Facilitated communication hasn't been scientifically validated.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facilitated_communication
If you look at the picture in the article, he isn't even looking while his father guides his hand.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facilitated_communication
If you look at the picture in the article, he isn't even looking while his father guides his hand.
You not only can see the father guiding his hand, but Daniel isn't even looking at the board. I would challenge anyone to respond to a question by poking at an iPad, without looking, while someone else holds their hand.
The problem is, is VERY hard to decipher what a autistic person is doing and why.
It's, sadly, nothing more than facilitated communication.
IMO, it is easily to get distracted while working in somewhat unfamiliar conditions. I can easily imagine that, if someone takes a photo of me coding in front of my laptop, I will end up looking weird and distracted because I would be nervous about camera.
I am pretty sure that if someone wanted to fake it(even unintentionally), he would pick more "realistic" photo.
2) Just saying it wasn't validated doesn't mean it can't (and doesn't) work. Of course there is a link to wikipedia entry, but there are mixed data, and far from the claim "It doesn't work, plain and simple" (to which you agreed).
30-40 years ago it was mainstream to deny intelligence in non-human animals. But now, there are evidence that animals are intelligent: crowns learning to use tools, dolphins passing mirror test, parrots learning to count objects(and doing a lot of ther cool stuff).
There are some positive data, like: "A study by Bernadi and Tuzzi finding that the communication of FC users displayed the characteristics of valid communication recorded that of its 50 subjects 13 had achieved “full and independent control of the method” while 37 “had reached a high level of independence”"