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

[Vixen]

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.

The onus is on the person making the claim. If you want to prove he's a fraud and knows no language at all let alone English the onus is on you to prove it. Digging up a video of an angry outraged YouTuber or a wiki extract citing some guy strongly opposed to disabled people being assisted in expressing themselves is not proof Woody is a con merchant.

 

[zooterkin]

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

Dodge noted.

 

[zooterkin]

The onus is on the person making the claim.

Indeed. That person is the mother.

 

[Vixen]

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


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.


You consider fraud and abuse to be entertaining?

So it's fraud because Helen and a YouTuber are convinced it is? Well, I am more open-minded because I have actually studied the physiology of the brain and psychopathology. I took part in a roundtable discussion at a charity for Aphasia sufferers. Most of their clients had lost the ability to produce language - hopefully, temporarily, as a result of for most of them, a stroke - and I could see by how intently they listened that of course they were 'all there' so to speak even if they couldn't find the words to respond. So some YouTuber claiming to have carried out their own observation on a short clip and declaring them fraudulent would be outrageous IMV.

 

[catsmate]

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

Strawman. No one has suggested and disabled person is cheating anything.

 

[Vixen]

The pages aren't numbered?

Not on this kindle. It just gives location.

 

[catsmate]

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.

Sigh. Yet more nonsensical strawmannery.

 

[catsmate]

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.

But Facilitated Communication is.

 

[catsmate]

Give it a name as invented by a jaded eye 'investigative' journalist and it becomes true based on one or two outliers.

Facilitated Communication is not a term invented by a journalist, it is a clinical descriptor.

So if your guru told you to jump off a cliff because he says so presumably you'd do it.

Oh good grief, this is just silly.

Do you have any other source apart from the wiki extract you cling to as your proof autistic people cannot be novelists?

Strawman. No one has made such a claim.

 

[catsmate]

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'.

More nonsensical strawmannery.

 

[Darat]

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

Why do you say the mother is disabled?

 

[Vixen]

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.

Those are exactly the sentiments of the crusader - I forget his name - who justifies his takedown of disabled people by stating oh it's just poor mothers desperately sorry for their severely disabled kids and I am so desperately sorry for them and it is all very sad but sorry, I refuse to accept the kid is capable of learning. So there.

But that's just his view. Wheeled out like he's an expert and not just some jumped up hack churning out clickbait.

Probably also misogynistic cos you know, Mums.

 

[Darat]

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.

What has this to do with this thread?

 

[Darat]

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?

The name is the name given to the technique by the people who first came up with the"technique" decades ago, no journalist named it that.

 

[Darat]

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'.

That is a fantasy only existing in your mind, like facilitated communication is a fantasy that only exists in the mind of the facilitator.

 

[Vixen]

The name is the name given to the technique by the people who first came up with the"technique" decades ago, no journalist named it that.

And the 'technique' was the Ouija board one. But Woody uses his OWN hand so please stop making out he uses that 'technique'.

 

[Vixen]

That is a fantasy only existing in your mind, like facilitated communication is a fantasy that only exists in the mind of the facilitator.

Simply labelling Woody Brown's achievements as FC doesn't make it so. It is just an assumption based on his autism.

 

[Darat]

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.

Woody went to an ordinary school in which his communication in class and homework was facilitated by his mother, the same for all his lectures at university and all his essays there and for his novel and it is the same for every single textual communication ever claimed to have originated from him. He has not been able to communicate textually via anyone but his mother.

 

[Darat]

And the 'technique' was the Ouija board one. But Woody uses his OWN hand so please stop making out he uses that 'technique'.

He does not use any technique, he engages in actions he has been trained to make to make his mother pleased.

You have been fooled.

If you examine the video of him answering the interview question you can see that he does not tap out the letters to the words his mother claims he was typing.

 

[zooterkin]

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.

You're right, displaying the page number is an option on some Kindles (it is on my Paperwhite, it doesn't seem to be on my Kindle keyboard, which just shows percentage read). And, by itself, doesn't indicate how far you've got as I think unless you go to the last page, you don't know how many pages there are.