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Tuesday, July 31, 2018

Facilitated communication

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
Facilitated communication
Alternative medicine
Facilitated communication PBS.jpg
Facilitated communication shown in a 1993 PBS documentary, in which a disabled person's right hand is helped to move (or simply pulled) by a facilitator across a board showing the alphabet. The image shows a principal criticism of FC: that often the person is not looking at the board, so they cannot really be signing out a message.
Claims Disabled people may be able to communicate by pointing at letters or with a keyboard if physically held and assisted by an expert facilitator.
Related fields Alternative medicine
Year proposed Late 20th century
Original proponents Rosemary Crossley
Subsequent proponents Douglas Biklen

Facilitated communication (FC), supported typing or hand over hand, is a discredited technique used by some caregivers and educators in an attempt to assist people with severe educational and communication disabilities. The technique involves providing an alphabet board, or keyboard. The facilitator holds or gently touches the disabled person's arm or hand during this process and attempts to help them move their hand and amplify their gestures. In addition to providing physical support needed for typing or pointing, the facilitator provides verbal prompts and moral support. In addition to human touch assistance, the facilitator's belief in their communication partner's ability to communicate seems to be a key component of the technique.

There is widespread agreement within the scientific community and multiple disability advocacy organizations that facilitators, not the person with the communication disability, are the source of all or most messages obtained through FC, by guiding the arm of the patient towards answers they expect to see or that form intelligible language.[2][3] Alternatively, the facilitator may hold the alphabet board and move it to the disabled person's finger. Studies asking about things the facilitator cannot know (for example showing the patient but not the facilitator an object) have confirmed this, showing that a facilitator is generally unable to ‘help’ the patient sign out the answer to a question where they do not know what the answer should be.[4] In addition, numerous cases have been reported by investigators in which disabled persons were assumed by facilitators to be signing a coherent message while their eyes were closed, or they were looking away from or showing no particular interest in the letter board.[5]

Some promoters of the technique have countered that FC cannot be clearly disproven by testing, since a testing environment might feel confrontational and alienating to the subject.[6] Because the scientific consensus is that FC is a pseudoscience which causes great risk and emotional distress to people with communication disabilities, their families, and their caregivers, the technique is now rejected outside a few fringe groups and organizations, including Syracuse University in the United States. In 2015 Sweden banned the use of FC in special needs schools.[7]

Overview

Facilitated communication is promoted as a means to assist people with severe communication disabilities in pointing to letters on an alphabet board, keyboard or other device so that they can communicate independently. It also appears in the literature as "supported typing",[8] "progressive kinesthetic feedback",[9] and "written output communication enhancement".[9] It is somewhat related to the Rapid Prompting Method (RPM),[10] also known as "informative pointing",[9] which has no evidence of efficacy.[11][12][13]

The person with disabilities, who is often not able to rely on speech to communicate, is referred to as the communication partner. The caregiver, educator or other provider offering physical support to the person with disabilities is called the facilitator. The facilitator holds or gently touches the communication partner's elbow, wrist, hand, sleeve or other parts of the body[14] while the communication partner points to letters of the alphabet printed on a piece of paper or laminated cardboard,[15] letters on an alphabet board, laptop, keyboard or mobile communication device such as an iPad.[9]

The Canon Communicator, a small, portable, lightweight device that printed a tape of letters when activated, was popular with early FC users.[16][17][18] However, two companies, Crestwood Co. of Glendale, Wisconsin and Abovo Co. of Chicopee, Massachusetts, would later be charged by the Federal Trade Commission for making "false and unsubstantiated claims" that the device could enable people with autism and other disabilities to communicate using FC. The companies settled and stopped mentioning FC in their advertising campaigns.[19]

Proponents of FC claim that motor issues (e.g., the neurological condition of apraxia) prevent people with autism from communicating effectively. Although this claim is unsubstantiated (many people with autism have no difficulty pointing to or picking up objects independently, but do exhibit severe communication difficulties characteristic of the disorder),[9] proponents argue that physical support and touch are necessary components of communicating through FC. Candidates for FC, presumably, "lack confidence in their abilities"[14][20] and physical support, purportedly, helps them overcome this obstacle to communication.

The role of the facilitator is depicted by proponents as integral to helping the person with disabilities point to letters (by holding his or her finger or hand), reducing or eliminating uncontrollable arm movements (shaking or flapping), avoiding mistakes in typing, controlling the initiation of movement,[21] and speaking words aloud.[15] As well as physical support in typing, the facilitator provides verbal prompts and moral support.[22][23][24][25] Along with human touch, the facilitator's belief in their communication partner's ability to communicate is seen to be a key component of the technique.[26][27][28] "Complete trust and belief" according to a speech pathologist teaching FC at a autism meeting in Ohio, "with the intention that together you can show others".[29]

Former facilitator Janyce Boynton, who came to reject the technique after taking part in double-blind trials, later reported that she received training from Syracuse University that took for granted that the process worked, and that the complexity of facilitation made it hard to realise that messages were coming from her expectations and not from her patients: "When you’re facilitating, you’re so distracted by other things. You’re carrying on conversations, you’re asking and answering questions, you’re trying to look at the person to see if they’re looking at the keyboard...Your brain is so engaged that you lose sight of what’s happening with your hand...that’s what makes it feel like it’s working because the more you practice it, the more the movements feel really fluid.”.[30][31][32]

History

The FC movement may be traced back to the 1960s in Denmark where it failed to take hold because of lack of scientific evidence.[24] FC experienced a period of rapid growth and popularity in Australia in the 1970—1980s, largely due to the efforts of special educator Rosemary Crossley.[17][33][34][35]  Arthur Schawlow, a Nobel laureate whose son was autistic,[36] and Douglas Biklen, then a special education professor from Syracuse University[20] who observed Crossley's work in Australia,[14] are credited with popularizing FC in the United States in the late 1980s, early 1990s.[36][17][21] FC has also received attention in many other parts of the world: Canada, Germany, Austria, Finland, France, Italy, the United Kingdom and Asia.[9][33][37]

Early adopters of the technique praised FC for its apparent simplicity.[20][26][27][38][39] FC was promoted as a "teaching strategy"[40] and not an experimental or even risky technique that required objective evaluation or close monitoring.[27] As early as 1991, however, more than 40 empirical studies published in peer-reviewed journals involving more than 400 people with autism not only failed to demonstrate FC's efficacy, but indicated that any success reported by proponents of the technique was due to facilitator influence.[41] Many researchers attribute facilitator influence, for the most part, to non-conscious movements.[42][43] It is thought that facilitators are genuinely unaware that they, not their client or family member, are controlling the communications.[19][44]

In 1994, the American Psychological Association (APA),[45][46] followed by the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP),[46] the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA),[21][47][48] and the International Society for Augmentative and Alternative Communication (ISAAC)[49] passed a resolution cautioning practitioners against the use of FC, citing lack of scientific evidence.[19] The APA also recommended that information obtained via FC should not be used to confirm or deny allegations of abuse or make diagnostic or treatment decisions.[44][50][51] In recognition of continued scientific evidence against the technique, other organizations joined suit, passing their own resolutions advising their membership to avoid the technique. A British government report concluded in 1998 that "the phenomenon fails to materialise once facilitator effects have been controlled. It would be hard to justify further research on this".[5][52]

By 2001 Mark P. Mostert of Regent University School of Education in Virginia Beach, Virginia, reported in the second of his comprehensive reviews of peer-reviewed literature investigating FC that "Facilitated Communication (FC) had largely been empirically discredited as an effective intervention for previously uncommunicative persons with disabilities, especially those with autism and related disorders. Key empirical findings consistently showed that the facilitator and not the client initiated communication."[53]

Many people believed FC had passed its peak,[54] dismissing it as a fad[54] and characterizing it as pseudo-scientific.[11][55] However, despite these findings, FC proponents continued their adherence to the technique, dismissing empirical investigations as irrelevant, flawed or unnecessary, characterized FC as an "effective and legitimate intervention" in pro-FC literature,[53] and refused to change their minds or admit their mistakes.[41][56][57] The FC movement retained popularity in some parts of the United States, Australia, and Germany,[34] and continued to be used in many countries as of 2014.[9] Mostert writes:
All the newer pro-FC studies operate from the premise that FC works and is a legitimate practice to be used in investigating any number of other phenomena related to people with autism and other related severe communication problems. Such assumptions increasingly morph FC into a valid intervention among readers who are unaware of the empirical dismissal of the intervention and who might not be skilled in distinguishing solid from suspect research. In this regard, it is likely that FC will continue to reinforce the assumptions of efficacy among parents and practitioners. These perceptions will continue to be reinforced by professional organizations such as the Facilitated Communication Institute at Syracuse University, a fairly wide acceptance of FC internationally, and the vacuum created by few if any future solid empirical studies that are likely to dissuade the faithful.[53]

RPM

Facilitated communication is closely related to the rapid prompting method (RPM), although proponents of RPM deny similarities with FC because the aide or facilitator in RPM holds the letter board but "does not touch the person typing"[58] and that the prompts are "nonspecific."[59] However, critics of RPM point out that subtle cuing takes place during RPM that makes it "highly susceptible to facilitator influence."[58]
Other similarities between RPM and FC include: reluctance or refusal to test facilitator/client pairs in controlled settings (purportedly because the process breaks the trust between the pair), presumed competence, reliance on anecdotal accounts as proof of efficacy, maintenance of practices, techniques and claims that are inconsistent with the known body of work around the behavior and communication skills of individuals with developmental disabilities or proven remediation techniques, claims of extraordinary literacy or intellectual breakthroughs, unconscious verbal or physical cuing by facilitators to obtain the expected responses, inadequate or non-existent protocols to fade supported or facilitated prompts.[60][61]

Organizations that oppose facilitated communication

The question of authorship

The Anne McDonald Centre, a centre for FC use in Melbourne directed by Rosemary Crossley.

