Autism in America: gratuitous barriers to productive employment

 I wrote this post some time ago, but the concerns I express here endure. However, I'd like to add two additional points:

1. The job prospects of many higher-functioning autistic individuals have been even further compromised by the ongoing expansion of "autism" to include two groups: 

• people formerly diagnosed with Asperger's
• people who advanced through school without any special supports and who were diagnosed only after reaching adulthood (despite the fact that the symptoms of autism, as per the diagnostic criteria, must be present in childhood). 

This means that companies who've made it their mission to allot a certain percentage of their job openings to "autistic individuals" are often filling their quotas with hirees who barely meet the criteria for autism.

2. There are, on the other hand, some superb and dedicated job coaches at some of the more truly autism-friendly colleges and universities who have made it their priority to work with *all* their autistic graduates, including those with more significant autism symptomology, to help them find gainful employment.

Autism in America: gratuitous barriers to productive employment

America prides itself on being way ahead of the rest of the world in its treatment of people with special needs. And sure, the U.S. probably has more accessible buildings, studded curb cuts, and special ed support services per capita than any other place on earth. More therapists, therapy rooms, weighted vests, preferential seating, FM-systems, enlarged screens, sign language interpreters, text-to-speech, speech-to-text, assistive communication, IEP meetings, extra time on tests, offices of disability services, etc., etc.. The U.S. can probably also boast pre-eminence in pro-special needs lip-service--all that public advocacy, all that sensitivity training, all those feel-good articles, and all those Disability Studies programs.

But when it comes to people with High Functioning Autism and Asperger’s Syndrome, we fall far short in a number of key ways. In particular, we’ve erected a number of uniquely American barriers to productive employment.

First, there’s the uniquely American “college for all” movement, which, combined with our growing obsession with credentialing, means that more jobs and vocational training programs than ever require college degrees—or at least strongly prefer applicants who have such degrees—including jobs and training programs that in other countries require only a high school diploma, if that.

Then there’s college itself. In most other countries, even if you do go to college, you don’t have to take courses outside your area of specialization. As a result, if you’re a biophysics major who can’t write a decent literature or history paper, you can still be confident you’ll get your degree.

But here in the US, getting a decent job means succeeding in a variety of different courses in college, including college English and various other humanities classes. And, for those on the autistic spectrum, such courses are frequently areas of disproportionate weakness.

College-level distribution requirements, in theory, need not be fatal to a bright, moderately autistic student. At Canadian colleges, I’ve been told, there are English courses specifically designed for computer science majors: courses that differ from those for literature majors. And even though American colleges do not tailor their English classes in this way, an American autistic student could, theoretically, satisfy an English requirement with a course in expository essay writing as opposed to one in the 19th century novel.

But current trends in American education, extending now all the way into college, are making the required courses less and less hospitable to autistic kids—even at schools that have a relatively small number of distribution requirements and profess to be autism friendly.

Is there really nothing inherently atypical about language development in autism?

 (Cross-posted at FacilitatedCommunication.org.)

In 2015 and 2016, Gernsbacher, Morson and Grace published a pair of articles on language development in autism. In these papers, the authors try to make a case that there’s nothing inherently atypical about language development in autism as compared to (1) typical language development and/or (2) development in non-autistic children with general language delays. The notion that there is no autism-specific language deficit, if true, would lend support to the notion that there’s nothing suspect about the linguistic skills outputted by individuals being subjected to FC/RPM/S2C.

Today I continue my critique of Gernsbacher’s FC-friendly papers with the 2015 paper, Language Development in Autism.

Weaponizing "Open-minded"

I realize I'm participating in an occasionally problematic trend when I say that something has been weaponized. These days, more and more things are said to have been weaponized:

But one term that I really do think has been weaponized as never before is the term "open-minded." For proponents of pseudoscientific practices (like, say, Facilitated Communication, Rapid Prompting Method, and Spelling to Communicate), open-minded seems to mean, specifically, open to pseudoscience.

That is, if you insist on scientific evidence and rigorous, controlled testing, you have failed to be open-minded.

Getting ready for a researchED talk on reading comprehension in autism

And, free-associating from "autism" to "Austen," was reminded of this old post. 

