SIO457: Facilitated Communication is Fake, with Kelly Burke

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:17 Thomas: Hello, and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only. This is episode 457. I'm your host, Thomas Smith, and I've got such a great episode for you today. Guest is Kelly Burke. She's been on before, she last told us, I believe, about... Wakefield. And yes, you know, you and I, and probably everybody everybody listening knew that he was full of shit, but I, for one, didn't know just how full of shit he was in those studies and everything. And Kelly took us through that. She was fantastic. Go check that episode out if you didn't catch it. But this time Kelly is telling us about something more directly within her experience or her work experience and expertise. And it's really fascinating. So once again, I imagine a skeptical audience like you folks knows that facilitated communication is not a real thing. It's not real. It is not actual. It is very harmful and sad in many ways. And we are going to talk about it. There is a lot about that that I didn't know. There is also other rebrandings of it that I did not know about that Kelly is going to tell us about. And Kelly is also going to tell us how this should actually work. Not facilitated communication, but how actually helping people who might be nonverbal or have other reasons they can't communicate that way, finding ways to help them find their quote unquote voice in other ways. It's really fascinating. Know, Stephen Hawking is a very famous example, but that's not exactly a typical case. There are lots of other reasons that people might not be able to communicate verbally or even using sign language or anything like that. And there are ways that it can be done with the help of dedicated, persistent, and patient professionals that aren't just Ouija boards and speaking for them. And it's really fascinating to learn about that from someone who has experience with it. I can't wait for you all to hear it. Why, which you can avoid at patreon.com/seriouspod. Get rid of the ads. Have you heard these ads lately? They suck. People keep telling me they hear right wing ads, by the way, that's awesome. I firmly, I need to put this like in a disclaimer somewhere, but if people are playing right wing adds on this show, that is a, not just a win, not just a win-win, but it's like a triple win. That means those people are wasting their money because you're not going to buy their right wing message. That means they aren't getting to advertise to the people who will want to hear them and might be susceptible to their message and their money instead of going to right -wing shows that would probably want those ads is going to this small time left-wing podcaster. So it's a win-win-win, though it's lost for your ears. Sorry about that. But anyway, avoid all that at patreon.com/seriouspod. And thank you to those who have pledged and make the show happen. You're the best. All right. After this break. Let's get on over to Kelly Burke, welcome back to the show.

0:03:23 Kelly: I'm glad to be back.

0:03:24 Thomas: Absolutely. It's been way too long. I can't remember. Well, I can remember yesterday, so that's not saying much, but I'm so pleased to have you back. Really fascinating topic today. We're going to talk facilitated communication, something I know a lot of our skeptic audience will be somewhat familiar with.

0:03:39 Kelly: Yeah, it's a topic that's been on my mind for a while. And then a documentary came out recently. It's called Tell Them You Love Me on Netflix. And it heavily features facilitated communication. So it prompted me to reach out to you.

0:03:52 Thomas: Is it totally cool and totally chill?

0:03:55 Kelly: All the time.

0:03:56 Thomas: The documentary or is it not totally cool

0:03:59 Kelly: No, yeah. So the documentary is rough. It is very hard to watch. Watch. What happens is there is a facilitated communication teacher who starts working with this student and then ends up in a sexual relationship with him, which is not consensual because facilitated communications is bullshit.

0:04:21 Thomas: Interesting.

0:04:21 Kelly: Yeah, so trigger warning on the documentary, but I'm not going to get into those pieces of it. I'm going to focus mostly on the communication piece, because I'm in this weird intersection of skepticism and special education. And I kind of live in both worlds. And I find that skeptics very often do know that facilitated communication is bullshit, but they don't necessarily know what real alternative communication looks like. In the special ed world, a lot of people just don't even know what what facilitated communication is, which is especially scary to me, because they're the ones who might see these red flags, if a family decides to start using it with their student or things like that. I was actually in a PD session where, at the end of the session, they showed what they thought was this uplifting, heartwarming story about a non -speaking person giving a speech, but they were using facilitated communications the whole time. And I had to reach out to the people who ran the PD and tell them, hey, that's actually not a legit method of communication yeah but a lot of people just don't know don't realize it oh

0:05:27 Thomas: Yeah that and are you just saying like professional development is that pd or is there some other oh gosh yeah just making sure there wasn't some other uh thing you're specializing yeah so the kind of thing where the yeah I see there's two groups you're in and uh it's like like one, the twain need to meet in different ways. So it really scares me that people aren't familiar with the fact that facilitated communication is, at least can be bullshit. I can't remember if there's any like real version of it or is that just called something else?