One of the central questions regarding facilitated communication is who is really doing the communicating.[21][28][57] The ultimate goal of using such a technique, as suggested by Stephen Von Tetzchner, professor of psychology at the University of Oslo, is genuine communication, in which the messages obtained through FC originate from the person with disabilities and are not, in any way, influenced by the facilitator. However, as von Tetzchner also points out, there are two other potential outcomes of FC:
  1. automatic communication, in which the messages are produced by the facilitator without the communication partner's awareness (similar to automatic writing); and
  2. false communication, in which the messages are consciously produced by the facilitator to further his or her own goals.[24]

Proponents

Facilitators using the technique reported unexpected literacy skills in people otherwise thought to be nonverbal, illiterate and incapable of learning more than basic life skills.[20][26][39] They proposed that FC unlocked the thoughts and feelings of moderately to severely impaired individuals inaccessible by traditional means.[18][39][67][68][69] Naturally, parents reported their joy and excitement upon seeing their child, with his or her facilitator, type "I love you" for the first time. Educators and care givers claimed students who were not directly instructed in reading, writing or mathematics were, through FC, capable of expressing complex thoughts through writing and solving multiplication and long division problems.[14][24][26][40][73][74] It was felt that people with disabilities were, themselves, able to write books and poetry,[72][75][76] to advocate for better treatment of people with disabilities,[14][77] express a desire to go to college[22][78][79] or leave their care facility,[80] get married,[9][28] have sexual relations,[9][81][82] decide important medical issues, and, in some cases, report abuses allegedly occurring in their homes,[28][33][83][84] despite being physically supported in their typing by facilitators. FC seemed to bring with it the hope of "shattering old beliefs and methods of working with autistics...and opening doors to new beliefs and methods that no one can yet conceive."[18][22][25]

FC workshops, training materials, newsletters and newspaper accounts of its use contained emotionally compelling stories—alleged breakthroughs using FC—and, often, espoused the sentiment that FC could empower people with disabilities to "speak" for themselves for the first time. These materials, authored by "persuasive, sincere, authoritative-sounding individuals"[20][85]—university professors, psychologists, speech-language pathologists—helped set up an ideologic mindset that led many well-meaning facilitators into a cognitive trap rife with confirmation bias and self-deception[45][81][86][87] with one of the key assertions being "assume competence on the part of the communication partner without testing that assumption."[27][47][88][89]

Guidelines for facilitators also included instructions to prevent errors during facilitation (by pulling back on the communication partner's hand), expect the emergence of hidden skills and sensitive personal information, use anecdotal data to validate authorship, avoid objective scrutiny, and emphasize "facilitated" over spoken communication.[20] Through the guise of public opinion and qualitative studies, rather than the systematic gathering of empirical data through quantitative studies,[90][91] facilitators were not only convinced of FC's efficacy, but ready to overturn more than 40 years of autism research.[54][87][92]

Despite claims from FC promoters that autism is a motor control and emotional (i.e. confidence) problem that can be overcome with physical support,[14][27][35] autism is largely accepted in the academic and clinical arenas as being a neurological problem often accompanied by intellectual disabilities. A core feature of autism is severe communication problems which cannot be overcome simply by supportively holding onto someone's hand.[9][93]

Proponents claim that a few individuals using FC have developed the ability to type independently or with minimal support (e.g., a light touch to the shoulder or to the back of the neck).[94] Facilitators attributing messages obtained through FC to their communication partners have co-authored books, articles and plays. These, seemingly, addressed the miraculous, freeing nature of FC and, purportedly, gave outsiders a glimpse of the inner worlds of people with autism: Annie's Coming Out (1980),[95] The Secret World of Arthur Wold (1993),[95] Out of Silence (1994),[96] In Dark Hours I Find My Way (1995),[97] Miracles (1997),[98] The Mind Tree (2003),[10] and I am Intelligent (2012),[99] to name a few.

With their facilitators attending classes, assisting them in typing out class notes, completing homework and taking tests, some people with autism reliant on FC even graduated from high school or college.[15][94][100][101][102] However, these claims of independent typing, to date, are anecdotal and have not been substantiated by objective means.[9][11][103]

Critics

People more critical of the technique noticed that, while the facilitators were intent on watching the letter board, their communication partners were often distracted, staring off into space, rolling around on the floor while facilitating,[25] falling asleep,[27] or otherwise not paying attention.[15][40] Sometimes the communication partners spoke words that conflicted with the words being typed. The language structures and vocabulary used by children being facilitated often exceeded what would normally be considered appropriate for their age and experience.[6] Supposedly highly competent individuals gave wrong answers to simple questions or information that should have been readily known (e.g. the name of the family dog, the names of family members, the spelling of their own name).[14][104] Still others questioned why people with autism who exhibit excellent fine motor skills needed to have physical support from facilitators in order to point to a keyboard while many people with autism type independently.[105]

Bernard Rimland, a research psychologist who founded the Autism Research Institute of San Diego and the Autism Society of America, asked "How is it possible that an autistic kid can pick up the last tiny crumbs of potato chips off a plate but not have sufficient motor coordination to type the letter E?"[19] Howard Shane, director of the Center for Communication Enhancement at Children's Hospital in Boston and an associate professor at Harvard Medical School, finds it "curious that those being facilitated can only create [these] insightful comments" when helped by an assistant.[105] Why, when technology allowed people with severe disabilities the opportunity to access independent communication with even the slightest movement (e.g., an eye wink, movement of an eyebrow, a puff of air into a straw), would a facilitator need to hold their hand?[6][9]

Researchers familiar with the ideomotor,[106] Clever Hans,[42][107] or Ouija effect,[17][20][46][56][62][81][108][109] noticed small movements made by the facilitators; movements of which the facilitator was often unaware. All this raised concerns about authorship, the role facilitators have in communicating through FC, and the time facilitating took away from the pursuit of scientifically proven communication techniques.[9][110] Psychologist Adrienne Perry cautioned: "The adult or child with autism is made a 'screen' for a facilitator's hostilities, hopes, beliefs or suspicions" and that "concentrating on this method could deprive people of the chance to learn other skills that would be more useful to them."[83]

While proponents insist that FC "should never involve guiding a person as he or she attempts to point or type,"[56] facilitators can and do influence facilitated movements without realizing it. Gina Green, director of research for the New England Center for Autism in Massachusetts, E.K. Shriver Center for Mental Retardation, and Northeastern University,[27][108] stated: "Very subtle influence can affect people's behavior. It doesn't even have to be touch. It can be the slightest sound, the slightest visual cue." And, in regards to videotapes in which it appears the person with autism is typing independently, "You can edit videotape and show whatever you want. They'll show you a close-up of the finger moving across the keyboard...but you're not getting what else is going on."[50]

Researchers James Mulick, John Jacobson and Frank Kobe states that the medical community can offer "a bewildering ... and conflicting information" to "parents who hear that their child has a significant disability... the anguish is profound". A "miracle cure from Australia" such as FC can use this stress and grief to promote a belief in FC. The only evidence of success are "transcripts of apparent conversational content". These families are used "... (to) stroke their hopes with empty promises, regardless of their sincerity, while reaping personal or political rewards and working hard to prevent systematic verification of their claims". The researchers go on to say that "people with handicaps can be valued members of their families and communities without resorting to appeals to miracle cures". Scientific and genuine help are available, "advances in treatment and understanding come at the price of rigorous training, dedication to accuracy and scientific standards, and objective verification of all treatment claims".[29]

Pat Mirenda, professor in the Department of Educational and Counseling Psychology and Special Education at the University of British Columbia and co-author David R. Beukelman, Barkley Professor of Communication Disorders at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, decided not to include FC in revised versions of their textbook Augmentative and Alternative Communication: Supporting Children and Adults with Complex Communication Needs. Earlier versions of the textbook are quoted in pro-FC literature. In 2015, Mirenda stated, "I came to recognize (painfully, to be honest) that my advocacy stance biased me to interpret what I saw on videotapes as independent typing even though other explanations were more plausible (e.g., subtle prompting, resulting in an ideomotor effect), and that, even if independent typing did occur subsequent to FC exposure, only correlational—but definitely not causal—evidence exists with regard to its relationship to FC. In short, I do not endorse FC as a communication or instructional technique, and I do not support its use."[110]

Stephen N. Calculator of the University of New Hampshire, an early proponent of FC who also distanced himself from the movement because he could not replicate claims of independent communication in his own research studies,[111] summed up the importance of determining the extent of facilitator influence: "The consequences of falsely attributing messages to communicators, rather than facilitators, continue to have significant financial, social and moral ramifications. Facilitators must take extraordinary precautions to assure that they are not unduly influencing messages and thereby impinging on communicators' freedom of speech. The rights of individuals to express their thoughts and ideas should not be circumvented by facilitators who communicate for them, unwilling or not."[93]

Testifying in the Anna Stubblefield court case, psychology professor James Todd stated in court (FC) "It's become the single most scientifically discredited intervention in all of developmental disabilities." Every "methodologically sound" study of FC has shown it invalid.[112] Writing about that case in the journal "Disability and Society", Mark Sherry voiced similar concerns about FC's lack of scientific validity, calling it a "sham", "hoax" and a "fraud." Sherry's was the first article published in a Disability Studies journal which thoroughly critiqued Stubblefield's actions—a noteworthy contribution because Stubblefield had also been in Disability Studies and had previously published about FC in the journal Disability Studies Quarterly.[113] Sherry suggested that some of the defenders of Stubblefield (and FC more broadly) are either her personal friends or work in institutions which receive substantial income from providing FC.[114]

The editorial for the Syracuse University newspaper called it "inexcusable" and "embarrassing" that the University continues to support FC after over 25 years of research has discredited it.[115]

Psychologist Stuart Vyse writes that in some cases of autism, parents reject the autism diagnosis and "claim their children have a physical -- rather than a developmental -- disability". With FC or RPM their diagnosis is confirmed. Their child with the help of a facilitator communicates with the parent revealing that they can speak often times at levels beyond their age. Vyse states that the "overwhelming evidence ... shows that it is the adult facilitator... communicating ... It is a Ouija-like phenomenon".[116]

Tests of authorship

Leaders in the FC movement, such as Crossley from Australia and Biklen in the United States, insist that communications by FC occur independent from the facilitator, whose role is to serve as a passive recipient of the messages,[117] and rely on anecdotal and observational data (e.g., the existence of unique spellings or unexpected skills or revelations made during the communication session)[16][21] in order to back up their claims.[14][47] Individuals—parents and researchers alike—who questioned the stance and supported evaluating FC by objective methods were accused of being "oppressors of the disabled," told they were narrow-minded, outmoded, evil, jealous they weren't the ones to discover FC,[27] and, in some cases, accused of hate speech for advocating a more studied approach.[11][23][118]

Mostert wrote in 2001, "FC proponents must be encouraged to subject their claims to further scientific verification, the claims of anecdotal evidence notwithstanding. If any small part of FC is ever to be found effective or even plausible, it is abundantly clear that only by careful use of controlled experimental methods will this be established."[119] Still, psychologists, speech-language pathologists, researchers and parents maintain that controlled testing, where the facilitator does not already know the answers to questions and, therefore, cannot inadvertently or purposefully cue their communication partner to obtain the desired answer, is the only way to determine whether or not the communications are truly independent.[11][120][121] They caution that even though the facilitator may feel like he or she is not moving the other person's hand and that the messages are originating from the communication partner, the facilitator, may, indeed, be providing cues that lead to specific letters on the keyboard.[17][81][122]

Kathleen M. Dillon, professor of psychology at Western New England College in Springfield, Massachusetts says, "This is a hard reality to grasp."[17] As Julie Riggot wrote in an article for Scientific Review of Mental Health Practice, "Sometimes, the influence of the facilitator is less obvious, because the facilitator might not hold the person's hand, but support an arm or touch a shoulder--or even simply observe the typing."[46] Because cueing is often subtle and is not possible to observe the influence of the facilitator in all instances where it might occur, naked-eye, informal observations and facilitator reports have proven unreliable in determining authorship.[46] Many facilitators deny they are in any way influencing their communication partners' movements, even when faced with evidence to the contrary.[34][46]