(This Saturday in Frederick, MD, meanwhile, I'll be talking about the challenges of resolving anaphora and definite noun phrases).

The imperiled pleasures of parsing Austen

How many of today's middle school students (or older students), I wonder, can properly parse the second sentence in the excerpt below?

(Quick background: "she" refers to Elizabeth; Jane is Elizabeth's sister; Elizabeth has been away from home; Longbourn is the name of Jane and Elizabeth's home; Jane is in love with Mr. Bingley).

(More background, plus spoiler alert: Mr. Darcy has recently proposed to Elizabeth and explained to her how he talked Mr. Bingley out of pursuing Jane).

It was not without an effort, meanwhile, that she could wait even for Longbourn, before she told her sister of Mr. Darcy's proposals. To know that she had the power of revealing what would so exceedingly astonish Jane, and must, at the same time, so highly gratify whatever of her own vanity she had not yet been able to reason away, was such a temptation to openness as nothing could have conquered but the state of indecision in which she remained as to the extent of what she should communicate; and her fear, if she once entered on the subject, of being hurried into repeating something of Bingley which might only grieve her sister farther.

Here's a pop quiz:

Part I: Grammar

What is the main verb of the italicized sentence?
What is the subject of that verb?
What is its object?
Write out the full subject of "could have conquered."

Part II: Comprehension 

What is Elizabeth tempted to do and why?
Which factors are deterring her from doing it?

Complicating this sentence are:

(1) the now-unconventional use of the comma, which separates the subject from the main verb
(2) the now-unconventional use of the semi-colon to separate noun phrases rather than verbal clauses
(3) the out-of-date use of "such … as" instead of "that" in marking a relative clause

and… last but not least:

(4) the multiple embedding in both subject and predicate, which I've marked off by brackets below:

To know [that she had the power of revealing what [would so exceedingly astonish Jane], and [must, [at the same time], so highly gratify [whatever of her own vanity she had not yet been able to reason away]], was such a temptation to openness as [nothing [could have conquered] but [the state of indecision [in which she remained as to the extent of what she should communicate]]; and [her fear, [if she once entered on the subject], of [being hurried into repeating [something of Bingley [which might only grieve her sister farther]]]]].

Despite the persistence of Pride and Prejudice in classroom curricula and recommended reading lists, how many of today's teachers are providing the direct instruction that many students need, at least at first, to comprehend fully such sentences as this one?

Here's one way one might go about guiding students towards comprehension.

First, start with a much simpler sentence that gives the general shape:

Knowing this thing was a temptation to openness that nothing but indecision and fear could have conquered.

Next:
-- replace the clausal subject –ing ending with the more old fashioned infinitive (“knowing” -> “to know”)
--flesh out a bit more the object of “know”
--replace the more modern relativize clause marker “that” (“a temptation that”) with the more old-fashioned “such…. as” (“such a temptation as”)
--extrapose the “but a state of indecision and her fear” away from “nothing” to the end of the sentence:

To know that she had the power of revealing this was such a temptation to openness as nothing could have conquered but a state of indecision and her fear.

Next:
--flesh out a bit the object of “reveal”
--add modifiers to “state of indecision” and “her fear”:

To know that she had the power of revealing what would astonish Jane and gratify herself was such a temptation to openness as nothing could have conquered but the state of indecision in which she remained, and her fear of being hurried into something.

Next:
--add qualifiers to “astonish” and "gratify"
--flesh out a bit more the object of “gratify”
--place a comma between the subject and the main verb:

To know that she had the power of revealing what would so exceedingly astonish Jane, and must, at the same time, gratify her own vanity, was such a temptation to openness as nothing could have conquered but the state of indecision in which she remained, and her fear of being hurried into something.

Finally:
--flesh out "her own vanity" with embedding and modifiers;
--add a modifier to "remained";
--place a conditional appositive after "her fear";
--change the comma before "her fear" to a semi-colon:

To know that she had the power of revealing what would so exceedingly astonish Jane, and must, at the same time, gratify whatever of her own vanity she had not yet been able to reason away, was such a temptation to openness as nothing could have conquered but the state of indecision in which she remained as to the extent of what she should communicate; and her fear, if she once entered on the subject, of being hurried into repeating something of Bingley which might only grieve her sister farther.