0:05:32 Kelly: Yes, professional development yeah

0:05:57 Thomas: Okay.

0:05:56 Kelly: That's just something else um

0:05:57 Thomas: So it's just bullshit. And the factthat like people don't know that, like, yeah. As that document, I haven't seen that documentary sounds horrific, but as that shows, like there's There's going to be real risks to this if you don't, if you aren't aware of what this is for sure.

0:06:12 Kelly: And on a more positive note, at least the speech language pathologists that I work with they are aware of it like people who are very deep in the speech world but other special education teachers or other people in education in general I find have no idea um

0:06:26 Thomas: Okay. So where'd you want to start today?

0:06:28 Kelly: I kind of just want to go over what facilitated communication is. I think a lot of people in skeptic circles do know what it is, but I think also a lot people thought that we kind of quashed it a while ago, and so people who are newer to skepticism might not know. Facilitated communication goes by a couple names, now that people have debunked facilitated communication. Now they'll call it typing

0:06:51 Thomas: You got got to to rebrand, you know?

0:06:53 Kelly: To communicate or supported typing, typing which makes it sound really legit typing is a great way to communicate uh but it's not um

0:07:03 Thomas: And remind me, it is basically turning a person into a Ouija board, right? Or is there using a person as a Ouijiboard? So yeah, it's not a board. It's a word helpy thingy. And it's like, rename it something. And then all of a sudden, you people aren't going to be aware that that's also the bullshit thing.

0:07:09 Kelly: Um basically the facilitator is going to be either holding the person's hand helping them isolate their finger or holding onto their sleeve sometimes or their forearm and they say that it is to help the person stabilize uh actually what they found when they tested it is that it's just the facilitator who's doing the movement yeah

0:07:41 Thomas: Yeah. And this feels like something pretty easily testable. Hey, blindfold the person doing it or something. And then see if you get the same results. Right.

0:07:50 Kelly: You would think it's pretty easily testable and actually there are a lot of great tests for it but people within facilitated communication will do less direct tests and so they're like oh we track their eye movements and they were going towards the letters and so that's why we think that they are the authors of these messages and meanwhile you have actual scientists who are are testing it. And the results are absolutely insane. Like as somebody who loves science and has seen a lot of studies, you know, when you see something that has an effect or doesn't have an effect, it's not like these big, dramatic, oh, 100 % of the time it works or 0 % of time it works. But in this case, it is.

0:08:33 Thomas: Yeah. This isn't really like taking a multivitamin or something that might like, okay, there could be like something. This is like either it has to work or not. It's pretty binary.

0:08:43 Kelly: Yeah. And so they'll do tests to blind it. Basically, what What they'll do is they'll show the facilitator a picture and then they have this cool little flippy folder thing where as they turn the picture towards the communicator, it down to show a different picture. So the facilitater thinks they're showing literally the same picture, but the person who is allegedly doing the typing is seeing something different. And what they found is 100 % of the time when they get it right, it's when they saw the same picture. And when they don't see the same picture, they get it right exactly zero percent of the time.

0:09:16 Thomas: Way. Wow. That's pretty clear. So the theory would be, there are people who, I, I mean, are in forms of what, like kind of paralysis where it's like they, would need someone to have the ability to communicate at least like mentally or to be able to form kind of the message that they want to tell somebody, but just not the physical ability to either type or write it or say it or anything like that. And that does at least, like, that state of, you kind of being does exist, right?

