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. Although FC was initially targeted to individuals with cerebral palsy in Australia (Crossley, 1992), encouragement of its use was rapidly generalized to people with autism spectrum disorders in the United States (Biklen, 1990, 1992a; Biklen, Morton, Gold, Berrigan, & Swaminathan, 1992; Biklen, Saha, & Kliewer, 1995), and the Facilitated Communication Institute at Syracuse University was established. The use of FC has been demonstrated, disseminated, supported, and promoted through training and workshops in other nations, and linkages to providers of FC services (see Biklen, 2001a). In the United States at this writing, FC is still promoted and disseminated under the auspices of the state developmental disability service agency in Vermont and by many private and university-based service agencies that receive public funding support throughout North America.
