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

[Vixen]

What this thread plainly shows is how she has "got away" with it, when a person with poor critical thinking skills sees what is happening they aren't able to analyse what they see, they need to rely on others and as we know DK is strongest with those that lack such skills. It's not surprising "he" has excelled at shall we say a "softer" subject, if she had been claiming he had great mathematical skills it would soon have been very apparent in his schooling and university courses that he had no such skills. That his skills matches that of his mother's skills is of course totally coincidental....

Creative writing is hardly a soft skill, when most IQ tests test verbal cognitive ability. Most 'idiot savants' as it were, are great at numbers-type skills.

 

[angrysoba]

Oh god. This thread has grown by 9 pages suddenly, and I can see it is going to be endless drivel and people responding to drivel.

“I heard from a good gentleman friend of mine… so I think it is fair to surmise….” Etc…

 

[zooterkin]

Creative writing is hardly a soft skill, when most IQ tests test verbal cognitive ability. Most 'idiot savants' as it were, are great at numbers-type skills.

Another straw man. Darat said 'softer', which is a comparative, not an absolute. English composition is undoubtedly 'softer' than maths or physics, because there is no 'right' answer. I thought you claimed high IQ and therefore verbal cognitive ability, so you really should understand this.

The most salient point, which is what is making that whooshing noise overhead, is that it's the same skill that his mother has.

 

[Vixen]

Another straw man. Darat said 'softer', which is a comparative, not an absolute. English composition is undoubtedly 'softer' than maths or physics, because there is no 'right' answer. I thought you claimed high IQ and therefore verbal cognitive ability, so you really should understand this.

The most salient point, which is what is making that whooshing noise overhead, is that it's the same skill that his mother has.

If we are going to get personal, I am out.

 

[Helen]

Crazy coincidence; Mary Brown worked as a story analyst in Hollywood for years, until she retired to facilitate communication instead.

 

[Helen]

If we are going to get personal, I am out.

I thought you were into that? What with telling us that we patronise woody, that we don't think disabled people can be intelligent, and decided fc was a scam after listening to a youtuber.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

@Vixen

Vixen, I apologize if have already answered this, but, in your opinion, what would be the difference in tapping on letters on a 'touch board' and tapping on a touch screen made to look like the 'touch board', where the tapping would actually be recorded in some manner?

 

[Vixen]

I thought you were into that? What with telling us that we patronise woody, that we don't think disabled people can be intelligent, and decided fc was a scam after listening to a youtuber.

That was not personal. If someone disagrees with you in a debate that is hardly something to get angry about if you are an objective person. Bringing in someone's personal characteristics out of nowhere is mystifying to me. If people don't like others having a different POV there is always Reddit, if a one-sided topic is all you can tolerate.

 

[catsmate]

Creative writing is hardly a soft skill, when most IQ tests test verbal cognitive ability. Most 'idiot savants' as it were, are great at numbers-type skills.

More strawmannery.

 

[Vixen]

@Vixen

Vixen, I apologize if have already answered this, but, in your opinion, what would be the difference in tapping on letters on a 'touch board' and tapping on a touch screen made to look like the 'touch board', where the tapping would actually be recorded in some manner?

AIUI part of Woody Brown's syndrome apart from being autistic is some associated dyspraxia and dyskinesia, so due to his high anxiety, he looks away whilst he's tapping in order to watch whatever he needs to distract him in his other screen. He has attention deficit so unlike you or I, he is unable to sit in front of a PC and keyboard typing up whatever it is.

Mom distracts him when she wants to communicate with him and has taught him to respond sporadically at brief moments on the touch board. I am presuming that over time - since childhood - some kind of shorthand coding has developed which is why every word doesn't need to be spelt out in full.

The only way to validate all this is having expert clinical psychologists to research what interaction is taking place, if any.

 

[junkshop]

Thread is dead. Shame, it could have been interesting.

 

[Matthew Best]

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

That does not seem to be in any way an answer to my question, which was: "Does his mother speak any of those languages?"

If you don't know the answer, you can just say "I don't know", instead of responding with a complete non-sequitur.

 

[zooterkin]

If we are going to get personal, I am out.

Evasion noted, again.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

AIUI part of Woody Brown's syndrome apart from being autistic is some associated dyspraxia and dyskinesia, so due to his high anxiety, he looks away whilst he's tapping in order to watch whatever he needs to distract him in his other screen. He has attention deficit so unlike you or I, he is unable to sit in front of a PC and keyboard typing up whatever it is.

Mom distracts him when she wants to communicate with him and has taught him to respond sporadically at brief moments on the touch board. I am presuming that over time - since childhood - some kind of shorthand coding has developed which is why every word doesn't need to be spelt out in full.

You really did not address my question in any meaningful way, if at all. My suggestion had nothing to do with a PC keyboard..

The only way to validate all this is having expert clinical psychologists to research what interaction is taking place, if any.

It seems that they have..

 

[Safe-Keeper]

Thread is dead. Shame, it could have been interesting.

Don't know how much more useful information could've been had. We've established the mom is a fraud and using her kid with a disability as a prop for her scam. If anything from here on out is a certain poster Estoniawalling, not sure if much of value has been lost.