0:09:45 Kelly: Yeah. So that's the population that's targeted by this is actually the exact population I work with. This this is what I'm doing every day is taking students who don't don't Have speech, and who have a lot of motor impairments or orthopedic impairments. And so we're trying to figure out the best way for them to communicate. And so as you go through everything that facilitated communication is, there's all these giant red flags that stick out to me as a special educator.

0:10:13 Thomas: Yeah. But that must be really interesting and inspiring work, I'm sure.

0:10:17 Kelly: Is. It's great. And I think something that I love about it is that we are constantly problem solving, like trying to find a way to communicate with our students. Student to access their communication. And I think one of the things that is the biggest red flag that any skeptic would know from looking at alternative medicine or all these other pseudosciences is as technology has progressed, we have so many amazing things that can help our students communicate and facilitate communication has stayed exactly the same through all that time. All all this new technology does not help them at all because they think that they've just got it solved it

0:10:58 Thomas: Yeah it's like a divination rod. I'm sure that people who do that or whatever, sorry, no, that's a divining rod is probably the same thing now, unless that, you know, maybe they make them out of titanium now or something. No, I don't know. But like, it's, it'S like something that doesn't work, but has an old timey appeal to it. You can't really update that technology.

0:11:17 Kelly: Is exactly but I think it would be really cool to kind of go through all the red flags from facilitated communication and talk about how we account for or do those things with real um called aac alternative or augmentative communication which is just any alternative method that a student uses to communicate or something that they use to enhance their communication, make it more clear.

0:11:39 Thomas: Sure. Yeah. I was, I was going to ask you for a cool example, but maybe you're going to get to that kind of as we go. What do you think?

0:11:45 Kelly: Yeah, definitely.

0:11:46 Thomas: Okay, cool. So

0:11:47 Kelly: First red flag, like you caught immediately, is the ideomotor effect. So you have somebody holding the student's hand, isolating their finger, or in the case of rapid prompting method, which is a similar method to to facilitate communication, they'll be holding the letter board up. In those cases, it's subject to the ideomotor effect where it's like a Ouija board. They are slightly influencing it, but don't necessarily realize it. As a special educator, there are a lot of things that we do specifically to ensure that we're not having those influences. The first thing we'll do is make sure that our students' devices are mounted on something that does not move. Or even if it's, you know, something a little bit more flexible, it's that we are not controlling the movement. They are doing things completely independently. Or we'll have students hold their own communication devices.

0:12:38 Thomas: Depending on their kind of their abilities or yeah.

0:12:40 Kelly: Exactly. Yeah. And so, facilitated communication proponents will say that it's necessary to hold the person's arm or hand to help stabilize them. In the documentary, Henry, the person who it was following, the facilitator, said, if you've got cerebral palsy, you might be able to get your hand to something you're pointing at, but it might take a minute. And how do you have a conversation like that? And I think that was the first moment where I actually yelled at the screen, because all you have to do is, if it takes a minute, wait a goddamn minute.

0:13:09 Thomas: Yeah. This is, but this is not fast enough. So I need to say things for them.

0:13:14 Kelly: Exactly. But we can account for that by waiting a minute it. We also have things that can help students who don't have that fine motor to be able to type or touch. We have key guards that can kind of raise up. And so it's easier for them to differentiate between keys. So it's basically like plastic that goes on the lines between the keys so they can move their hands along the plastic and then only press down when they get to the one they're looking for, as opposed to like swiping across the whole screen. Direct selection where where you're reaching out and touching a or a letter or an iPad isn't the only way for students to access. Most of my students don't use direct selection. They'll use what are called switches, which essentially a switch is a button, but they can take a lot of different forms. So we have them in all different sizes and in a variety of locations. So I'll have students that use their their head to hit a button. I had a student that drove a power wheelchair using her knees. So we had a button at each of her knees that she could hit to turn and then between her knees to go forward, I believe it was. We can look at where the student has the most mobility or the most consistent, reliable movement. And we can utilize that rather than forcing them to use their hand and touch something.

