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

[zooterkin]

The pages aren't numbered?

They usually aren't on a Kindle; the 'page' size depends on the size of the font and line spacing chosen.

 

[Pixel42]

Page number is in fact one of the five options available when you tap the bottom left hand corner of your Kindle's screen. It will indeed vary according to the font etc settings, which is probably why 'Loc' is one of the other options - I've always assumed that was a location which doesn't so vary, though I've never bothered to look it up to check. The other options are time left in chapter and time left in book, which are calculated based on the learned reading speed of the owner, and just leaving it blank.

ETA: this is all based on the Kindle model I currently have, it's possible that other models vary.

 

[Vixen]

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?

Just because SOME disabled people cheat the system, it doesn't follow they ALL do.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Just because SOME disabled people cheat the system, it doesn't follow they ALL do.

The disabled people are not the ones cheating. Nobody said they all do.

 

[Vixen]

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.

So she hasn't met him in person. She's looked at a brief video demo, read the Wikipedia and decided she's an expert in spotting cheating disabled people just because they have support in their disability. In the UK the disabled are protected under the Disability Act and entitled to demand support.

 

[Vixen]

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

If you read his interviews - there is one in the OP - you can see all those questions are addressed. Helping someone with severe autism is not ipso facto a pseudoscience.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Pretending someone with severe autism is communicating with you is not helping them.

 

[Safe-Keeper]

Not sure if this has been posted already, but streaming channel TODAY uncritically featured Woddy Brown and his mom and (perhaps surprisingly) got righteously slammed in the comments.

 

[Vixen]

Facilitated Communication has been disproved.

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

Give it a name as invented by a jaded eye 'investigative' journalist and it becomes true based on one or two outliers. So if your guru told you to jump off a cliff because he says so presumably you'd do it. Do you have any other source apart from the wiki extract you cling to as your proof autistic people cannot be novelists?

 

[zooterkin]

If you read his interviews - there is one in the OP - you can see all those questions are addressed. Helping someone with severe autism is not ipso facto a pseudoscience.

"His interviews". You do realise they all come via his mother?

 

[Vixen]

What is the relevance of this?

I am pointing out that watching a video produced by a YouTuber with strong views doesn't make those views true.

 

[zooterkin]

Give it a name as invented by a jaded eye 'investigative' journalist and it becomes true based on one or two outliers. So if your guru told you to jump off a cliff because he says so presumably you'd do it. Do you have any other source apart from the wiki extract you cling to as your proof autistic people cannot be novelists?

So you've not bothered to read even just the wikipedia page, let alone any of the links from it?

 

[Vixen]

And what evidence are you basing this statement on?

Well, when Boris Johnson claims to understand Ancient Greek classics no-one indignantly produces YouTubes in protest, yet when a disabled person does it, lips start curling with disgust, unaware that autism doesn't mean 'learning disability'.

 

[Vixen]

So you've not bothered to read even just the wikipedia page, let alone any of the links from it?

If you bothered to read Helen's extract it very clearly states some third party moving the disabled person's hand. I pointed out that no-one was moving Woody's hand but as expected, this was ignored as people like to cling onto cherished dogma without thought or question.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

I sympathise with the mother. She desperately wants this to be true. Here's the thing though. It isn't.

This case is essentially the same as any number of JREF threads about people who claimed to receive messages which nobody else could perceive.

When she can receive a message with verifiable information she does not already know, wake me up.

 

[zooterkin]

Well, when Boris Johnson claims to understand Ancient Greek classics no-one indignantly produces YouTubes in protest, yet when a disabled person does it, lips start curling with disgust, unaware that autism doesn't mean 'learning disability'.

Because Johnson can speak for himself, and we know he went to a public school where Greek was on the curriculum. Which is irrelevant. I'm asking you to examine the source of the information that he can speak four languages. Have you heard him speak any of them? Have you seen him? Are they languages his mother cannot speak?

 

[zooterkin]

If you bothered to read Helen's extract it very clearly states some third party moving the disabled person's hand. I pointed out that no-one was moving Woody's hand but as expected, this was ignored as people like to cling onto cherished dogma without thought or question.

Ah, right, so you want a completely different name for the mother interpreting random movements however she chooses, instead of moving the hand where she chooses?

Could you explain how the two are different in effect?

And, did you read any more of the the wikipedia entry than the summary quoted?

 

[Vixen]

@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?

I have an open mind. As I stated up thread I suspect his mum has put a lot of herself into his novel. OTOH I also acknowledge that this guy very likely is highly intelligent and well-educated and entitled to publish his novels, get an education and his well-earned degree as I doubt they are handed out like sweets even by liberal bleeding hearts. IOW I give Woody the benefit of a doubt until proven otherwise.

 

[Vixen]

Because Johnson can speak for himself, and we know he went to a public school where Greek was on the curriculum. Which is irrelevant. I'm asking you to examine the source of the information that he can speak four languages. Have you heard him speak any of them? Have you seen him? Are they languages his mother cannot speak?

Woody went to an ordinary High School where he graduated with AA . Then he got a bachelor's in English from UCLA and a Masters from Columbia. Just because he's visibly disabled it doesn't follow he's incapable of it.

Yet. IIRC people had no problem recognising the rights of autistic persons with Tourettes.

 

[Vixen]

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

Erm, a person with autism is capable of high level learning.