of this?

Relevance schmelevance.

 

[zooterkin]

I had better return my degree then.

Based on the evidence in this forum, I would't argue with that.

 

[zooterkin]

...if he is as intellectually challenged as is being claimed. He speaks four languages including Hungarian.

And what evidence are you basing this statement on?

 

[junkshop]

 

[theprestige]

@Vixen , what evidence would convince you that his mom is doing all the work, and Columbia is turning a blind eye to obvious concerns about his qualifications?

 

[Matthew Best]

He speaks four languages including Hungarian. You try learning Hungarian.

Does his mother speak any of those languages? Or all of them perhaps?

 

[theprestige]

He speaks four languages including Hungarian.

No he doesn't. He speaks hardly at all, and then only English rote phrases.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Does his mother speak any of those languages? Or all of them perhaps?

Quite.

If he knew a language which his mother does not, that would be much more persuasive than being told, by his mother, that he knows four languages.

Or, as mentioned earlier on, if he could describe, via his mother, anything which she does not already know (such as the object in a picture he has seen but she has not) that would be compelling.

 

[arthwollipot]

Yes, and he was using his own arm, hand and finger. It is very rapid. Something he has been doing with her since he was a kid. He speaks four languages so he clearly has intellectual faculties.

Are any of them languages that his facilitator does not speak?

The mother strongly denies she is the author of Woody's works.

Of course she does. If she were to tell the truth, she would be revealed to the world as a manipulative fraud and abuser. She's sunk far too much cost into this scam to ever let that happen.

Yesterday, I watched half a YouTube video claiming cats and dogs came back in spirit form after death, quoting Edgar Cayce as the authority in this. I mean, when watching YouTube, suspend credulity and view it as the 'entertainment' it is, instead of seeing it as gospel truth, and what could be more entertaining than controversy on a sensitive topic?

You consider fraud and abuse to be entertaining?

 

[Skeptical Greg]

Kindle informed me I had read 12% of the book after barely half hour's reading. So I am expecting it to be short.

The pages aren't numbered?

 

[arthwollipot]

Facilitated Communication Is Still Pseudoscience

Facilitated communication is a harmful pseudoscientific technique that has managed to survive through rebranding and deception.

sciencebasedmedicine.org