0:14:30 Kelly: Then on top of that, we have switches that can be activated by touch. So they don't have to actually press a button or like proximity when you get a certain distance from it. Have some that are like little joysticks that you toggle. We even have some activated by eye blink, which is really cool. It can be a little tough because you also blink naturally.

0:14:48 Thomas: Never blink again unless you're sending a message. Yeah. That would be tough.

0:14:52 Kelly: But I have had students that have had pretty reliable eye blink because they do a nice, really long blink for yes or two blinks for no, things like that. So it can work. And then once the student has a switch and a reliable spot, we can use that to help them access a communication device. So if they have only one really reliable spot where they have movement, then we can have it go through their choices on their communication device and then they hit the button when it gets to the one that they want. So they'll hit it to start scanning through and then they'll hit it and make their selection and as a student gets more proficient with this it can be you going through categories and then it'll take them into a folder so they might go through like three different sequences and they'll have a really robust vocabulary even though all they're doing is pressing this one button.

0:15:41 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. It is really cool that it's like, it's gotta be such a custom thing. Like, it's just like for each person, I'm sure they may have any number of combinations or different kind of abilities to, you signal in some way, as you're saying. And so it's like, there's no, there're no one size fits all on this. It's like you got to really work with the person where they are.

0:16:00 Kelly: Yeah exactly and so as a teacher we're just looking for what they are doing what is most comfortable for them and then trying to see how we can mold the communication to them rather than trying to make them mold to our communication system, which is a huge difference from facilitated communication where they're like, this is the system that we use and everybody will participate in it no how much we have to hold their hand and move it for them. Now there's even eye gaze technology. So students can look at a screen and it'll track their eyes. And when they spend a certain amount of time and you can set it based on how comfortable or what the student is and how good are with the device, when they look at a spot for a certain amount of time, it'll select that word.

0:16:42 Thomas: I am sure there's a lot of calibration that it goes into this kind of thing but yeah it's really cool wow

0:16:46 Kelly: Yeah. And it takes a lot of time and a lot of practice. And that actually brings me to the next big red flag, which is the time piece of it. The documentary, they, in their first session, went right into spelling. And the person claims that this person who had very limited communication before had just absorbed the information from being around his mom and his brother. And that's why he could suddenly spell instantly. Was looking at the facilitated typing to communicate info page. It said, because each person is unique, learning to type is an individualized process. It may take considerable time to achieve success, sometimes weeks or months. Meanwhile, using actual communication, it takes years for our students to become proficient with their communication devices. And then in these cases, they're just instantly spelling. And they'll claim that students have been absorbing it, but they always talk about this unexpected literacy. And that's a huge red flag that a student just suddenly is able to spell words that they've never seen or encountered, let alone been asked to spell before.

0:17:47 Thomas: And these people doing this they don't sell it as like some supernatural paranormal thing they're just straight up yeah yeah

0:18:00 Kelly: They treat it as as if you've like this person that was trapped inside which is also why it's really hard to combat because when you're telling somebody that it isn't real it feels like you're taking away their child or their sibling like but what you're really doing is trying to make sure that it's actually their voice that they're using

0:18:16 Thomas: It is like the kind of things where I know these stories are obviously just so sad but there will be like psychics who claim they are like communicating with the ghost You know, of a dead child. And it's like, it's all misery all around. It's like yeah, I mean, I I don't can't imagine wanting to do anything less than take anything away from someone who's lost a loved one like that. But also like, that's bullshit. And the person doing it is, you is these people, you You know, in a way, it's like they're making money off of this and it's not real.

0:18:50 Kelly: Exactly and on top of that like with with facilitated communication, not only are they victimizing these people, but they're taking away their opportunity to actually learn how to communicate. Like I said, it takes years with our students.

0:19:03 Thomas: Oh, I didn't even think about that. My brain, I was just like, oh, they're just trying it with people who probably maybe they actually can't communicate. But it's, like, no, they could probably really do it if you do it right. I didn't even think about that.