In 2006, Rom Houben was initially hailed by Belgian neurologist Steven Laureys for his ability to type out thoughts on a keypad, via the help of his facilitator Linda Wouters. However, "when concerns were raised regarding the veracity of his messages, independent tests were carried out: Houben was shown a range of objects and asked to name them. When Houben was unable to name any of the objects shown to him when Wouters had not been in the room, Laureys accepted that Houben had not been responsible for any of the messages, and conceded that FC – in all its flawed promise and false hope – was responsible for Houben’s apparent cogency."[123]

The media

Despite cautions from people like Eric Schopler, then director of an autism education program at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and editor of the Journal of Autism, that promoting facilitated communication with no empirical evidence was "reckless",[67] stories of FC's purported success were reported (and continue to be reported) in magazines such as Reader's Digest,[56] in movies[34][46][50][105][124][125][126] and plays,[127] and on television shows such as ABC's 20/20 Prime Time Live with Diane Sawyer.[20][23][27][34][47][128] Thousands of people—teachers, parents, speech pathologists, psychologists—struggling to find a way to communicate with individuals who, otherwise, demonstrated little ability to use spoken word to communicate their wants and needs—adopted FC with "blinding speed" with little public scrutiny or debate.[20][27]

Of FC's rapid rise in popularity, particularly in the United States, doctors John W. Jacobson, James A. Mulick, and Allen A. Schwartz wrote:
The general acceptance of FC by the public and segments of the professional community has called into question the rigor with which educational and therapeutic interventions are evaluated in publicly funded programs and the ability of many professionals to critically assess the procedures they use. As such, FC serves as a case study in how the public and, alarmingly, some professionals, fail to recognize the role of science in distinguishing truth from falsity and its applicability to assessing the value of treatment modalities.[21]
James Randi, a magician familiar with the ideomotor effect commonly attributed to dowsing and later linked to FC,[42][129] put it more succinctly when he called facilitated communication "a crock that does more harm than good by raising false hopes among families of autistic children" after he was called in to investigate the technique at the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1992.[25][56] The James Randi Educational Foundation has offered a million-dollar prize "to a valid demonstration of facilitated communication." In 2009, Randi responded in an interview for the Rom Houben case, where it was shown that messages from a Belgian man who was believed to be in a coma for 23 years were generated by the facilitator, "Our prize is still there."[130]

Validation

This issue of testing the messages obtained through FC has, historically, been problematic for those in the FC community who support its use. Proponents claim that testing is demeaning to the disabled person,[14] that the testing environment creates performance anxiety,[121][131] or that those being facilitated may purposely produce nonsense, refuse to respond or give wrong answers to counteract the negative attitudes of those who are skeptical of the technique.[132] Observations by researchers attending an FC class in 1993 were that the "client" did not always look at the keyboard, and that physical force was used to "prevent movement of the learner's hand away from the keyboard" eventually, they learned the "patient" through FC "will thank you for doing so" and only open ended questions were asked, never factual questions. They were told that "one should just be receptive to what is produced".[29] In 1992, when FC was fairly new to the United States, Douglas Biklen was quoted in The Washington Post as saying he "welcomed scientific studies", but the reporter, Amanda Spake, went on to explain:
he doesn't want to do them. He's an educator, not a psychiatrist, and like other educators who have written about facilitated communication, he is comfortable with the fact that there is often a lag time between the application of a new method and its scientific validation.[84]
However, in arguing against suggestions that FC may be difficult or impossible to objectively test, James T. Todd, psychologist from Eastern Michigan University, wrote:
the determination of authorship in FC involves a straightforward application of basic experimental methods described comprehensively by Mill (1843) more than a century and half ago, but understood for millennia. We are not speaking of obscure or controversial techniques. We are speaking of authorship validation by selectively presenting different information to two people then observing what is produced.[81]

Double-blind testing

Despite the FC community's reluctance to participate in testing, researchers outside the community did set up double-blind testing in an attempt to identify in a controlled way who was doing the communicating. Some testing was conducted as a direct response to a growing number of cases involving sexual abuse allegations that have plagued users of FC, including Crossley, made through the use of facilitated communication against parents, teachers, and caregivers of people with disabilities.[24][75][133][134][134][135] However, a number of controlled evaluations of FC were conducted by clinicians, researchers, and program administrators who were considering the use of FC, but wanted an objective, empirical basis for deciding what role, if any, FC would have in their programs.[20]

The O.D. Heck Center in Schenectady, New York was one of the first in the United States to go public with their findings,[20] which were that their clients produced meaningful responses through facilitated communication only when their facilitators had access to the correct responses.[47] The report went on to virtually rule out issues of confidence or skepticism on the part of the evaluators. All twelve participants (people with disabilities) were chosen for the evaluation because their facilitators believed in their ability to communicate through FC. The study demonstrated that the communication partners were "systematically and unknowingly" being influenced by their facilitators. The researchers wrote:
In fact, the nature of the findings permits us to assert that their output in facilitated communication was not only influenced, but was controlled and determined by the facilitators. To all appearances, these participants had been producing thoughtful communication, and several had consistently engaged in interactive conversations using facilitated communication. Many people serving these individuals believed that this output reflected the valid expressions of the participants.[19][136]
The result of the O.D. Heck study seemed so startling, especially in light of the positive response FC was getting in the popular press, that Frontline featured the story in its 1993 "Prisoners of Silence". In 1993, Genae A. Hall, research director for the Behavior Analysis Center for Autism, wrote:
The fact that facilitators often control and direct the typing has been called "facilitator influence," which seems to be a misnomer. "Facilitator influence" suggests that the disabled person is emitting verbal behavior, and the facilitator is exerting partial control (or "influence") over that behavior. Although partial control certainly may occur when fading prompts within structured teaching programs, such control has not been demonstrated in most cases of FC. Rather than influencing the typed messages, the facilitator appears to be the sole author of those messages. Thus, the focus of analysis is shifted from the disabled person's behavior to the facilitator's behavior.[109]
The O.D. Heck study was not the only double blind research study to receive such results. In fact, multiple studies had been conducted to determine authorship before or around the same time as the O.D. Heck study.[27] Whenever conditions were adequately controlled to prevent the facilitator from knowing the answers to questions presented to the disabled communication partner, the results revealed facilitator influence, if not direct authorship.[20][24][137]

In 1994, Thistledown Regional Centre in Ontario, Canada conducted an internal study of 20 people with autism and stopped using FC when the results showed facilitator influence was "contaminating the messages being produced."[83] By 1995, these results had been replicated by researchers worldwide in at least 24 studies in credible, peer-reviewed research journals using "a variety of methods to see what happens when the facilitator doesn't know or can't guess the message that is expected or doesn't look at the letter display."[27]

In 1997, reflecting on the trajectory FC has taken in several countries, including Denmark, the U.S. and Australia, von Tetzchner wrote:
In the struggle to keep up to date with an increasing number of published papers, both researchers and practitioners tend to forget history. In order to avoid making the same mistakes over again, the issues and processes underlying the rise and fall of facilitating techniques--as well as other intervention methods--in various countries should have a natural place in research reviews. When an intervention claimed to have exceptional effects disappears, the likely reason is lack of positive results.[24]
By 2005, more than 50 controlled studies and blind tests had been conducted, in addition to numerous controlled tests conducted in legal cases. The studies consistently showed "without a doubt" that the messages obtained through facilitated communication were controlled by the facilitators and not their communication partners.[46]

Support from University of Northern Iowa

A group of over thirty researchers and academics around the globe have called for the University of Northern Iowa (UNI) to cancel the fifth Midwest Summer Institute held June 18-19, 2018, because the conference promotes Facilitated Communication. The conference is co-sponsored by Waverly-based Inclusion Connection and Syracuse University’s Institute on Communication and Inclusion, formerly called the Facilitated Communication Institute.[138][139][140] The "30-plus academics and professionals — from Harvard Medical School, Johns Hopkins University, Emory University, the University of Melbourne in Australia, the University of London in England, and three UNI professors — have sent a letter to UNI College of Education Dean Gaetane Jean-Marie asking her to reconsider supporting the event and its promotion of 'this invalidated and demonstrably harmful practice.'" The letter sent to the University stated that this "practice was 'thoroughly discredited over 25 years ago.'"[141] According to The Gazette article from June 15, 2018, the UNI had not responded to questions about money, attendance or students receiving college credit for the class. Mark Sherry, a spokesman for the critics, stated that "I would like the university to come out and be consistent with the scientific academic community and disavow facilitated communication" continuing he emphasized: “This is not even debatable. Study after study after study for 30 years has found that the messages are offered by the facilitator." FC supporter and workshop speaker Marilyn Chadwick said that she has seen people's lives change for the good once they can communicate, but "Maybe the typing will lead to talking, and maybe the talking will lead to independence". Jason Travers speaking for the skeptical group "It’s not only dubious, it’s dangerous".[141][142][143][144]

An article by Forbes published on June 18, 2018 was highly critical of the University of Northern Iowa's support of Facilitated Communication. The article featured comments from former facilitator Janyce Boynton who was quoted as saying "By the mid-1990s, the scientific community had proved over and over again that it was the facilitator—not the disabled communication partner—who was typing the messages. Every time. Full stop."[140]

In a statement issued on the second day of the 2018 conference UNI spokesman Scott Ketelsen acknowledged that concerns about the practices presented at the event had been raised and said that UNI will be reevaluating its sponsorship of the Midwest Summer Institute. "We regularly evaluate UNI’s sponsorship of conferences and events to ensure that we are supporting high-quality programming consistent with the mission of the university. As part of this regular review, we will be convening a group of faculty experts from across campus to discuss the practices presented at this conference."[145] Proponents of the method have defended the conference.[146]

Skepticism

The concept and technique of facilitated communication is one that has been increasingly debated over the last few decades with the vast majority of evidence indicating that it is not scientifically valid. However, this information has not stopped many individuals from using this technique under various circumstances and furthermore, advocating for its effectiveness.[147]

The overwhelming majority of evidence from studies conducted on the efficacy of this technique has revealed that the likely explanation for any "positive" results—that is, anything indicating that facilitated communication has worked—can be attributed to the facilitators themselves. Be it the facilitator attributing their own beliefs and views onto the individual, or the creating a pseudo-personality for the disabled individual based on their previous encounters with them, it is clear that the facilitator is really the one doing all the communicating. Further examination into this technique has discovered various examples in which the disabled individual using facilitated communication could correctly respond to simple questions only when the facilitator was in the room to hear the questions.[148] This included asking the facilitator to leave and then proceeding to show the disabled individual a picture of an animal. Next, the facilitator would return to the room and be asked to help the individual answer the question: "what animal did I just show you?" In all of these cases, the questions were answered incorrectly. However, when asked questions while the facilitator was in the room, the correct response would be made. Shockingly, this technique has also led to a series of false sexual abuse cases in which the facilitator would indicate that the disabled individual revealed that they had been sexually abused. Unsurprisingly, these cases were later dismissed upon the discovery that these false accusations were actually a result of the facilitator fabricating these stories.