Perhaps I'd be surprised at the number of kids who could pass my pop quiz without help. But, in this age of student-centered discovery in the classroom and record-low levels of independent reading, particularly of pre-20th century literature, at home, I'm guessing that more students than ever are stymied by these wonderful 19th century sentences, and, caught up in a couple of vicious cycles, increasingly shut off from much of what makes the classics so much fun to read.

Response to a pro-FC speech-language pathologist

It's alarming enough to see speech-language pathologists (SLPs) expressing support for discredited schemes like Spelling to Communicate (S2C) and Rapid Prompting Method (RPM) that have been denounced by their own leading professional organization (ASHA). But when SLPs actually become S2C/RPM practitioners, it's truly disheartening.

I just posted a response to one such SLP here on CatherineandKatharine, but thought this was worth a post of its own.

Thank you for your comment. I believe that you are sincere when you share your belief that “All of the criticisms in this article have an explanation that is addressed in the S2C course”. However, most people aren’t going to be signing up for a course just to learn what those arguments are. Nor are they going to be convinced by a simple assertion that these arguments exist. So I invite you to post these arguments here and indicate which of the above criticism you think they address.

As for 100% certainty, the only route to that is rigorous message-passing testing. And yet not a single S2C facilitator has been willing to participate in a public, publishable test that would unequivocally establish who is authoring the messages. That should raise serious red flags.

Regarding cognition in non-verbal individuals, it’s important to recognize that cognition has both verbal and non-verbal components. Non-verbal individuals are well known to often have intact non-verbal cognition: jigsaw puzzles are a common area of strength; we also find non-verbal individuals with extraordinary skills in complex arithmetic and feats of memory. Ravens Matrices are a standard way to eliminate language as a factor in intelligence testing, and should absolutely be included in assessments of non-verbal individuals.

The reason that “Global Apraxia (disconnect between the brain and all body parts) seems difficult for some to accept” is because no solid, empirical, peer-reviewed research has established that such a phenomenon (1) overlaps substantially with non-speaking autism; (2) explains the observed behavior patterns in autism; and/or (3) justifies facilitators/“assistants” holding up letterboards for individuals with autism and prompting them to type out letters with their index fingers. Nor does any of this eliminate known issues with facilitator cueing and influence. I invite you to visit FacilitatedCommunication.org, which contains a comprehensive repository of FC-related research and critical commentary, including on the various claims that FC proponents have made about global apraxia and other alleged movement/motor disorders in autism.

With your SLP credentials, I’m sure you are aware that your leading professional organization, the American Speech-Language Hearing Association, has a position statement against Rapid Prompting/Spelling to Communicate:

“It is the position of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) that use of the Rapid Prompting Method (RPM) is not recommended because of prompt dependency and the lack of scientific validity.” 

“Although RPM or Soma®RPM is primarily associated with HALO-Soma and Soma Mukhopadhyay, foundationally and procedurally similar alternative forms have appeared, such as “Informative Pointing” (Iversen, 2007), “letterboarding,” and “Spelling to Communicate,” and this position statement is applicable regardless of the name used for the technique.”

This should raise serious concerns, including the concerns you yourself raise about “discrediting voices and keeping others from ever getting the chance to express their thoughts.”

The far-reaching consequences of universal translation

 A recent article in Cell, Over-reliance on English hinders cognitive science, reviews  

an emerging body of evidence that highlights how the particular characteristics of English and the linguistic habits of English speakers bias the field by both warping research programs (e.g., overemphasizing features and mechanisms present in English over others) and overgeneralizing observations from English speakers’ behaviors, brains, and cognition to our entire species.

Trained as I am (as a post-Whorfian linguist) to be suspicious of claims that the distinguishing features of different languages result in significant cognitive differences between different linguistic communities, I'm not sure I buy every claim in this article. However, the domination of English as the world's lingua academica surely has had some distorting effects on research--as well as imposing significant limits on research accessibility.

But then I'm reminded this old post from 2016, which has me wondering when universal translation will make much of this mute (by 2026?--hmm..)