0:19:14 Kelly: And that's the thing. Anyone can communicate. It's just a matter of what that communication looks like. So if you're spending years and years using FC and they will just take it for granted that it works, they won't test it. And so then you have people who are going through high school and going to college using FC when meanwhile, they could have been spending all of this time actually learning how to communicate and making their voice heard. And once you're out of school, you don't have the same opportunities to get those services. Like you might be able to get speech therapy, but we're working, you eight hours a day on communication with our students. Like that's something that you can't get once you're not school age anymore.

0:19:53 Thomas: It must be so weird. I wonder what it's like for the person if they're, like aware that this is, like bullshit, but they haven't, you know, like that must be hellish.

0:20:03 Kelly: Of like the timing piece, that red flag is, is one of the biggest ones. Like we, like I said, spend eight hours a day working with our students and it might take years for them to, you one word at a time on their device. And so you see them instantly typing these sentences, like giving speeches and going to conferences and things like like that. And meanwhile, like with our students, what we see is actual language development. And you see it mirroring the same things that it does with little kids who are learning language.

0:20:33 Kelly: So you'll see them. I had a student who, when we started using his device, he would just repeat whatever you said. Like that's something that a toddler would do when you're speaking to them and they're first learning how to talk. Or things like babbling, where they're like pressing things, but not necessarily paying attention to what they're doing. They're just practicing and listening to what it sounds like and getting used to the system. When you see development that's actually mirroring typical language development, it shows you that this student is actually developing language and communication, not

0:21:02 Thomas: Yeah, I think again, I think I'm doing too many assumptions because like there's there's gotta be a range of different ways that people come to this, right? Is it a question like, or are you working with a certain kind of person who's been in a certain set of circumstances? Mean, are there people who had an accident? Are there people who are, you know, like, is there a range of ways that people are kind

0:21:22 Kelly: I've worked with a range of students. Most of my students have pretty significant disabilities from the time that they're born. So they'll be in my school from when they're three years old to 21. we have had students who have had some kind of accident or something that caused their disability, and then they'll come to our school. So the approach can be a little bit different, but typically my students don't have that same literacy exposure that you would if and then you suddenly lost it.

0:21:52 Thomas: Gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I was wondering based on what you were saying. Yeah, yeah.

0:21:55 Kelly: So the people who are typically targeted with facilitated communication are not necessarily people who were communicating typically and then suddenly stopped. In those cases, those people could use something like an eye gaze device and be able to spell or things like that. Facilitated communication is usually going to be used. It's the same things that we we see with alternative medicine, people who are frustrated by how slowly AAC learning develops and are not getting the results that they want. And so then they turn to facilitated communication because it looks shinier, just like alternative medicine is where they turn when all the treatments are not quite working.

0:22:36 Thomas: Except like you said I mean there's the every possibility that they're turning to that when it would work otherwise it's just not working you know on their time uh

0:22:45 Kelly: Something else that think is important to to realize too, is we're not just suddenly jumping to using these like high -tech communication devices with my students. We're teaching them to make choices and getting those types of communication reliable. I think that's something that's really missed with the documentary, honestly, is they know, you see this person go through facilitated communication, you find out it wasn't real communication and they're like, oh yeah, this student could never ever communicate but communication isn't just typing it's not just that language it's it's getting your idea across and there were even just watching the documentary they talked about ways that he was communicating they would say he'd like go over and tap on the fridge or like he'd use a smile to show that he liked something like all of that is communication and as teachers we're taking that communication that they're already engaging with and we are molding it into more more conventional communication that people are going to understand. But communication isn't specifically words in English. There are so many different ways that you can communicate. Think another important red flag that I noticed watching the documentary was that that this communication only worked with certain people. It would work with this facilitator who he was eventually in a relationship with, but his mom and his brother were never able to communicate with him. They weren't able to facilitate communication for him.

