A NATURALISTIC APPROACH TO THE VALIDATION OF FACILITATED COMMUNICATION

By manipulating the facilitator's knowledge of a student's just-completed activity, facilitated communication ability and the extent of guiding were assessed. Seven students diagnosed with mental retardation and their facilitators participated in the study. All 7 students were purported at the start of the study to be communicating via facilitation at levels far above what was previously thought possible given their level of intellectual ability. A large degree of facilitator guiding was revealed for each of the 4 facilitators. Minimal evidence of facilitation was found for 4 of the 7 students. One of the 7 students demonstrated validated facilitated communication on two trials.