I am thoroughly disgusted that Syracuse University has made Douglas Biklin their dean of the School of Education. This bastard gave false hope to thousands of parents with his “facilitated learning” scam, and ruined the lives of countless other parents and caregivers when his followers started using his methods to accuse said parents and caregivers of abuse. I thought that when the tv program “Frontline” aired on October 19th, 1993 , people would understand how dangerous this bastard was and stay away from his teachings. Instead, Syracuse University makes him a dean! He actually tells parents that their severely autistic children are highly intelligent and understand everything that goes on around them, and that their only problem is that they cannot communicate with the outside world!
: Jaw drop. :
I knew the guy was still teaching there, but I never heard about this. Long story short: Biklin came up with an idea to teach austitic children to talk via a keyboard. Sounds good, right? The problem is the keyboard was oporated by an asisstant moving the student’s hand. See a problem? The theory has been largely discredited.
I am not a proud Orangeman today. 
Un-freaking-believable. My understanding was that Biklin and others were initially unwittingly skewing their results, but to keep on after it was clearly discredited is ridiculous. What the crap is Syracuse thinking?
Often the child not even looking at the keyboard while his one finger was being moved around. “Normal” people can’t type without a reference point.
Where did these students learn to read and write?
From the Frontline transcript:
His take on it:
Anecdotal success is the goal and science be damned?
And how is this for an educational philosophy for a Dean of Education:
One of the principles of teaching is to find out what your students’ incompetencies are and to assist them in becoming competent. Treat them with kindness and patience, yes. But it would be inhumane to make assumptions! Biklen is just fluff and babble!
Syracuse has an excellent reputation. Their support for F/C and Biklen is unthinkable.
I post this on behalf of my non-Doper girlfriend who is currently attending Syracuse. Don’t worry, I’m working on getting her to join up. [sub]yeah, yeah, only if she really wants to[/sub]
Well, you’ll be happy to know that there seem to be quite a few people who agree with you.
I think that was part of an episode on Law & Order, wasn’t it? Damn, I didn’t know that was another “ripped from the headlines”. Ugh.
Yeah, as soon as i read the description, that Law and Order episode came to mind. I had never heard of “facilitated learning.”
More information and a timeline on facilitated communication can be found here.
From the **Czarcasm ** cite:
And Syracuse goes for the three studies… how un-scientific of them.
On the pro side we have this dozy:
That sounds familiar… Those excuses are the same as the ones from ESP or other paranormal phenomena when they fail basic tests. If this is not proof of the non-existance of FC, then it is proof of extreme shortcomings in the technique.
I was not aware that this approach had been debunked, although I was skeptical when I first learned about it and I have also seen the L&O episode.
But I saw a 60 Minutes about a method like facilitation not that long ago. The transcript is here, and it was a piece basically showing its successes.
The story of Tito is not as great as 60 minutes painted it:
http://www.autistics.us/library/tito-can.html
But there is a big difference: after “treatment”, Tito can comunicate with little assistance on occation, what we are discussing here is Facilitated Communication:
http://www.skeptic.com/02.3.green-fc.html
http://skepdic.com/facilcom.html
Tito uses pen and paper too, so it not the same thing; Douglas Biklin ignores the ouija board effect that taints his research.
Oh, THAT’s nice. SU has hired the “Ouija Autistics” guy to be the Dean of Ed? I haven’t been so disgusted since I heard the (original) Hungry’s closed.
Newhouse Class O’ '83.
Awful. I did a research paper on this “facilitated communication” method when I was in college, and I remember reading about and watching parents weeping with joy that their child (often older child) had finally said “I love you” to them. How awful for those parents and what a slap in the face that he’s been made a Dean.
Well, you could always “facilitate” her posting.
“'Doug exhibited great personal qualities: honesty, integrity and superior intellectual abilities and seemed to be a great package to be the dean of the School of Education,” Morrow said."
I tell you, this is one of those things that makes you weak-kneed from sheer incredulity. Biklen disgraces himself on national television – with his dishonesty, lack of integrity, and sheer All-American stupidity, no less – and not only is he not drummed out of the university, but now he’s made Dean of Education? Is Syracuse University such an exalted institution that they can recklessly go looking for bad publicity, and not fear the cost?
As a complete aside, the thing that is really scary about Facilitated Communication is why so many of the facilitators began to project sexual abuse onto their facilitatees. How strange and unnerving is that?
How odd. I actually could have seen the worth of experimenting with using keyboards to communicate to the students (taking their hands and spelling things out) but this is the oddest and most disreputable “scientific” practice I have ever seen.
I’ve actually meet Morrow. Nice, bright guy who happens to be the mouthpiece of the university. Sometimes he has to say dumb shit like that.
I’m less worried about the bad publicity in the general public (look at how many views/posts this thread has. This isn’t a big topic if you aren’t in an education field and/or have autistic family members) and more worried about the publicity within the education realm. If the education school’s number of applicants, especially graduate applicants, drops we’ll know why.
waterj2: I laughed entirely too hard at that.
Wolfian, when I parse Morrow’s words more carefully, I notice that he says "seemed to be a great package," which reads as a little evasive, perhaps. So next question: how long before Biklen is forced to step down?
Hmm. One client, up to five facilitators, a communication method that closely resembles sock puppetry.
They should call it the LOVEROCK Technique.