0:24:14 Thomas: You meant on that okay gotcha so not not like the subject of the the facilitator only certain facilitators yeah that's a red flag. Uh

0:24:22 Kelly: A lot with facilitated communication is that it works with some people and doesn't work with others. And they'll say it's because, is, oh, they're more comfortable with this person or things like that, which can be valid to a certain extent. You know, I have students who are more comfortable talking to one person with another, like they're not interested in working with somebody, so they shut down and ignore them or things like that. But if it's their whole life and they are only communicating with this one or two people, that is a giant red flag. As teachers, we are trying to get students to be able to generalize these skills and and be able to use them with anyone and in facilitated communication they're just like ah it's fine if it only works with a couple people like you know you should try to to other people how to do it but if they're not it and they treat it as the facilitator is doing something wrong as opposed to being a skill that the student is learning yeah

0:25:14 Thomas: At the same time I mean I imagine that not not Not just anyone can come do your job, right? So there's got to be some level of, yeah.

0:25:20 Kelly: But the thing is my goal is not to be facilitating my students' communication by the time they leave me. So they might not be able to do my job and teach a student how to communicate. But when I send my student out into the world, I'm hoping that they can independently use their communication system to talk to other people. So we're trying to get it more conventional and more independent, essentially,

0:25:34 Thomas: Gotcha. Gotcha. Like, I guess that means they no longer need like, or someone to do it. They've they've been unable to learn the skill that means they can communicate with pretty much anyone, right. Is that how it works? Gotcha.

0:25:52 Kelly: Exactly. And something that was really, really heartbreaking. So there was a frontline line documentary about facilitated communication. And one of the lines that just really stood out to me was one of these moms saying that, you child wasn't really able to do the facility communication with her. It was only working with these facilitators. And she was like, if he's talking to all of these people, why isn't he talking to his mom?

0:26:14 Thomas: That's horrible.

0:26:15 Kelly: And I can't imagine being in that situation where you're like, my isn't interested in talking to me. But But in reality, it's just because you were preyed on by this really awful system. Also feel really bad for these facilitators because I think in most cases they don't realize what's happening. They think that they are helping this person to communicate and they are bringing this person out of their shell.

0:26:41 Kelly: And if they find out that it wasn't real the whole time, like that's just heartbreaking breaking because then also you're realizing your role in it. I think a great person to check out if you're interested in learning more about this, Boynton, she was a facilitator and they tested her facilitation in one of those studies and found out that the message wasn't coming from the person who she was facilitating. And a lot of people in that situation would double down or make excuses or things like that but she really came to terms with it and now she speaks out against facilitate communication but she also has talked about how hard it is to realize that like you were doing this without realizing it

0:27:17 Thomas: Wow. Wow, that's incredible. Yeah, for sure. Yeah I think, I mean, I think there's obviously a lot of people who I think are woo merchants who are taking advantage. I think there's a lot people involved in, and I'm not just talking about facilitated communication, you know, other, other things. I Think there's lot of who genuinely think they are doing. I know for sure a lot like just your friends or whatever, they're like, oh, have you tried taking this supplement? It's like, they don't, they are not profiting off it. Like it's just the nature of reality you know that we just we live in a in a reality in which it's really hard to neatly determine cause and effect for different things that you know especially when it comes to humans and they're complicated and all that and there's plenty of people who probably really do think they're doing a good thing and it's that's an inspiring story that must have been really hard for that person yeah

0:28:08 Kelly: And there's a lot of confirmation bias when it comes to this too you in the documentary they cited oh well he told me this thing and this thing that I couldn't have known otherwise so it must have been him him communicating. Meanwhile, as a skeptic, I wonder, but how many things did he tell you that didn't quite pan out and you just decided, oh, maybe I just misunderstood or maybe it was something else that they didn't know either and

0:28:33 Thomas: You're filtering out the the misses

0:28:35 Kelly: Exactly. And one of my favorite that's used by proponents of facilitated communication, I read this in a study um facilitated communication they said that typed fbc when asked to explain these letters she typed a swear word beginning with the letter f and then the teacher's name the initials of which are bc one non -disabled student observed such an incident and told us that obviously the student is the one typing the teacher wouldn't diss herself so they're just assuming that you this student wrote something that wasn't what they think the teacher would have wanted that oh it must be them meanwhile the facilitator doesn't realize that this is what they're doing so they don't think they're dissing themselves they just think that they are following what the student's doing exactly