Finally, even further defining facilitated communication as a pseudoscience, the American Psychological Association (APA) issued a statement indicating that facilitated communication studies have repeatedly demonstrated that it is not a scientifically valid technique and that it is a controversial and unproved communicative procedure with no scientifically demonstrated support for its efficacy.[148]

Sexual abuse allegations and facilitator misconduct

There have been instances in which a person, through facilitated communication, seems to disclose experiences of sexual or physical abuse.[84] Often, the alleged abuse is sexual and contains "extensive, explicit, pornographic details."[20][149] While facilitators are taught to expect their communication partners to reveal sensitive, personal issues,[27] it is not known whether FC generates more abuse allegations than other suggestive techniques.[109][150]

Researchers suspect that facilitators involved in this type of case may, mistakenly, believe there is a link between early abuse and autism or, for other reasons, suspect familial abuse.[109][150] As Green wrote in a 1995 article:
suggestions about sexual abuse permeate the culture. Just watch Oprah or Phil [Donahue] almost any time or scan the pop psychology section at your local bookstore. Couple that with mandatory abuse reporting laws, mix in a little bit of crusading zeal to "save" people with disabilities from mistreatment, and you have a potent set of antecedents for facilitators to produce allegations.[27]
In 1993, Frontline's "Prisoners of Silence" featured the story of Gerry Gherardi of North Carolina who was accused, through FC-generated messages, of sexually abusing his son. Despite protestations of innocence, Gherardi was forced to stay away from his home for six months.[6] The charges were dropped when court-ordered double-blind tests showed that Gherardi's son could not write.[151] In the same year, Rimland reported in a New York Times article that he knew of about 25 cases where families were accused through facilitated communication of sexually abusing their children.[121]

By 1995, there were five dozen known cases,[150][152] with untold numbers of others settled without reaching public visibility. Since then, the number of cases continues to increase. In addition to accusations of sexual abuse, facilitators, reportedly, have fallen in love with their communication partners and, relying on FC for consent, initiated sexual, physical contact with people in their care,[9][82] raising serious ethical and legal problems for facilitators, protective service agencies, law enforcement, court officials, educators, and family members alike.[81]

The "Carla" case

About the same time FC was gaining popularity in the United States in the early 1990s, the Guardianship and Administration Board in Melbourne, Australia, was reviewing a landmark case involving allegations of sexual abuse and facilitated communication. The 1990 case involved a 28-year-old woman (pseudonym "Carla") with severe disabilities who was removed, twice, from her home by state authorities because of messages obtained through FC that she was being sexually abused at home.

Nine facilitators, including Crossley, one of Australia's leaders in FC movement, over a course of nine months, obtained messages through FC that, allegedly involved incest, rape and other sexual depredations. Crossley had assessed Carla in August 1998, indicating that her ability to spell was very good and expressing amazement at the extent of Carla's vocabulary and perceptions during the evaluation. Officials removed Carla from the home when one of the facilitators, through another facilitated session, indicated Carla threatened suicide if she was not removed from her home.[137][153]

A 15-month custody battle ensued, during which Carla was subjected to over 100 hours of psychological and other testing. In the end, the Guardianship Board concluded that Carla was severely intellectually disabled, unable to differentiate between letters of the alphabet, and could not have authored the messages. The double-blind testing, conducted by psychologist Tony Cantanese, demonstrated that the only meaningful responses obtained through FC were when the facilitator knew the questions being asked of Carla. The court determined that Carla and her family were "victims" and admonished the facilitators: "the one step that would have prevented the case occurring--prior verification that the woman could communicate with facilitated communication--had not been done." All charges were dropped and custody was granted to Carla's family.[84][137][153]

The Storch case

In 1991, Mark Storch from Shokan, New York, was charged with abusing his daughter after the Department of Social Services received reports that his daughter, Jenny, a 14-year-old with autism, had, through facilitated communication, disclosed recurring sexual assaults, including 200 vaginal and anal rapes. Storch's wife, Laura, was charged with neglect. Despite no physical evidence of abuse, inconsistencies in the facilitated testimony, and questions about the facilitator's troubling personal history, officials pressed charges, which led to a costly, 10-month legal battle. The case was dropped because FC lacked sufficient testing and acceptance in the scientific community.

Bennett Leventhal, head of pediatric psychology at the University of Chicago, testified in the Storch's defense, saying:
The obligation of an investigator into a new technique is to show how it works. With FC, there's this basic assumption of "What can it hurt?" The Storch trial is living proof of how dangerous it is to embrace new science before it has been tested.[154]

The Wheaton case

In 1992, the parents of Betsy Wheaton, a 16-year-old nonspeaking person with autism, were, through facilitated communication, falsely accused of sexually abusing their daughter. The facilitator, Janyce Boynton, who was trained in FC at the University of Maine, interpreted Betsy's hitting and scratching during facilitated sessions as reenactments of abuses occurring at home. Boynton reported these incidents to the Department of Human Services, and Betsy and her brother were removed from the home. The brother was also implicated. The parents' attorney hired Howard Shane of Boston Children's Hospital to conduct testing of authorship. It was determined through double blind testing that Boynton, not Betsy, was authoring the messages obtained through facilitation. Boynton, unlike many other facilitators who have undergone testing, accepted the results, stopped using FC, and persuaded the school system to stop using FC as well.

Looking back on her training, Boynton could see that it had been inadequate. She had not worked with anyone who was nonverbal, and she was pronounced "good to go" after only two days of mostly lectures. She knew that disabled people suffer relatively high levels of abuse, was taught that there was a strong affinity between patient and facilitator, so, she has stated, "you get this sense in your head that you're the only one this person trusts... And then you get overly protective and you have that thought in your head that maybe they've been abused." She describes the process of facilitating as '"everything happening at once.... you're so distracted by other things." Until she was tested, she fully believed that she was protecting Betsy. Howard Shane states: 'You're expected to believe (the person has been abused) and then, bam, the accusation happens."[156]

Of the Wheaton case, Todd wrote:
The real responsibility for the Wheaton tragedy lies with Rosemary Crossley, Douglas Biklen, and their acolytes. Despite all of their advanced degrees, professional credentials, and university appointments, they failed in their professional and ethical responsibility to show that FC was safe and effective before foisting it on the world. Having donned the trappings of expertise and put themselves out as authorities, they incurred what John Erskine called "the moral obligation to be intelligent." Long before they even thought to put pen to paper and write their extravagant tales of extra-ordinary awakenings, they should have heeded not just the technical lessons of Clever Hans, but the findings of more than a century of scientific and practical investigations of automatic writing, experimenter bias, mental telepathy, unconscious influence, subjective validation, stimulus leakage, expectancy effects, deception and self-delusion. Had they exercised due scientific diligence, the developers of FC would have quickly realized that they had done nothing better than turn pliant arms into Ouija planchettes and reinvent the seance.[81]

The Cracchiolo case

In 1993, Gregory Cracchiolo, a teacher of students with severe developmental disabilities in Whittier, California, was accused of sexually assaulting four of his students, with facilitated communication being the only source of evidence. The student making the allegation was unable to communicate by speech to verify these claims. Cracchiolo lost his job and faced 11 felony counts of forcible sodomy and forced oral copulation. He faced a maximum sentence of 88 years in prison. While authorship testing was not done, the charges were dropped after a month, because FC lacked the scientific evidence to determine its efficacy. The prosecutor continued to believe the abuses occurred. Cracchiolo's career as an educator was ruined.[108]

The Lehman case

In 1993, David and Jean Lehman of Newmarket, Ontario, were charged with sexually abusing their 20-year-old son, Derek, based solely on evidence obtained through facilitated communication. At birth, Derek had been diagnosed with autism and severe mental retardation and, at the time of the allegations, lived in a group home. He was not able to speak but could use two hand signals: "please" and "toilet". He was not able to recognize numbers beyond three and was not aware of his own sex or that of others.

During authorship testing, conducted by Mary Konstantareas, psychology professor at the University of Guelph, Derek was not able to name an object that he had seen but his facilitators had not. After a year-long court battle, the charges were proven unfounded and dropped. The ordeal left the Lehmans in debt, nearly losing their business, and drove David Lehman to nearly committing suicide. The Lehmans filed an $8.5 million civil suit and accepted a settlement for an undisclosed amount. They were also granted custodianship of their son.[83]

The New York case

In 1997, a New York couple, who had lost custody of their daughter, was awarded $750,000 by a federal jury when jurors concluded that the officials in the case "knew or should have known the girl's facilitated allegations of abuse were bogus."[157]

The England case

In 1999, a 50-year-old business man from the south of England was accused, through FC, of abusing his 17-year-old son. The son, reportedly, had severe autism and epileptic fits[158] and was not able to speak. Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, President of the High Court Family Division, ruled on the first case of its kind in England,[159] saying FC was "dangerous" and should not be used by UK courts to "back up or dismiss allegations of abuse."[56][160] She also indicated the court was "entirely satisfied the allegations were unfounded",[161] since there was no evidence that the father or anyone else was a perpetrator, or that the abuse had ever occurred.[158][159]

The Wendrow case

In 2007, Julian Wendrow of West Bloomfield, Michigan, was charged with sexually abusing his daughter, Aislinn, and placed in jail for 80 days.[162] His wife, Tali, was accused of severely mentally and emotionally abusing her children and was forced to wear an electronic tether.[44][81] Their 13-year-old son was also named as a perpetrator. Both children were placed in foster care.

The allegations resulted from messages obtained via FC at school while an aide helped guide the girl's hand.[34] The case was a "virtual rerun" of the 1992 Betsy Wheaton case.[9][34] When lawyers questioned the girl without the facilitator present, she was unable to answer questions, including "What color is your sweater?" and "Are you a boy or a girl?"[44] The case fell apart due to lack of physical evidence of abuse and facilitated testimony that contained information inconsistent with the Wendrow's family, lifestyle and living arrangements: relatives that did not exist, Christian theology attributed to observant Jewish parents, nonexistent rooms and photos.[44][81]

Aislinn testified, through FC, that she was afraid of her father because of a gun. Police found no guns in the home.[163] As a result, the charges were dropped and the children returned to their parents. Prosecutors continued to believe the girl was afraid of her father.[162] A wrongful arrest suit was settled for $1.8 million, which, according to the attorney representing the Police Department, was a business decision made by the insurance company and was not an admission of wrongdoing or liability.[164]

The Gigi Jordan case

On February 3, 2010, Gigi Jordan of New York was found by police in the Peninsula New York hotel. She was incoherent from a drug overdose. Jude Mirra, her 8-year-old son, was also found, dead from a mixture of painkillers and anti-inflammatories which Jordan force-fed him. Jordan, at the time, was under the impression Mirra wanted to die because of alleged sexual abuse typed out during sessions involving FC. Despite testifying that she was "by Jude's side at all hours of the day", Jordan believed the biological father, her ex-husband, had been abusing the boy for years and that Mirra's diagnosis of autism was actually a catatonic psychosis brought on by the alleged abuse. To Jordan, the killing was "altruistic filicide"; a mercy killing.[165][166]

Mirra, who was diagnosed with autism, was not able to speak. Jordan indicated that Mirra, through FC, had told her "I need a lot of drugs to die peacefully" and "I wish you do it soon." Although Jordan and Mirra communicated by typing together on a Blackberry, no witnesses ever observed Mirra type by himself. In reviewing typed messages provided by Jordan of her son's disclosures, court officials questioned whether Mirra had the capacity to understand or spell words like "aggressively" and "sadistic".[165][167]

