ABSTRACT
Facilitated communication (FC) is a fad treatment that began in the late 1980s in Australia and spread with astonishing rapidity in the early 1990s to the United States and other westernized nations, primarily Canada and Western Europe. FC was initially targeted to individuals with cerebral palsy in Australia, encouragement of its use was rapidly generalized to people with autism spectrum disorders in the United States, and the Facilitated Communication Institute at Syracuse University was established. The FC movement not only created false hopes for families and professionals, but it had additional negative consequences. These included violation of an individual's right to self-expression and self-determination, improper control over important life decisions, denial of disability and hence appropriate treatment and education, and misdirection and misappropriation of financial and human resources. One particularly sinister outcome was that FC was used to make allegations of sexual misconduct against parents and caregivers.