0:29:24 Thomas: I think by analogy, it'd be like, OK, the Ouija board should only give positive messages to everybody. Otherwise, there's no it's like, no, that's not really how it works. I mean, it's it's a lot of it. I

0:29:48 Kelly: And and back into these these analogies to other areas of skepticism. Honestly, it's like a cold reading. You're starting with a few few letters and then you're like, oh, well, this might mean this. This might mean that. And honestly, as a teacher, I also see some parallels with when my students are first learning language. Like a lot of my students will communicate with just one word and we have to figure out what they're trying to say with that one word. And I have to constantly stop myself from just jumping right in and saying, oh did you mean this? Or like just assuming that I knew what what they meant. Like we need to take a step back and let them add to it or let them explain or try to offer them a bunch of different choices and let let tell you what they were trying to say.

0:30:29 Thomas: And that, that applies to just kids in general too, when they're like young, it's very suggestible. And when they aren't quite communicating, um, Know, at the speed or level that you're wanting, but you're wanting to hear what happened to them that day at daycare or whatever, like it's real, really easy. To just try to fill in the blanks. And then often they'll agree because they don't totally understand it it's actually something that's really easy to do accidentally well

0:30:51 Kelly: Exactly. And so it's really easy for facilitators to just think, oh, they were trying to go towards this word or they they type these letters and it probably stood for that.

0:31:05 Kelly: I can you give those suggestions of what they might mean I'm

0:31:09 Thomas: It would be really cool if you can talk about I some real stories of the kind of communication things you're doing or that what's a success story or what's uh you know there's got to be I times where it felt, like uh, a particular sort of success story in terms of breaking through. I don't know. Is there anything, anything that comes to mind?

0:31:26 Kelly: Tough because like it's usually such a a slow process that like there's not usually those big epiphanies and honestly that's a big piece of it is like facilitated communication feels like this big epiphany and you're breaking through when like Like in reality, communication is this like slow and steady process. I think something that is really interesting to see as a teacher is students like making connections or sharing things in that you don't expect. So I have a student who she did not eat or drink by mouth, but one of the words that was available to her on her communication device was drink and she said drink and I was like I'm not allowed to give you anything to drink so I don't know what you're looking for and she said drink again and I'm sitting there trying to figure it out and finally we realized I had showed her a video of my sister's puppy drinking a puppuccino and she was trying to get me to show her the video again.

0:32:30 Kelly: But she had a limited vocabulary available to her. So that was the word that she could think of to make that connection.

0:32:38 Thomas: That's so cool. It's interesting to think about the difference there. On a surface level, you might think like, oh, isn't that the same? Just like you're completing the kind of the thought for them. But it's like, it's different because you for sure have the word they're giving you. But it'S more like you'RE trying to make sure to interpret it correctly. And I imagine that this person can then kind of confirm it once you do, right?

0:33:02 Kelly: Yeah. And that confirmation piece is the biggest thing. So when I'm working with students, we try to make sure that they have that clear way to confirm as best we can. So a lot of my students, you know, don't necessarily have that typical like head nod or head shake for yes and no. So we're trying to figure out ways that that that they can show us. And again, it's about kind of looking for that really reliable, consistent movement for them, that they Can really us that that is the thing that they want. And another thing is just really offering a lot of choices. So I'm not, hearing you her say drink and suggesting this one thing that I think it might be. But I might say, Oh, you said drink, like, did you want to drink? Were you talking about somebody else getting something to drink and just trying to go through as many different ideas that they might have as I can and also always offering that no it's something else as an option like you don't have to choose from these choices like can be wrong they

0:33:54 Thomas: Right. Right, that'S important. Important. Yeah, that seems pretty key. And that also seems like such an easy thing that if facilitated communication were real, it feels like implementing that would be pretty easy. Or do they ever pretend to do that or something?