Jordan also believed her second ex-husband, a pharmaceutical executive, was stealing millions of dollars from her and wanted her killed. Both men denied the accusations. No evidence of any crimes committed in connection with the case were found against either of the two men.[165] In November, 2014, the jury accepted Jordan's claim of extreme emotional disturbance and found her guilty of first-degree manslaughter in the death of her son.[165]

The Wales case

In 2012, the parents of a young woman with severe intellectual disabilities, autism and profound communication problems were reunited with their daughter after the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales concluded they had been wrongfully arrested on suspicion of serious sexual assault obtained via FC. The family had been separated for six months. No charges were brought against the parents. Rowan Wilson, a psychiatrist, had, on November 8, 2010, assessed the woman's mental capacity using FC,[168] though he, admittedly, had no knowledge or experience of the system.[169] He also failed to consider the discrepancy between the woman's language fluency with and without FC.[169] The Medical Practitioners Tribunal Services ruled that Wilson was still fit to practice because "he had shown remorse and insight into the errors he was highly unlikely to repeat." Wilson participated in further training in autism.[169]

Anna Stubblefield case

In 2015, Anna Stubblefield, a Rutgers University–Newark philosophy professor, was found guilty of aggravated sexual assault against a man with severe mental disabilities. Stubblefield stated that the two of them had a mutually consenting relationship established through facilitated communication. At the time the investigation began in 2011, Stubblefield was the chair of Rutgers-Newark's philosophy department, whose professional work centered on ethics, race, and disability rights. She was married and had a family.[170]

Stubblefield was indicted in January 2013. The victim was identified as D.J., a 33-year-old African-American man with severe mental disabilities, whom Stubblefield met in 2008 through D.J.'s brother, a student of hers and one of D.J.'s legal guardians. D.J. cannot speak, has cerebral palsy and is unable to stand independently or accurately direct movements of his body. Based on evidence of mental disability, his mother and brother were appointed his legal guardians.[170] Stubblefield, a proponent of facilitated communication, used the technique with D.J., and stated that she had successfully communicated with him, determining he was of normal intelligence. She subsequently brought him to conferences where she "held him out as a success story". Speaking with the assistance of Stubblefield using facilitated communication, D.J. is quoted, by Stubblefield, in the chapter "Living a Good Life...in Adult-Sized Diapers" in Disability and the Good Human Life:
The right to communication is the right to hope....I am jumping for joy knowing I can talk, but don't minimize how humiliating it can be to know people jump to the conclusion I am mentally disabled. If people understand the punishment of perceiving other people as inhuman, then things will get better.[171]
Stubblefield's web site says that she was "certified as a Facilitated Communication Trainer by the FC Institute (now the Institute on Communication and Inclusion[172]) at the School of Education, Syracuse University. She provides motor planning support for communication and literacy for adults and children."[173]

On Memorial Day in 2011, Stubblefield revealed to D.J.'s mother and brother that she had had sexual relations with D.J. and that they were in love. She attributed consent to messages received while facilitating. Testing of D.J. by family members failed to establish the ability to communicate, Stubblefield was thanked, but denied further access to D.J. However, she continued to attempt to maintain contact with D.J. and began challenging control of D.J.'s legal guardians over him.[170] In August 2011, the family went to the Rutgers police, who contacted Essex County prosecutors.[174][175]

Despite 20 years of psychological testing, which concluded that D.J. is severely mentally disabled, Stubblefield considered D.J. mentally capable, having the capacity to understand questions, communicate using facilitated communication, and give consent to sex. Prosecutors argued that FC has been scientifically discredited and that D.J. did not have the ability to give consent for or to refuse sexual relations.[176] Stubblefield pleaded not guilty to the charges, but was put on administrative leave without pay and removed as chair of the philosophy department.[174][176] D.J. was not allowed to testify using facilitated communication as it was ruled unreliable under New Jersey law.[170] Experts evaluating D.J. testified he did not have the intellectual ability to consent to sexual activity.[112] After a three-week trial, the jury found Stubblefield guilty of two counts of first-degree aggravated sexual assault.[170] After conviction, the judge revoked bail saying that she was a flight risk. Sentencing, with possible penalties of between ten and twenty years in prison on each count, was scheduled for January 15, 2016. Stubblefield filed a motion to have the jury's verdict set aside on the grounds that there was "insufficient evidence" to prove that she knew or should have known that D.J. was not capable of giving consent.[170] On January 15, 2016, she was sentenced to 12 years in prison.[177] She will be required to register as a sex offender.[177][178] In a press release, the Assistant Prosecutor, Eric Plant, said: "Knowing how desperately families of disabled individuals are for some hope, she misled the victim's family into believing that she was making progress in helping their son to communicate while all the while she was simply satisfying her own tawdry desires".[179]

On April 3, 2017, Jeff McMahan, a former professor of philosophy at Rutgers and a professor of moral philosophy at the University of Oxford, and Peter Singer, professor of bioethics at Princeton University and laureate professor at the University of Melbourne, published a joint op-ed in the New York Times about this case. They expressed dismay at the exclusion of evidence at trial that might have supported Stubblefield's contention that D.J. is and was cognitively able to communicate using facilitated communication and consent to sexual activity, and concluded that "Stubblefield herself is a victim of grievous and unjust harms".[180] On March 19, 2018 Stubblefield "pleaded guilty to third-degree aggravated criminal sexual contact" the Prosecutor's Office "will recommend a four-year prison sentence" her sentencing is scheduled for May 7, 2018. In October 2016, the family was awarded $4 million dollars in a civil lawsuit against Stubblefield.[181]

The Martina Susanne Schweiger case

In 2014, Martina Susanne Schweiger of Queensland, Australia, received an 18-month suspended jail sentence for two counts of indecent dealing with a 21-year-old client with severe autism with whom she worked at a disability services home. The client required 24-hour support and was not able to speak, write or use manual sign-language.

Schweiger believed the client expressed love for her through FC, the purported feeling that she claimed to reciprocate. She also believed the client, again through FC, indicated a desire to have sex. On one occasion, Schweiger removed her clothes in front of her client. On another, she "play wrestled" with him, touching his penis with her hands and mouth. She confessed her actions to her employer. After hearing reports from Alan Hudson, psychology professor at RMIT University, that FC "did not work for the young man", Judge Gary Long of Maroochydore District Court found Schweiger guilty of the charges, indicating that FC was neither reliable nor accurate as a method of communication.[82][182]

The Hialeah Case

In 2018, Jose Cordero spent 35 days in jail and was barred from seeing his family for months after he was accused of abusing his 7 year old son with autism. The accusations arose through the child's teacher using the "hand-over-hand" method of FC. Miami-Dade prosecutors grew suspicious when, through the facilitator the boy made even more outlandish claims and language not typical for someone that age. After being paired with a different teacher and specialist the child was no longer able to reproduce a single word. Coupled with negative DNA testing this resulted in the charges being dropped. According to a final State Attorney report, "Due to significant inconsistencies within the victim’s disclosures coupled with controversial means by which the disclosure was obtained, and a lack of corroborating witnesses, the state would be unable to prove this case beyond a reasonable doubt at this time."[183]

The case raises questions about whether or not the teacher, Saul Fumero, made up the allegations and whether the district was aware he was using a discredited communication method. Fumero acknowledged that he has had no formal training in FC. A Miami-Dade Schools spokeswoman did not say whether the district would review Fumero's actions, but noted that teachers are required by law to immediately report allegations of abuse. The spokeswoman, Daisy Gonzalez-Diego, added that the district "does not endorse the facilitated communication method and does not provide training" for it because it is not accepted by those working in the field of "augmentative and alternative communication."
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New silicon ‘Neuropixels’ probes record activity of hundreds of neurons simultaneously

Promise to have a major impact on neuroscience.
November 8, 2017
Original link:  http://www.kurzweilai.net/new-silicon-neuropixels-probes-record-activity-of-hundreds-of-neurons-simultaneously
A section of a Neuropixels probe (credit: Howard Hughes Medical Institute)

In a $5.5 million international collaboration, researchers and engineers have developed powerful new “Neuropixels” brain probes that can simultaneously monitor the neural activity of hundreds of neurons at several layers of a rodent’s brain for the first time.

Described in a paper published today (November 8, 2017) in Nature, Neuropixels probes represent a significant advance in neuroscience measurement technology, and will allow for the most precise understanding yet of how large networks of nerve cells coordinate to give rise to behavior and cognition, according to the researchers.

Illustrating the ability to record several layers of brain regions simultaneously, 741 electrodes in two Neuropixels probes recorded signals from five major brain structures in 13 awake head-fixed mice. The number of putative single neurons from each structure is shown in parentheses. (Approximate probe locations are shown overlaid on the Allen Mouse Brain Atlas at the left.) (credit: James J. Jun et al./Nature)

Neuropixels probes are similar to electrophysiology probes that neuroscientists have used for decades to detect extracellular electrical activity in the brains of living animals — but they incorporate two critical advances:
  • The new probes are thinner (70 x 20 micrometers) than a human hair, but about as long as a mouse brain (one centimeter), so they pass through and collect data from multiple brain regions at the same time. The 960 electrical sensors and recording electrodes are densely packed along their length, recording hundreds of well-resolved single neuron signal traces, making it easier for researchers to pinpoint the cellular sources of brain activity.
  • Each of the new probes incorporates a nearly complete recording system — reducing hardware size and cost and eliminating hundreds of bulky output wires.
These features will allow researchers to collect more meaningful data in a single experiment than current technologies (which can measure the activity of individual neurons within a specific spot in the brain or can reveal larger, regional patterns of activity, but not both simultaneously).
To develop the probes, researchers at HHMI’s Janelia Research Campus, the Allen Institute for Brain Science, and University College London worked with engineers at imec, an international nanoelectronics research center in Leuven, Belgium, with grant funding from the Gatsby Charitable Foundation and Wellcome.

Recordings from 127 neurons in entorhinal and medial prefrontal cortices using chronic implants in unrestrained rats. (a) Schematic representation of the implant in the entorhinal cortex. MEnt, medial entorhinal cortex; PrS, presubiculum; S, subiculum; V1B, primary visual cortex, binocular area; V2L, secondary visual cortex, lateral area. (b) Filtered voltage traces from 130 channels spanning 1.3 mm of the shank. (credit: James J. Jun et al./Nature)

Accelerating neuroscience research

With nearly 1,000 electrical sensors positioned along a probe thinner than a human hair but long enough to access many regions of a rodent’s brain simultaneously, the new technology could greatly accelerate neuroscience research, says Timothy Harris, senior fellow at Janelia, leader of the Neuropixels collaboration. “You can [detect the activity of] large numbers of neurons from multiple brain regions with higher fidelity and much less difficulty,” he says.

There are currently more than 400 prototype Neuropixels probes in testing at research centers worldwide.

“At the Allen Institute for Brain Science, one of our chief goals is to decipher the cellular-level code used by the brain,” says Christof Koch, President and Chief Scientist at the Allen Institute for Brain Science. “The Neuropixels probes represent a significant leap forward in measurement technology and will allow for the most precise understanding yet of how large coalitions of nerve cells coordinate to give rise to behavior and cognition.”