I liked the premise of this thread, though. It felt like the good old days when Randi was alive and people were talking about debunking and critical thinking all the time. It was so much fun diving into how various charlatans did their tricks.

 

[Darat]

AIUI part of Woody Brown's syndrome apart from being autistic is some associated dyspraxia and dyskinesia, so due to his high anxiety, he looks away whilst he's tapping in order to watch whatever he needs to distract him in his other screen. He has attention deficit so unlike you or I, he is unable to sit in front of a PC and keyboard typing up whatever it is.

Mom distracts him when she wants to communicate with him and has taught him to respond sporadically at brief moments on the touch board. I am presuming that over time - since childhood - some kind of shorthand coding has developed which is why every word doesn't need to be spelt out in full.

The only way to validate all this is having expert clinical psychologists to research what interaction is taking place, if any.

When did you get access to his diagnosis?

 

[arthwollipot]

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

Every claim of facilitated communication that has been reliably tested has failed to demonstrate that there is anything going on other than the facilitator originating the messages. Every claim. For decades. Eventually they stop allowing themselves to be tested, giving all the excuses that we all recognise.

So it's fraud because Helen and a YouTuber are convinced it is?

No, it's a fraud because it has been repeatedly demonstrated under controlled conditions to be a fraud. Repeatedly. For decades.

Do you have a citation other than an angry YouTuber that his mother is the only person who has ever communicated with Woody?

Do you have a citation that she isn't?

Yes and he brought out a book so SOMEONE put his words into publishable form.

Someone put someone's words into publishable form. There's no evidence that they were Woody's words. That they were his mother's words fits all available facts.

It's no different from a foreign language interpreter or a sign language expert.

It's completely different. Language interpreters can be independently verified as to their accuracy. There's nobody verifying that the words his mother reports are actually his and not hers.

And that's the case with every example of FC that has ever been tested, for decades.

But is she demanding you accept her claim? People are free to be sceptical. It doesn't mean the person on the receiving end of it has to jump through your hoops.

Yawn. This is the exact same excuse that every psychic, dowser, and clairvoyant has used to avoid rigorous testing of their claims. "Oh, I don't need the million dollars". "Oh, why should I jump through your hoops" "Oh you're just biased and the test isn't fair".

Give me a break. We've been seeing these excuses for decades. Look through the old "Million Dollar Challenge" subforum in the archive some day. You'll see all these excuses being brought out again and again and again.

 

[EHocking]

Creative writing is hardly a soft skill, when most IQ tests test verbal cognitive ability. Most 'idiot savants' as it were, are great at numbers-type skills.

Your bigotry (either that or you 19th century understanding of psychology) is showing.

The term is “autistic savant”. It is your own claim that he is intelligent, therefore, calling him an “idiot” is a disgusting slur on a handicapped person that shows your underlying sense of your own mental superior to anyone else in the room with you.

 

[Lithrael]

Here's a link to Professor Dave's video on the Telepath Tapes:


Warning, he does get het up on stuff like this and doesn't hold back.

Ah shoot! I was gonna watch this, but now the Telepathy Tapes guys got it copyright struck. So it's gone.

I tried searching the name and found some true believers saying not to listen to him because he's an ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊, just like that James Randi guy.

 

[Vixen]

Every claim of facilitated communication that has been reliably tested has failed to demonstrate that there is anything going on other than the facilitator originating the messages. Every claim. For decades. Eventually they stop allowing themselves to be tested, giving all the excuses that we all recognise.


No, it's a fraud because it has been repeatedly demonstrated under controlled conditions to be a fraud. Repeatedly. For decades.


Do you have a citation that she isn't?


Someone put someone's words into publishable form. There's no evidence that they were Woody's words. That they were his mother's words fits all available facts.


It's completely different. Language interpreters can be independently verified as to their accuracy. There's nobody verifying that the words his mother reports are actually his and not hers.

And that's the case with every example of FC that has ever been tested, for decades.


Yawn. This is the exact same excuse that every psychic, dowser, and clairvoyant has used to avoid rigorous testing of their claims. "Oh, I don't need the million dollars". "Oh, why should I jump through your hoops" "Oh you're just biased and the test isn't fair".

Give me a break. We've been seeing these excuses for decades. Look through the old "Million Dollar Challenge" subforum in the archive some day. You'll see all these excuses being brought out again and again and again.

You have a few misconceptions here. The controversy in psychology over conditions such as severe autism was (a) claims it could be 'cured', and (b) the morality and ethics of claiming people with severe learning difficulties (SLD) are effectively communicating when they do not have that capacity, i.e., exploitation. Woody has severe autism but he does not have SLD, quite the reverse, unless his college, university tutors and publishers are conning the public. So if Woody has the intellectual ability to understand, learn and communicate, he is not SLD and all the hysteria about 'debunking' and 'pseudoscience' just because he is severely disabled yet able to communicate is coming from people who haven't actually done their homework and are just mindlessly jumping on a bandwagon. It is of course possible it is all one big gimmick but there is nothing to suggest that so far.