Bad for America; good(ish) for the globe: the far-reaching consequences of universal translation

A recent opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal argues that within 10 years it will no longer be necessary to learn foreign languages. Instead, smartphones will immediately translate into your own language whatever the person talking to you is saying. A small earpiece will whisper into your ear, in perfect idiomatic English (or whatever you select as your first language), in a voice and tone that matches that of your interlocutor, and with only a split-second delay, exactly what she is saying. Parallel technology at the other end will do the same for her. Thus, any two speakers from any of the world’s spoken languages (signed languages are trickier) will be able (sooner for the more commonly spoken languages; later for the less common) to engage in barrier-free conversations that don’t require anyone to know anything beyond his/her native language.

If this actually happens, there’s certainly much to be gained. A number of languages around the world are waning—both in numbers of native speakers and in how well those native speakers maintain their proficiency--largely because policy makers, parents, and/or students themselves think students should focus on English, Chinese, and other more “useful” languages. Such trends can now reverse course. After all, if all languages are immediately, seamlessly translatable, all languages are equally useful. Also saved, besides endangered languages, are instructional hours: all that time learning English or Chinese that can now (or so one hopes) be spent on other academic subjects—including the finer points of expressing oneself in one’s native language, and (until we have apps for these as well) understanding older, more complex written forms of one’s native language. Finally, eradicating linguistic barriers means drastically reducing cultural barriers— potentially drastically improving cross-cultural relations.

But there are also some interesting downsides--for example the much-discussed cognitive benefits of multi-lingualism. Such benefits may motivate some people—particularly the linguistically minded—to continue learning other languages. But the diminished motivation at both policy and personal levels, drastically reducing multi-lingualism worldwide, may also drastically reduce the emergent global intelligence of the human race.

Then there are the specific losers. Right now, native speakers of the “useful” languages—of which English is currently foremost—have an enormous academic and economic advantage over non-native speakers. I’ve often wondered just how much of America’s continued preeminence in the world—given how crummy our schools are and how poorly they prepare students for non-menial jobs—is a function of its linguistic advantage. Think of all the college graduates who break into the workforce by teaching ESL—whether here in this country to recent immigrants, or abroad in East Asia, Eastern Europe, or Africa. Think of all the highly-industrious immigrants who still choose America—even as other countries become more inviting—because the language they learned in school was English (rather than German or Swedish or Swahili). Think of all the hours that Americans don’t need to devote to teaching and learning basic English that other countries do have to spend. Think of all the international students who will no longer need to pass the TOEFL in order to compete against native-born Americans for spots in American universities—their universal translators now enabling them to understand American lectures and participate in American seminars. And think of what will happen to all the jobs for which native English speakers have had a special advantage--once the playing field levels out to the native speakers of all languages around the globe.

So much the better for the world in general; so much the worst for Americans—until, that is, we finally get our educational act together.

Autism, figurative language, empathy, and “autistic culture”

(Cross-posted at FacilitatedCommunication.org.)

This post is a sequel to my September 7th post on an article by Gernsbacher and Pripas-Kapit entitled “Who's Missing the Point? A Commentary on Claims that Autistic Persons Have a Specific Deficit in Figurative Language.” This post is also the latest installment in my series on a set of FC-friendly articles by Morton Gernsbacher.

As discussed in my previous post, the first part of Gernsbacher and Pripas-Kapit’s paper attempts to argue (1) that autism does not involve deficits in socio-communicative uses of language and (2) that difficulties with figurative language are caused only by linguistic deficits. As I noted earlier, however, difficulties with figurative language also stem from autism-related deficits in joint attention, in social inferencing, in using broader context in text inferencing, and in socially learned worldly background knowledge.

MissLunaRose12, Wikimedia Commons

In the second part of their paper, Gernsbacher and Pripas-Kapit turn to the claim that autistic individuals lack empathy. To some extent, this claim is a strawman characterization of what researchers have actually said: autism experts have long acknowledged that basic empathy is often intact in autism. What’s challenging for autistic individuals, rather, is higher-level empathy: working out, for example, how to respond appropriately when someone is upset.