Neuropixels probes are expected to be available for purchase by research laboratories by mid-2018.

Scientists from the consortium will present data collected using prototype Neuropixels probes at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in Washington, DC, November 11–15, 2017.

References:

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Clever Hans

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Clever Hans performing in 1904

Clever Hans (in German: der Kluge Hans) was an Orlov Trotter horse that was claimed to have been able to perform arithmetic and other intellectual tasks.

After a formal investigation in 1907, psychologist Oskar Pfungst demonstrated that the horse was not actually performing these mental tasks, but was watching the reactions of his trainer. He discovered this artifact in the research methodology, wherein the horse was responding directly to involuntary cues in the body language of the human trainer, who had the faculties to solve each problem. The trainer was entirely unaware that he was providing such cues.[1] In honour of Pfungst's study, the anomalous artifact has since been referred to as the Clever Hans effect and has continued to be important knowledge in the observer-expectancy effect and later studies in animal cognition. Hans was studied by the famous German philosopher and psychologist Carl Stumpf in the early 20th century. Stumpf was observing the sensational phenomena of the horse, which also added to his impact on phenomenology.

Spectacle

Wilhelm von Osten and Clever Hans

During the early twentieth century, the public was especially interested in animal intelligence owing in a large part to Charles Darwin's recent publications. The case of Clever Hans was taken to show an advanced level of number sense in an animal.

Hans was a horse owned by Wilhelm von Osten, who was a gymnasium mathematics teacher, an amateur horse trainer, phrenologist, and something of a mystic.[1] Hans was said to have been taught to add, subtract, multiply, divide, work with fractions, tell time, keep track of the calendar, differentiate musical tones, and read, spell, and understand German. Von Osten would ask Hans, "If the eighth day of the month comes on a Tuesday, what is the date of the following Friday?" Hans would answer by tapping his hoof. Questions could be asked both orally, and in written form. Von Osten exhibited Hans throughout Germany, and never charged admission. Hans's abilities were reported in The New York Times in 1904.[2] After von Osten died in 1909, Hans was acquired by several owners. After 1916, there is no record of him and his fate remains unknown.

Investigation

As a result of the large amount of public interest in Clever Hans, the German board of education appointed a commission to investigate von Osten's scientific claims. Philosopher and psychologist Carl Stumpf formed a panel of 13 people, known as the Hans Commission. This commission consisted of a veterinarian, a circus manager, a Cavalry officer, a number of school teachers, and the director of the Berlin zoological gardens. This commission concluded in September 1904 that no tricks were involved in Hans's performance.[2]

The commission passed off the evaluation to Pfungst, who tested the basis for these claimed abilities by:
  1. Isolating horse and questioner from spectators, so no cues could come from them
  2. Using questioners other than the horse's master
  3. By means of blinders, varying whether the horse could see the questioner
  4. Varying whether the questioner knew the answer to the question in advance.
Using a substantial number of trials, Pfungst found that the horse could get the correct answer even if von Osten himself did not ask the questions, ruling out the possibility of fraud. However, the horse got the right answer only when the questioner knew what the answer was and the horse could see the questioner. He observed that when von Osten knew the answers to the questions, Hans got 89 percent of the answers correct, but when von Osten did not know the answers to the questions, Hans answered only six percent of the questions correctly.

Pfungst then proceeded to examine the behaviour of the questioner in detail, and showed that as the horse's taps approached the right answer, the questioner's posture and facial expression changed in ways that were consistent with an increase in tension, which was released when the horse made the final, correct tap. This provided a cue that the horse could use to tell it to stop tapping. The social communication systems of horses may depend on the detection of small postural changes, and this would explain why Hans so easily picked up on the cues given by von Osten, even if these cues were unconscious.

Pfungst carried out laboratory tests with human subjects, in which he played the part of the horse. Pfungst asked subjects to stand on his right and think "with a high degree of concentration" about a particular number, or a simple mathematical problem. Pfungst would then tap out the answer with his right hand. He frequently observed "a sudden slight upward jerk of the head" when reaching the final tap, and noted that this corresponded to the subject resuming the position they had adopted before thinking of the question.[3]

Even after this official debunking, von Osten, who was never persuaded by Pfungst's findings, continued to show Hans around Germany, attracting large and enthusiastic crowds.[3]

The Clever Hans effect

After Pfungst had become adept at giving Hans performances himself, and was fully aware of the subtle cues which made them possible, he discovered that he would produce these cues involuntarily regardless of whether he wished to exhibit or suppress them. Recognition of this phenomenon has had a large effect on experimental design and methodology for all experiments whatsoever involving sentient subjects, including humans.

The risk of Clever Hans effects is one reason why comparative psychologists normally test animals in isolated apparatus, without interaction with them. However this creates problems of its own, because many of the most interesting phenomena in animal cognition are only likely to be demonstrated in a social context, and in order to train and demonstrate them, it is necessary to build up a social relationship between trainer and animal. This point of view has been strongly argued by Irene Pepperberg in relation to her studies of parrots (Alex), and by Allen and Beatrix Gardner in their study of the chimpanzee Washoe. If the results of such studies are to gain universal acceptance, it is necessary to find some way of testing the animals' achievements which eliminates the risk of Clever Hans effects. However, simply removing the trainer from the scene may not be an appropriate strategy, because where the social relationship between trainer and subject is strong, the removal of the trainer may produce emotional responses preventing the subject from performing. It is therefore necessary to devise procedures where none of those present knows what the animal's likely response may be.

The Clever Hans Effect has also been observed in drug-sniffing dogs. A study at University of California Davis revealed that cues can be telegraphed by the handler to the dogs, resulting in false positives.[4] A 2004 study of Rico, a border collie reported by his owners as having a vocabulary of over 200 words, avoided the Clever Hans effect by having the owner ask the dog to fetch items from an adjacent room, so that the owner could not provide real time feedback while the dog was selecting an object.

As Pfungst's final experiment makes clear, Clever Hans effects are quite as likely to occur in experiments with humans as in experiments with animals. For this reason, care is often taken in fields such as perception, cognitive psychology, and social psychology to make experiments double-blind, meaning that neither the experimenter nor the subject knows what condition the subject is in, and thus what his or her responses are predicted to be. Another way in which Clever Hans effects are avoided is by replacing the experimenter with a computer, which can deliver standardized instructions and record responses without giving clues.
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Integrated circuits printed directly onto fabric for the first time

Your future smartphone may be woven into your machine-washable clothes
November 10, 2017
Original link:  http://www.kurzweilai.net/integrated-circuits-printed-directly-onto-fabric-for-the-first-time
A sample integrated circuit printed on fabric. (credit: Felice Torrisi)

Researchers at the University of Cambridge, working with colleagues in Italy and China, have incorporated washable, stretchable, and breathable integrated electronic circuits into fabric for the first time — opening up new possibilities for smart textiles and wearable textile electronic devices.
The circuits were made with cheap, safe, and environmentally friendly inks, and printed using conventional inkjet-printing techniques.

The new method directly prints graphene inks and other two-dimensional materials on fabric to produce integrated electronic circuits that are comfortable to wear and can survive up to 20 cycles in a typical washing machine. The technology opens up new applications of smart fabrics ranging from personal health to wearable computing, military garments, fashion, and wearable energy harvesting and storage.

(Left) Final step in fabrication of an inkjet-printed field effect transistor (FET) heterostructure on textile. (Right) Side-view schematic and photo. (credit for images: Tian Carey et al./Nature Communications; composite: KurzweilAI)

Based on earlier work on the formulation of graphene inks for printed electronics, the team designed new low-boiling-point inks, allowing them to be directly printed onto polyester fabric. They also found that roughness of the fabric improved the performance of the printed devices. The versatility of this process also allowed the researchers to design all-printed integrated electronic circuits combining active and passive components.

Non-toxic, flexible, low-power, scalable

Most wearable electronic devices that are currently available rely on rigid electronic components mounted on plastic, rubber or textiles. These have limited compatibility with the skin, are damaged when washed, and are uncomfortable to wear because they are not breathable.

“Other inks for printed electronics normally require toxic solvents and are not suitable to be worn, whereas our inks are both cheap, safe and environmentally friendly, and can be combined to create electronic circuits by simply printing different two-dimensional materials on the fabric,” said Felice Torrisi, PhD, of the Cambridge Graphene Centre, senior author of a paper describing the research in the open-access journal Nature Communications.

The process is scalable and according to the researchers, there are no fundamental obstacles to the technological development of wearable electronic devices — both in terms of their complexity and performance. The printed components are flexible, washable, and require low power — essential requirements for applications in wearable electronics.

The teams at the Cambridge Graphene Centre and Politecnico di Milano are also involved in the Graphene Flagship, an EC-funded, pan-European project dedicated to bringing graphene and GRM technologies to commercial applications.

The research was supported by grants from the Graphene Flagship, the European Research Council’s Synergy Grant, The Engineering and Physical Science Research Council, The Newton Trust, the International Research Fellowship of the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the Ministry of Science and Technology of China. The technology is being commercialized by Cambridge Enterprise, the University’s commercialization arm.

Abstract of Fully inkjet-printed two-dimensional material field-effect heterojunctions for wearable and textile electronics

Fully printed wearable electronics based on two-dimensional (2D) material heterojunction structures also known as heterostructures, such as field-effect transistors, require robust and reproducible printed multi-layer stacks consisting of active channel, dielectric and conductive contact layers. Solution processing of graphite and other layered materials provides low-cost inks enabling printed electronic devices, for example by inkjet printing. However, the limited quality of the 2D-material inks, the complexity of the layered arrangement, and the lack of a dielectric 2D-material ink able to operate at room temperature, under strain and after several washing cycles has impeded the fabrication of electronic devices on textile with fully printed 2D heterostructures. Here we demonstrate fully inkjet-printed 2D-material active heterostructures with graphene and hexagonal-boron nitride (h-BN) inks, and use them to fabricate all inkjet-printed flexible and washable field-effect transistors on textile, reaching a field-effect mobility of ~91 cm2 V−1 s−1, at low voltage (<5 and="" as="" cells="" circuits="" complementary="" electronic="" enables="" fully="" gates.="" inkjet-printed="" inverters="" logic="" memory="" or="" p="" reprogrammable="" such="" this="" v="" volatile="">

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Cetacean intelligence

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
Cetacean intelligence is the cognitive ability of the Cetacea order of mammals. This order includes whales, porpoises, and dolphins.

