It's irresponsible to perpetuate this story as real life!
I've been meaning to post my comments on this movie for years, just getting around to it now.
I'm a school psychologist with 22 years experience, and my best friend from college has a son who is severely autistic; he was diagnosed at age 2 1/2 and is now in his mid-20s, and is living in a group home. I therefore view autism on both a professional and personal level.
I remember back in the early 1990s, before this movie came out, when I first saw an ABC-TV newsmagazine (20/20 or Prime Time) segment on so-called Facilitated Communication. This is the "method" by which the facilitator, like Patty Duke's character in this movie, supposedly steadies the (nonverbal) autistic person's hand over the keyboard so the person can type messages on a computer. When the reporter pointed out that the autistic person wasn't looking at either the keyboard or the computer screen, the typed response was, almost invariably, to the effect that "I have the keyboard memorized so I don't have to see it."
I had this pegged for what it was immediately: the facilitator was subconsciously guiding the autistic person's hand, probably without being aware of it but entering responses that the facilitator (again subconsciously) deemed appropriate. As I pointed out in a letter to ABC-TV's news division, "A Ouija Board works the same way." (I played with a Ouija Board a couple of times when I was a kid, so I knew what was really happening!)
My friend shared much of my skepticism but, figuring they had nothing to lose, he and his wife contacted the facilitator organization, who sent someone from their local area to facilitate for their son. The facilitator immediately began transmitting messages supposedly from their son. There was nothing conclusive either way.
For years afterward, the facilitators and their organizations refused to submit to impartial tests in which the autistic person would be asked questions that the facilitator would not possible know the answers to. In the meantime, incidents like those which occurred in the movie started to occur in real life: the typed "Facilitated Communications" messages began to include accusations supposedly from autistic children that adults, sometimes the parents, were abusing them. Several arrests and criminal charges were made. People were convicted and imprisoned. Parents, if not imprisoned, had their children taken from their custody.
Fortunately research discredited "Facilitated Communication", although because of the facilitators' refusal to submit to testing, the testers initially had to resort to deception. In one such test, the facilitator was shown a picture of an object, but when the picture was turned toward the autistic person, the experimenter secretly moved a flap so that a different object was actually shown. Invariably, what was typed in was what the facilitator was seeing himself/herself instead of what was exposed to the autistic person. As early as two months before this movie was first aired, the American Psychological Association released a Resolution which concluded:
Facilitated communication is a process by which a facilitator supports the hand or arm of a communicatively impaired individual while using a keyboard or typing device. It has been claimed that this process enables persons with autism or mental retardation to communicate. Studies have repeatedly demonstrated that facilitated communication is not a scientifically valid technique for individuals with autism or mental retardation. In particular, information obtained via facilitated communication should not be used to confirm or deny allegations of abuse or to make diagnostic or treatment decisions.
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that APA adopts the position that facilitated communication is a controversial and unproved communicative procedure with no scientifically demonstrated support for its efficacy.
Most people who were convicted for abuse based on messages from Facilitated Communication were eventually acquitted on appeal and custody of their children was reinstated. But where do they go to get their lives and their good names back? Do Patty Duke, Melissa Gilbert and the other actors and production staff feel any remorse or regret at all for this movie?
I'm just grateful my friend and his wife discontinued Facilitated Communication for their son before such a fate befell them! share