One instrument that purports to measure this sort of empathy is Baron-Cohen’s Empathy Quotient test. Referencing some of the survey questions on that test, Gernsbacher and Pripas-Kapit characterize the alleged higher-level empathy deficits in autism as merely reflecting the challenges of figuring out what to do in a broader culture that is dominated by a non-autistic majority. As they put it:

When a member of any other minority agrees that it’s sometimes “hard to know what to do in a social situation” populated by members of a majority group; that he’s not always “good at predicting” what members of the majority group will do; that social situations with members of a majority group can be “confusing;” and that it’s not always “easy [to] work out” what a member of the majority group might want to talk about, we interpret those statements as honest reflections of the difficulty a minority member experiences when interacting with members of the majority. We don’t interpret those statements as indicating that the person lacks empathy.

The problem with this take, however, is that it assumes that there is a contrasting minority culture to which autistic individuals belong and in which they have no trouble knowing how to behave or predicting one another’s behavior. Some autism researchers, notably Damian Milton, known for his Double Empathy construct, have made precisely this argument. However, to the extent to which the argument holds, it appears to hold mainly for high-functioning autistic individuals who share common interests. Unlike, say, with Deaf culture, there is no evidence of a general autism subculture with its own ways of interacting. There is no evidence, in other words, of an autistic subculture that

(1)   includes individuals across the entire spectrum

(2)   has its own social conventions and rules for interaction, and

(3)   shows autistics across the spectrum responding more appropriately and empathetically to one another’s behaviors and emotions than they do to those of neurotypicals.

Of course, some have tried to argue that autistic individuals, like Deaf people via sign language, form a “tribe” of sorts, or at least a group of “tribes.” But this notion is challenged by the existence of profoundly autistic individuals who mostly have minimal independent communication skills. The notion that such individuals nonetheless fit into a broader “autistic culture” depends, in part, on the notion that all (or most) minimally-speaking autistics can communicate their own thoughts through one linguistic medium or another—if not by signing or typing independently, then by typing via one or another form of facilitated communication.

Consider, for example, FC-promoter Vikram Jaswal. He has involved himself with a group of minimally-speaking autistic adults who he claims call themselves…“The Tribe.” Besides using them in his highly problematic FC-promoting eye-tracking study, Jaswal also has used them in a year-long partnership with students at the University of Virginia—in part to break down tribal barriers between autistics and non-autistics. Accordingly, Jaswal’s students, by spending time with this group and by hearing their typed output read out loud to them by facilitators like Elizabeth Vosseller, “learn” that autistic individuals don’t “display interest in a neurotypical way”—e.g. by displaying “neurotypical” behaviors like eye contact. (To those who’ve heard that, around the world, different cultures use different patterns of eye contact, this presumably has some ring of truth—even though probably none of them can cite a single bona fide culture that uses hardly any eye contact at all).

Even if you accept all this on faith, however, there’s no evidence that Jaswal’s Tribe spends much time socializing with higher functioning autistic individuals—or that it does so any more willingly and easily than with the (presumably mostly non-autistic) University of Virginia students to whom Jaswal assigned them.

Where higher functioning autistics are concerned, returning now to Gernsbacher and Pripas-Kapit and figurative language, we do find one on-target observation: the creativity of some of the metaphors devised by the more verbally articulate denizens of the autism spectrum. This skill has been observed as far back as Kanner (1946), and yours truly has a paper about it as well (Beals, 2011). It is certainly the case that different ways of seeing the world, along with less tuning in and less conforming to conventional linguistic patterns, can open up all sorts of possibilities for verbal creativity.

Gernsbacher and Pripas-Kapit conclude on another reasonable note: an argument against the existence of dedicated “Theory of Mind” regions of the brain—regions that would presumably look different in autistic vs. non-autistic people. Generally, when researchers have tried to argue for dedicated brain regions for complex cognitive processes, they haven’t gotten very far.

REFERENCES

Beals, Katharine, 2011. Conventionalization in Indirect Speech Acts: Evidence from Autism. In Pragmatics and Autolexical Grammar: in Honor of Jerry Sadock. Benjamins.