Brain size

Brain size was previously considered a major indicator of the intelligence of an animal. However, many other factors also affect intelligence, and recent[when?] discoveries concerning bird intelligence have called into question the influence of brain size.[1] Since most of the brain is used for maintaining bodily functions, greater ratios of brain to body mass may increase the amount of brain mass available for more complex cognitive tasks.[2][unreliable source?][3] Allometric analysis indicates that in general, mammalian brain size scales at approximately the ⅔ or ¾ exponent of body mass.[4] Comparison of actual brain size with the size expected from allometry provides an encephalization quotient (EQ) that can be used as a more accurate indicator of an animal's intelligence.
  • Sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) have the largest known brain mass of any extant animal, averaging 7.8 kg in mature males.[5]
  • Killer Whales (Orcinus orca ) have the second largest known brain mass of any extant animal. (5.4-6.8 kg) [6][better source needed]
  • Bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) have an absolute brain mass of 1,500–1,700 grams. This is slightly greater than that of humans (1,300–1,400 grams) and about four times that of chimpanzees (400 grams).[7]
  • The brain to body mass ratio (not the encephalization quotient) in some members of the odontocete superfamily Delphinoidea (dolphins, porpoises, belugas, and narwhals) is greater than modern humans, and greater than all other mammals (there is debate whether that of the treeshrew might be second in place of humans).[8][9] In some dolphins, it is less than half that of humans: 0.9% versus 2.1%.[citation needed] This comparison seems more favorable if one excludes the large amount of insulating blubber (15-20% of mass).
  • The encephalization quotient varies widely between species. The La Plata dolphin has an EQ of approximately 1.67; the Ganges River dolphin of 1.55; the orca of 2.57; the bottlenose dolphin of 4.14; and the tucuxi dolphin of 4.56;[10] In comparison to other animals, elephants have an EQ ranging from 1.13 to 2.36;[11]:151 chimpanzees of approximately 2.49; dogs of 1.17; cats of 1.00; and mice of 0.50.[12]
  • The majority of mammals are born with a brain close to 90% of the adult weight.[13] Humans are born with 28%[13] of the adult weight, chimpanzees with 54%,[13] bottlenose dolphins with 42.5%,[14] and elephants with 35%.[15]
Spindle cells (neurons without extensive branching) have been discovered in the brains of the humpback whale, fin whale, sperm whale, killer whale,[16][17] bottlenose dolphins, Risso's dolphins, and beluga whales.[18] Humans, great apes, and elephants, species all well known for their high intelligence, are the only others known to have spindle cells.[19](p242) Spindle neurons appear to play a central role in the development of intelligent behavior. Such a discovery may suggest a convergent evolution of these species.[20]

Brain structure

Elephant brains also show a complexity similar to dolphin brains, and are also more convoluted than that of humans,[21] and with a cortex thicker than that of cetaceans.[22] It is generally agreed that the growth of the neocortex, both absolutely and relative to the rest of the brain, during human evolution, has been responsible for the evolution of human intelligence, however defined. While a complex neocortex usually indicates high intelligence, there are exceptions. For example, the echidna has a highly developed brain, yet is not widely considered very intelligent.[23]

In 2015, it was shown for the first time that a species of dolphin, the long-finned pilot whale, has more neocortical neurons than any mammal studied to date including humans.[24] Unlike terrestrial mammals, dolphin brains contain a paralimbic lobe, which may possibly be used for sensory processing. The dolphin is a voluntary breather, even during sleep, with the result that veterinary anaesthesia of dolphins would result in asphyxiation.[25] All sleeping mammals, including dolphins, experience a stage known as REM sleep.[26] Ridgway reports that EEGs show alternating hemispheric asymmetry in slow waves during sleep, with occasional sleep-like waves from both hemispheres.[27] This result has been interpreted to mean that dolphins sleep only one hemisphere of their brain at a time, possibly to control their voluntary respiration system or to be vigilant for predators. This is also given as explanation for the large size of their brains.

Dolphin brain stem transmission time is faster than that normally found in humans, and is approximately equivalent to the speed in rats.[citation needed] As echo-location is the dolphin's primary sense – analogous to vision in primates – and since sound travels four and a half times faster in water than in air, scientists[who?] speculate that the faster brain stem transmission time, and perhaps the paralimbic lobe as well, assist quicker processing of sound. The dolphin's greater dependence on sound processing is evident in the structure of its brain: its neural area devoted to visual imaging is only about one-tenth that of the human brain, while the area devoted to acoustical imaging is about 10 times as large.[citation needed] Sensory experiments suggest a great degree of cross-modal integration in the processing of shapes between echolocative and visual areas of the brain. Unlike the case of the human brain, the cetacean optic chiasm is completely crossed,[citation needed] and there is behavioral evidence for hemispheric dominance for vision.[citation needed]

Brain evolution

The evolution of encephalization in cetaceans is similar to that in primates.[28] Though the general trend in their evolutionary history increased brain mass, body mass, and encephalization quotient, a few lineages actually unerwent decephalization, although the selective pressures that caused this are still under debate.[29] Among cetaceans, Odontoceti tend to have higher encephalization quotients than Mysticeti, which is at least partially due to the fact that Mysticeti have much larger body masses without a compensating increase in brain mass.[30] As far as which selective pressures drove the encephalization (or decephalization) of cetacean brains, current research espouses a few main theories. The most promising suggests that cetacean brain size and complexity increased to support complex social relations.[31][30][29] It could also have been driven by changes in diet, the emergence of echolocation, or an increase in territorial range.[30][29]

Problem-solving ability

Some research shows that dolphins, among other animals, understand concepts such as numerical continuity, though not necessarily counting.[32] Dolphins may be able to discriminate between numbers.[33]

Several researchers observing animals' ability to learn set formation tend to rank dolphins at about the level of elephants in intelligence,[34] and show that dolphins do not other highly intelligent animals in problem solving.[35] A 1982 survey of other studies showed that in the learning if "set formation", dolphins rank high, but not as high as some other animals.[36]

Behavior

Pod characteristics

Dolphin group sizes vary quite dramatically. River dolphins usually congregate in fairly small groups from 6 to 12 in number or, in some species, singly or in pairs. The individuals in these small groups know and recognize one another. Other species such as the oceanic Pantropical Spotted Dolphin, Common Dolphin and Spinner Dolphin travel in large groups of hundreds of individuals. It is unknown whether every member of the group is acquainted with every other. However, large packs can act as a single cohesive unit – observations show that if an unexpected disturbance, such as a shark approach, occurs from the flank or from beneath the group, the group moves in near-unison to avoid the threat. This means that the dolphins must be aware not only of their near neighbors but also of other individuals nearby – in a similar manner to which humans perform "Audience waves". This is achieved by sight, and possibly also echolocation. One hypothesis proposed by Jerison (1986) is that members of a pod of dolphins are able to share echolocation results with each other to create a better understanding of their surroundings.[37]

Resident orcas living in British Columbia, Canada, and Washington, United States live in extremely stable family groups. The basis of this social structure is the matriline, consisting of a mother and her offspring, who travel with her for life. Male orcas never leave their mothers' pods, while female offspring may branch off to form their own matriline if they have many offspring of their own. Males have a particularly strong bond with their mother, and travel with them their entire lives, which can exceed 50 years.

Relationships in the orca population can be discovered through their vocalizations. Matrilines who share a common ancestor from only a few generations back share mostly the same dialect, comprising a pod. Pods who share some calls indicate a common ancestor from many generations back, and make up a clan. The orcas use these dialects to avoid inbreeding. They mate outside the clan, which is determined by the different vocalizations. There is evidence that other species of dolphins may also have dialects.[38][39]

In bottlenose dolphin studies by Wells in Sarasota, Florida, and Smolker in Shark Bay, Australia, females of a community are all linked either directly or through a mutual association in an overall social structure known as fission-fusion. Groups of the strongest association are known as "bands", and their composition can remain stable over years. There is some genetic evidence that band members may be related, but these bands are not necessarily limited to a single matrilineal line. There is no evidence that bands compete with each other. In the same research areas, as well as in Moray Firth, Scotland, males form strong associations of two to three individuals, with a coefficient of association between 70 and 100. These groups of males are known as "alliances", and members often display synchronous behaviors such as respiration, jumping, and breaching. Alliance composition is stable on the order of tens of years, and may provide a benefit for the acquisition of females for mating. The complex social strategies of marine mammals such as bottlenose dolphins, "provide interesting parallels" with the social strategies of elephants and chimpanzees.[40](p519)

Complex play

Dolphins are known to engage in complex play behavior, which includes such things as producing stable underwater toroidal air-core vortex rings or "bubble rings".[41] There are two main methods of bubble ring production: rapid puffing of a burst of air into the water and allowing it to rise to the surface, forming a ring; or swimming repeatedly in a circle and then stopping to inject air into the helical vortex currents thus formed. The dolphin will often then examine its creation visually and with sonar. They also appear to enjoy biting the vortex-rings they have created, so that they burst into many separate normal bubbles and then rise quickly to the surface.[42] Certain whales are also known to produce bubble rings or bubble nets for the purpose of foraging. Many dolphin species also play by riding in waves, whether natural waves near the shoreline in a method akin to human "body-surfing", or within the waves induced by the bow of a moving boat in a behavior known as bow riding.

Cross-species cooperation

There have been instances in captivity of various species of dolphin and porpoise helping and interacting across species, including helping beached whales.[43] Also they have been known to live alongside Resident (fish eating) Orca Whales for limited amounts of time.[citation needed] Dolphins have also been known to aid human swimmers in need, and in at least one instance a distressed dolphin approached human divers seeking assistance.[44]

Creative behavior

Aside from having exhibited the ability to learn complex tricks, dolphins have also demonstrated the ability to produce creative responses. This was studied by Karen Pryor during the mid-1960s at Sea Life Park in Hawaii, and was published as The Creative Porpoise: Training for Novel Behavior in 1969. The two test subjects were two rough-toothed dolphins (Steno bredanensis), named Malia (a regular show performer at Sea Life Park) and Hou (a research subject at adjacent Oceanic Institute). The experiment tested when and whether the dolphins would identify that they were being rewarded (with fish) for originality in behavior and was very successful. However, since only two dolphins were involved in the experiment, the study is difficult to generalize.

Starting with the dolphin named Malia, the method of the experiment was to choose a particular behavior exhibited by her each day and reward each display of that behavior throughout the day's session. At the start of each new day Malia would present the prior day's behavior, but only when a new behavior was exhibited was a reward given. All behaviors exhibited were, at least for a time, known behaviors of dolphins. After approximately two weeks Malia apparently exhausted "normal" behaviors and began to repeat performances. This was not rewarded.[45]

According to Pryor, the dolphin became almost despondent. However, at the sixteenth session without novel behavior, the researchers were presented with a flip they had never seen before. This was reinforced.[45] As related by Pryor, after the new display: "instead of offering that again she offered a tail swipe we'd never seen; we reinforced that. She began offering us all kinds of behavior that we hadn't seen in such a mad flurry that finally we could hardly choose what to throw fish at".[45]
The second test subject, Hou, took thirty-three sessions to reach the same stage. On each occasion the experiment was stopped when the variability of dolphin behavior became too complex to make further positive reinforcement meaningful.