0:34:11 Kelly: Pretend to um really tough it's like a really murky area um they'll say and again they say all the right things they say they want to move towards towards independence, but like moving towards independence for them might be going from holding the student's hand to holding their sleeve. So they're definitely very waffly about it. Again, anytime it's been really put to the test, it's failed. A study that they did, that they said showed that this facilitated communication was effective. And then you look at the study, and it was two people, and one of those people was typing independently. So that skewed the results significantly. Yeah, it can be tough because in this population, it Can be really hard to read even those yeses and nos, because they might have like a pretty significant motor impairment. It might be hard to even get that confirmation piece. And again, we spend years and years trying to figure that out.

0:35:08 Thomas: A lot of patience. That's incredible. Yeah. I feel like as a person, I'm just like the not patient. And it's like, oh man, this is a reminder like Like, patience really pays off in certain circumstances.

0:35:20 Kelly: But then that makes it also really satisfying when you can see that payoff. It just takes a while.

0:35:27 Thomas: Yeah. There anything else that, someone you asked you, what's the most, you know, rewarding or inspiring part of your job that you might, you think of?

0:35:37 Kelly: As special education teacher, I kind of pretend I'm an SLP sometimes. And like communication really is my major focus with my students. And speech language pathologists.

0:35:47 Thomas: Pretend you're a what? Sorry. Oh, gotcha.

0:35:52 Kelly: So we have in every every classroom we have a physical therapist, occupational therapist, speech language pathologist who push into our classroom. Um, but I definitely have collaborated a lot, um, with our speech language pathologists and, I do really, really focus on communication. And I think that has the best payoff because when you're successful, like your students will talk to you and you can see with students who like you really put in the time and work on communication with, they, are going to be more excited to talk to you because you spent that time with them and you built that relationship. And I'll have students who were in my class in past years who will use their communication device to ask for me because they know that I'm going to listen and let them take their time to share their message. So that is really rewarding.

0:36:37 Thomas: That's really cool. I mean, it really like facilitated communication or I guess maybe the rebranding. What was it? Talk, talk, typing. Yeah, yeah.

0:36:45 Kelly: To communicate or supported typing yes yeah

0:36:50 Thomas: I anyone has a loved one that might be in a situation where they'd ever need that or whatever, knowing that seems really important. Important knowing like what's bs versus not in terms of this communication stuff so it's that's really cool right

0:37:04 Kelly: Even recognizing it it's so hard because it's such an emotionally charged area and pushing back against it you feel like you're taking somebody's voice away so So even more so, I'd say, to stop somebody before they fall into it. Of course. Thank you. And I'm sorry to anybody who goes on to watch that documentary now. It's going to be rough.

0:37:21 Thomas: Yeah well thanks so much for taking us through this and uh and telling us about what you do it's really fascinating yeah I don't know I can't decide is I mean in in a way it's almost it could be like true crime if the documentary is made right But I don't know if it is.

0:37:41 Kelly: It is made mostly well. I mean, there are definitely some issues I have with it that I've mentioned here and there. But, like, for the most part, they very clearly show how facilitating communication is BS and that this was a really, really abusive situation.

0:38:00 Thomas: So not sure if I'll watch that, but who knows? But even if even if not, it's good to have that information. So, hey, I forget. Is there anywhere you send anybody or anything you want to shout out?

0:38:11 Kelly: I also work with Skeptic's Guide to the Universe. So you should follow them because they do awesome skeptical stuff. And we just had our thousandth episode, yes, or two days ago as

0:38:22 Thomas: Well, wow. Yeah I mean it's a little bit like you like going on my Twitch channel to shout out like NBC or something, but like, sure. Yeah. Yeah. Follow those ragtag bunch of, you timers over there on Skeptic's Guide to the Universe, the biggest, you Know, Skeptic podcast ever, but yeah, no, still really cool. And I know you do a lot of great work with the social media over there. So yeah, thanks so much for doing this and can't wait till next time we have you on.

0:38:48 Kelly: For having me.