Gernsbacher, M. A., & Pripas-Kapit, S. R. (2012). Who's Missing the Point? A Commentary on Claims that Autistic Persons Have a Specific Deficit in Figurative Language Comprehension. Metaphor and symbol, 27(1), 93–105. https://doi.org/10.1080/10926488.2012.656255

Kanner, L. (1946). Irrelevant and metaphorical language in early infantile autism. The American journal of psychiatry, 103(2), 242–246. https://doi.org/10.1176/ajp.103.2.242

Misrepresenting Russian Math: yet more excuses for US “Progressive Math”

I was recently talking about Russian math and was reminded of this old post.

Misrepresenting Russian Math: yet more excuses for U.S. Reform Math

In a recent article in the Atlantic entitled The Math Revolution, Peg Tyre discusses the growth of extracurricular math programs. More and more students, Tyre reports, are able to advance to levels far beyond what their school math classes are taking them.

An article like this one presents an opportunity to critique the shortcomings of school math classes; unfortunately, Tyre misses the mark. Notice, for example, the subtle bias in this paragraph:

Out in Left Field deleted *again*--problem fixed

Update: I've figured out the reason why this has happened--three times over the last several years--and have ensured that it won't happen again.

All my latest posts are also at https://catherineandkatharine.wordpress.com/

Meanwhile, here, for the heck of, is one of the more recent posts that disappeared.

Science prevails in another victory for a Pennsylvania school district

Just under two weeks ago, science won a small victory. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania denied the appeal of two parents suing the Lower Merion, PA school district for allegedly violating the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). At issue was whether the school had neglected to provide their son with a free and appropriate public education (known under the IDEA as FAPE). The parents alleged that the school failed to provide FAPE because it refused

1.    to allow their son to use, in academic settings, a form of facilitated communication known as Spelling to Communicate (S2C)

2.    to provide their son with a trained communication partner for communication via S2C

The James Byrne Courthouse, which houses the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania

Based on testimony from the original (2019) hearing, the 43-page court document that contains the court decision (publicly available through this portal) describes Spelling to Communicate as follows:

S2C is a method by which a communication partner holds a letterboard in the eyeline of a nonverbal speaker and the speaker points to letters on the board…The communication partner writes out the letters the speaker points to, letter by letter, and re-directs the speaker if he is pointing to letters in a nonsensical order. [Boldface added here and elsewhere.]

Consistent with this, one of the communication partners of the plaintiffs’ child testified that “he ‘won’t accept’ if A.L. points to the wrong letters.”  

Furthermore:

A.L.’s mother testified that A.L.’s communication partners helped him “[i]f he appears to get stuck or if he appears to get random”; that is, “they’ll say [A.L.], reset, I’m going to go back and I’m going to read the last thing that made sense because you lost me there.”…  Similarly, if the communication partner does not understand what the speaker is spelling, they may pull the board away and have the speaker start over…  (“If he gets inaccurate or if he gives me a string of letters, I’ll pull the board back . . . .”).

As far as the plaintiffs are concerned, this is testimony in favor of S2C.

Also testifying for the plaintiffs was the paintiff’s private speech-language pathologist:

Susan Chaplick, A.L.’s private speech-language pathologist, observed A.L. using S2C and concluded that “[t]here is a significant discrepancy in his ability to express himself verbally versus using the letter boarding technique.” She also acknowledged that the method is not evidence based but said that it nevertheless “looks very promising” for A.L.

Then there was the private neuropsychologist:

Dr. Robbins concedes that her evaluations were not conducted in accordance with standardized administration protocol because (1) A.L. communicated on a letterboard with the assistance of a communication partner (his mother); and (2) his parents were present for the evaluations… Additionally, A.L.’s father served as the communication partner for the initial evaluation, but Dr. Robbins ended that evaluation prematurely because A.L. “was reluctant to participate (did not provide reliable responses to questions).”

(When the student was later evaluated, without communicative assistance from his father, by the school district’s psychologist, his performance was much worse, yielding cognitive skills in the third percentile).

Yet the student had, all this time, been communicating quite effectively, reliably, and independently with his index fingers (both of them), via both a Bluetooth device and a laptop

which his teachers had observed worked well for him…  (the District’s speech-language pathologist testifying that A.L. “actually does really well with keyboarding, he can keyboard his ideas, things he wants using the laptop”)… (A.L.’s special education teacher testifying that “he could type extremely well” and that “[m]ost of his activities were typed in some regard or another, because [the district] knew that was his strength”).