The same experiment was repeated with humans, and it took the volunteers about the same length of time to figure out what was being asked of them. After an initial period of frustration or anger, the humans realised they were being rewarded for novel behavior. In dolphins this realisation produced excitement and more and more novel behaviors – in humans it mostly just produced relief.[46]

Captive orcas have displayed responses indicating they get bored with activities. For instance, when Paul Spong worked with the orca Skana, he researched her visual skills. However, after performing favorably in the 72 trials per day, Skana suddenly began consistently getting every answer wrong. Spong concluded that a few fish were not enough motivation. He began playing music, which seemed to provide Skana with much more motivation.[citation needed]

At the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies in Mississippi, it has also been observed that the resident dolphins seem to show an awareness of the future. The dolphins are trained to keep their own tank clean by retrieving rubbish and bringing it to a keeper, to be rewarded with a fish. However, one dolphin, named Kelly, has apparently learned a way to get more fish, by hoarding the rubbish under a rock at the bottom of the pool and bringing it up one small piece at a time.[46]

Use of tools

As of 1984, scientists have observed wild bottlenose dolphins in Shark Bay, Western Australia using a basic tool. When searching for food on the sea floor, many of these dolphins were seen tearing off pieces of sponge and wrapping them around their rostra, presumably to prevent abrasions and facilitate digging.[47]

Communication

Whale song is the sounds made by whales and which is used for different kinds of communication. Dolphins emit two distinct kinds of acoustic signals, which are called whistles and clicks:
  • Clicks – quick broadband burst pulses – are used for echolocation, although some lower-frequency broadband vocalizations may serve a non-echolocative purpose such as communication; for example, the pulsed calls of Orcas. Pulses in a click train are emitted at intervals of ≈35–50 milliseconds, and in general these inter-click intervals are slightly greater than the round-trip time of sound to the target.
  • Whistles – narrow-band frequency modulated (FM) signals – are used for communicative purposes, such as contact calls, the pod-specific dialects of resident Orcas, or the signature whistle of bottlenose dolphins.
There is strong evidence that some specific whistles, called signature whistles, are used by dolphins to identify and/or call each other; dolphins have been observed emitting both other specimens' signature whistles, and their own. A unique signature whistle develops quite early in a dolphin's life, and it appears to be created in an imitation of the signature whistle of the dolphin's mother.[48] Imitation of the signature whistle seems to occur only among the mother and its young, and among befriended adult males.[49]

Xitco reported the ability of dolphins to eavesdrop passively on the active echolocative inspection of an object by another dolphin. Herman calls this effect the "acoustic flashlight" hypothesis, and may be related to findings by both Herman and Xitco on the comprehension of variations on the pointing gesture, including human pointing, dolphin postural pointing, and human gaze, in the sense of a redirection of another individual's attention, an ability which may require theory of mind

The environment where dolphins live makes experiments much more expensive and complicated than for many other species; additionally, the fact that cetaceans can emit and hear sounds (which are believed to be their main means of communication) in a range of frequencies much wider than that of humans means that sophisticated equipment, which was scarcely available in the past, is needed to record and analyse them. For example, clicks can contain significant energy in frequencies greater than 110 kHz (for comparison, it is unusual for a human to be able to hear sounds above 20 kHz), requiring that equipment have a sampling rates of at least 220 kHz; MHz-capable hardware is often used.

In addition to the acoustic communication channel, the visual modality is also significant. The contrasting pigmentation of the body may be used, for example with "flashes" of the hypopigmented ventral area of some species, as can the production of bubble streams during signature whistling. Also, much of the synchronous and cooperative behaviors, as described in the Behavior section of this entry, as well as cooperative foraging methods, likely are managed at least partly by visual means.

Experiments have shown that they can learn human sign language and can use whistles for 2-way human-animal communication. Phoenix and Akeakamai, bottlenose dolphins, understood individual words and basic sentences like "touch the frisbee with your tail and then jump over it" (Herman, Richards, & Wolz 1984). Phoenix learned whistles, and Akeakamai learned sign language. Both dolphins understood the significance of the ordering of tasks in a sentence.

A study conducted by the University of Chicago showed that bottlenose dolphins can remember whistles of other dolphins they'd lived with after 20 years of separation. Each dolphin has a unique whistle that functions like a name, allowing the marine mammals to keep close social bonds. The new research shows that dolphins have the longest memory yet known in any species other than people.[50]

Self-awareness

Self-awareness is seen, by some, to be a sign of highly developed, abstract thinking. Self-awareness, though not well-defined scientifically, is believed to be the precursor to more advanced processes like meta-cognitive reasoning (thinking about thinking) that are typical of humans. Scientific research in this field has suggested that bottlenose dolphins, alongside elephants and great apes, possess self-awareness.[51]

The most widely used test for self-awareness in animals is the mirror test, developed by Gordon Gallup in the 1970s, in which a temporary dye is placed on an animal's body, and the animal is then presented with a mirror.[52]

Some scientists[who?] still disagree with these findings, arguing that the results of these tests are open to human interpretation and susceptible to the Clever Hans effect.[citation needed] This test is much less definitive than when used for primates, because primates can touch the mark or the mirror, while dolphins cannot, making their alleged self-recognition behavior less certain. Critics argue that behaviors that are said to identify self-awareness resemble existing social behaviors, and so researchers could be misinterpreting social responses to another dolphin. The researchers counter-argue that the behaviors shown to evidence self-awareness are very different from normal responses to another dolphin, including paying significantly more attention to another dolphin than towards their mirror image.[citation needed] Whereas apes can merely touch the mark on themselves with their fingers, dolphins show less definitive behavior of self-awareness, twisting and turning themselves to observe the mark.[citation needed]

In 1995, Marten and Psarakos used television to test dolphin self-awareness.[53] They showed dolphins real-time footage of themselves, recorded footage, and another dolphin. They concluded that their evidence suggested self-awareness rather than social behavior. While this particular study has not been repeated since then, dolphins have since passed the mirror test.[54]

Comparative cognition

Research of the comparative cognition of the dolphin is one of the primary methods of the investigation of cetacean intelligence.
Examples of cognitive abilities investigated in the dolphin include concept formation, sensory skills, and the use of mental representation of dolphins. Such research has been ongoing since the late 1970s, and includes the specific topics of: acoustic mimicry, behavioral mimicry (inter- and intra-specific), comprehension of novel sequences in an artificial language (including non-finite state grammars as well as novel anomalous sequences), memory, monitoring of self-behaviors (including reporting on these, as well as avoiding or repeating them), reporting on the presence and absence of objects, object categorization, discrimination and matching (identity matching to sample, delayed matching to sample, arbitrary matching to sample, matching across echolocation and vision, reporting that no identity match exists, etc.), synchronous creative behaviors between two animals, comprehension of symbols for various body parts, comprehension of the pointing gesture and gaze (as made by dolphins or humans), problem solving, echolocative eavesdropping, and more. Some researchers include Louis Herman, Mark Xitco, John Gory, Stan Kuczaj, Adam Pack, and many others.

While these are largely laboratory studies, field studies relating to dolphin and cetacean cognition are also relevant to the issue of intelligence, including those proposing tool use, culture, fission-fusion social structure (including tracking alliances and other cooperative behavior), acoustic behavior (bottlenose dolphin signature whistles, sperm whale clicks, orca pod vocalizations), foraging methods (partial beaching, cooperation with human fishermen, herding fish into a ball, etc.). See: Richard Connor, Hal Whitehead, Peter Tyack, Janet Mann, Randall Wells, Kenneth Norris, B. Wursig, John Ford, Louis Herman, Diana Reiss, Lori Marino, Sam Ridgway, Paul Nachtigall, Eduardo Mercado, Denise Herzing, Whitlow Au.

In contrast to the primates, cetaceans are particularly far-removed from humans in evolutionary time. Therefore, cognitive abilities generally cannot be claimed to derive from a common ancestor, whereas such claims are sometimes made by researchers studying primate cognition. Though cetaceans and humans (in common with all mammals) had a common ancestor in the distant past, it was almost certainly of distinctly inferior cognitive abilities compared to its modern descendants. The early divergence of the human – dolphin ancestry line creates a problem in what cognitive tasks to test for because human/dolphin brains have evolved so differently, with completely different cognitive abilities favoring their very different environments. Therefore, an anthropomorphic problem exists with exactly what cognitive abilities to test, how to test them, as well as the validity of the experimental results because of the completely different evolutionary lineage and environment human and cetaceans have. It was for this reason Dr. John C. Lilly proposed that developing a means of communicating with dolphins is necessary to have any future hope of communicating with an extraterrestrial organism of equal-or-greater intelligence to man, which also would have evolved in a different environment and evolutionary lineage.

Further reading

  • Dolphin Communication and Cognition: Past, Present, and Future, edited by Denise L. Herzing and Christine M. Johnson, 2015, MIT Press
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New method 3D-prints fully functional electronic circuits

November 10, 2017
Original link:  http://www.kurzweilai.net/new-method-3d-prints-fully-functional-electronic-circuits
(Left) Conductive and polymeric inks were simultaneously inkjet-printed and solidified in a single process using UV irradiation. (Right) Microcontroller, batteries, and motors were then manually embedded in the system, creating a functioning miniature car. (credit: Ehab Saleh et al./University of Nottingham)

Researchers at the University of Nottingham have developed a method for rapidly 3D-printing fully functional electronic circuits such as antennas, medical devices, and solar-energy-collecting structures.

Unlike conventional 3D printers, these circuits can contain both both electrically conductive metallic inks (like the silver wires in the photo above) and insulating polymeric inks (like the yellow and orange support structure). A UV light is used rapidly solidify the inks).

The “multifunctional additive manufacturing” (MFAM) method combines 3D printing, which is based on layer-by-layer deposition of materials to create 3D devices, with 2D-printed electronics. It prints both conductors and insulators in a single step, expanding the range of functions in electronics (but not integrated circuits and other complex devices).

A schematic diagram showing how UV irradiation heats and solidifies conductive and dielectric inks to form the letter N  and silver tracks that connect a green LED to a power source. (credit: University of Nottingham)

The researchers discovered that silver nanoparticles in conductive inks are capable of absorbing UV light efficiently. The absorbed UV energy is converted into heat, which evaporates the solvents of the conductive ink and fuses the silver nanoparticles. This process affects only the conductive ink so it doesn’t damage any adjacent printed polymers.

For example, the method could create wristband that includes a pressure sensor, wireless communication circuitry, and capacitor (functioning as a battery), customized for the wearer — all in a single process.

The new method overcomes some of the challenges in manufacturing fully functional devices that contain plastic and metal components in complex structures, where different methods are required to solidify each material. The method speeds up the solidification process of the conductive inks to less than a minute per layer. Previously, this process took much longer to be completed using conventional heat sources such as ovens and hot plates, making it impractical when hundreds of layers are needed to form an object.

Abstract of 3D Inkjet Printing of Electronics Using UV Conversion

The production of electronic circuits and devices is limited by current manufacturing methods that limit both the form and potentially the performance of these systems. Additive manufacturing (AM) is a technology that has been shown to provide cross-sectoral manufacturing industries with significant geometrical freedom. A research domain known as multifunctional AM (MFAM) in its infancy looks to couple the positive attributes of AM with application in the electronics sector can have a significant impact on the development of new products; however, there are significant hurdles to overcome. This paper reports on the single step MFAM of 3D electronic circuitry within a polymeric structure using a combination of conductive and nonconductive materials within a single material jetting-based AM system. The basis of this breakthrough is a study of the optical absorption regions of a silver nanoparticle (AgNP) conductive ink which leads to a novel method to rapidly process and sinter AgNP inks in ambient conditions using simple UV radiation contemporaneously with UV-curing of deposited polymeric structures.

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