As part of the school’s exploration of the student’s facilitation through S2C, a special ed supervisor and a speech-language pathologist observed him at Inside Voice, an S2C clinic in nearby Springfield, PA. According to the latter’s testimony:

[A.L.’s communication partner] was reading to him a passage about presidents, and then having him answer questions. She would write his answers on her clipboard, she would use intonation patterns while she was reading, she would spell random words from her passage while she was reading the passage aloud to him. And she went from very close-ended questions to open-ended questions at the end . . . . I also observed [the communication partner] using prompts, she would do things like, closer, go get it, left, up, down, while he was poking the letters.

At a second visit to Inside Voice, the student’s reading teacher, Ms. Van Horn, brought a list of questions based on a midterm exam from the student’s U.S. history class.

A.L. and his communication partner began working through the short-answer and multiple-choice questions on the letterboard, but “he wasn’t getting the correct answers” and seemed “flubbled”—i.e., he seemed anxious responding to the questions. .. A.L.’s communication partner asked for an answer key, and “[t]hen the answers were coming out correctly.”…  Ms. Van Horn was troubled by what she observed, particularly by the fact that A.L.’s behavior and the communication partner’s demeanor changed once the communication partner knew the correct answers.

What she was observing, of course, was an impromptu message passing test—the sort of test that, under well-controlled testing protocols, has consistently shown that the facilitators/communication partners are the ones authoring the facilitated messages.

So what happens when you remove the facilitator and leave behind the letterboard? This case offers some anecdotal evidence. Back at school, in a one-on-one reading class with Mr. Bosch, his longtime special ed teacher, the student was allowed to type on the letterboard without a communication partner present and holding it up for him.

But the letterboarding did not prove effective without a communication partner… Mr. Borsch explained that A.L. “did spell some things but did not communicate anything that was comprehensive to what we were discussing.”

Finally, there’s what happened when the school district requested training from the developer of S2C, Elizabeth Vosseller:

The developer of S2C was unavailable, so another representative came in her stead and led a three-day training in September 2018…  The training was disorganized, and the trainer failed to provide a manual because there were “no specific guidelines for using the boards in academic and functional settings.”… The trainer was also unable to answer questions about the use of the method in the academic setting and admitted that “there [was] no current scientific research or data to support the use of letter boarding with a facilitated communication partner.”

At this training, furthermore, the student himself, according to the school’s speech-language pathologist, was “really inconsistent”; “at times he wasn’t accurate . . . he might have tapped two or three times and then finally got to an H.” And Mr. Borsch, who also attended, “ felt that he ‘was being trained to prompt [A.L.] to answer on the board.’”

All this testimony, and much, much more, was part of the original case. As the “procedural history” in the 2019 document containing the hearing officer’s decision recounts:

it is difficult to believe that the education of a young person could generate documents and witness testimony rivaling the IBM v. Xerox litigation. The parties presented the testimony of 16 witnesses over three full days of the hearing. In addition, tens of thousands of pages of documents were offered into evidence.

Subsequently, as part of their appeal, as the 2022 court document recounts:

Plaintiffs moved to supplement the administrative record to include A.L.’s testimony, videos of A.L. using S2C, and a peer-reviewed study on the efficacy of S2C as a means for communication for persons with autism. The Court permitted Plaintiffs to supplement the administrative record with A.L.’s testimony (to be offered using S2C) and four videos of A.L. using S2C in academic settings, but the Court denied Plaintiffs’ request to supplement the administrative record with the peer-reviewed study.

The peer-reviewed study was almost certainly the Jaswal eye-tracking study, reviewed here by yours truly.

At this point, you can probably guess what the most damning evidence was in the outcome of this appeal. The school district, along with its expert witnesses, have been repeatedly demonized by the plaintiffs, their advocates, and their followers. So has the American Speech Language Hearing Association, for its position statement against the Rapid Prompting Method, of which Spelling to Communicate is a close cousin. But as far as the judge was concerned: “the most compelling pieces of evidence are the District’s personnel’s first-hand observations of A.L. using S2C.”

The parents are almost certainly appealing.