Charges Against Father To Be Dropped in Case Involving FC
Back in December, a 14-year-old autistic girl from West Bloomfield (Michigan) accused her father of raping her repeatedly while her mother did not intervene; the girl does not speak and communicated about the alleged abuse via a keyboard at school, with an aide supporting her hand. Today, the Detroit Free Press reports, Oakland County prosecutors “suddenly” sought to dismiss all charges brought against the father, who has spent the past 80 days in jail. His wife was also charged with child abuse for fail to stop the abuse. Prosecutors had also sought to terminate the parents’ custody of the girl, who is now 15, and her 13-year-old brother, who has Asperger Syndrome. Bloomfield Hills District Judge Marc Barron scheduled a hearing for 10 a.m. today (March 11th) to request that all charges against the parents be dropped. From the Detroit Free Press:
The case has been controversial because the girl’s claims were made through facilitated communication, a widely discredited method in which a teaching aide helps a nonverbal student type responses to questions into a keyboard. Experts testified that scientific studies of the method show that the aide, consciously or subconsciously, authors all of the messages.
On Monday, prosecutors sought to drop both the criminal and the custody cases, claiming in court filings that the girl had used facilitated communication to tell them that she was afraid and would not testify in court. Without her testimony, the case lacked its central accusation.
………..
[Defense attorneys] said that prosecutors were never able to establish that the girl could communicate independently.
At two court hearings in January, the girl was unable to answer a single question correctly when her teaching aide did not hear it first. The questions included, “Are you a boy or a girl?” and “What color is your sweater?”
“This case should never have been brought,” said lawyer Jerome Sabbota, who represents the girl’s father.
More details can be found in the Oakland Press. On facilitated communication, see also the comments on an earlier post by Prof. James T. Todd, Ph.D..
12 opinions for Charges Against Father To Be Dropped in Case Involving FC
larry
Mar 12, 2008 at 2:59 am
That sure reminds me of the witch hunts of the late eighties. Remember Raymond Buckey of the McMartin preschool? The Los Angeles County prosecutor spent millions of tax payers’ dollars to dredge up dirt on Buckey in order to convince the jury he had led satanic orgies involving small children in his care.
Buckey couldn’t hire good attorneys, but he got his side of the story told at least. He was finally acquitted, but not before the D.A. had conviced everyone in America–including Yours Truly–that Buckey was an evil monster.
It just goes to show you how easy it is to defame people. It’s sort of like what happened to poor old Bruno Bettelheim–whose reputation wasn’t impugned until after his death when he couldn’t tell his side of the story or SUE.
Linda
Mar 12, 2008 at 7:11 am
I’m really concerned about this case. Apparently, there was physical evidence pointing to sexual abuse. And her brother also testified independently that there was. She has now been reunited with her father. But what if the charges were true?
Cliff
Mar 12, 2008 at 7:50 am
I don’t think there must have been enough evidence to point to physical causes if they dropped the charges, and it seemed that the case was already about FC rather than the physical evidence, which is suggestive.
The whole thing is interesting and scary in any event.
Cliff
madam ovary
Mar 12, 2008 at 7:56 am
Her brother apparently has AS. If my kid (also AS) was questioned by police, I’m quite certain he would tell them anything he thought they wanted to hear. Even under my gentle questioning he has “confessed” to numerous things he didn’t do.
Justice60
Mar 12, 2008 at 10:59 am
Please note that there was no physical evidence to substantiate the claims. The girls hymen is intact! The allegations, all made through F.C. and with the same facilitator, were of penetration since the age of 6. No way! Additionally, the brother was interrogated by 2 detectives for over an hour and 1/2. He did NOT corroborate the allegations! Those who have viewed the interrogtion tape confirm this. In fact, he withstood the pressure of the illegal questioning that would have broken an adult. The children are home and happy to be home. It was the prosecutor’s choice to dismiss. It was unexpected and just in time before they ended up with egg on their faces. The prosecutor even tried to sneak in the order without a hearing or notice to the defendants. They avoided hearings by higher courts that would have slammed their behavior and rulings up to now. I think we can be comfortable with the dismissal - why else would the prosecutor initiate returning the girl to her parents.
Leila
Mar 12, 2008 at 12:23 pm
No matter what the truth is, this is a tragic story.
Patrick
Mar 12, 2008 at 2:39 pm
Tragic indeed, especially for the loss of income and unity of the family during the fathers incarceration. I hope the claims of abuse are indeed untrue, and if so, I also hope the father is able to recover whatever kind of damages are properly due him from the facilitator or facilitators employing agency.
Andie
Mar 12, 2008 at 8:32 pm
I don’t understand FC. Why does an aide have to prop the child’s hand? Aren’t there other communication devices for non-verbal kids, where the kids can push a symbol, which then says the word (TTAC, maybe)? Or, if the child has the ability to spell out words, why can’t they just type the words themselves, even if the keyboard is modified?
Kristina Chew, PhD
Mar 12, 2008 at 10:23 pm
One the painful things about this story—-already so difficult to process—is that the parents were apparently very much supporters of FC and had been quite public about their daughter’s use of it.
Also this story underlines to me why it is crucial—my own son having so little speech—-to have honest and friendly and trusting, yet professional, relationships with aides and teachers and therapists. The aide in the case must have felt strongly enough to note what the girl had typed using FC—very difficult situation to be in.
Amanda
Mar 13, 2008 at 6:43 pm
Andie: There are a lot of reasons given for that. I can only speak to some of them.
There is physical support itself.
I’ve spoken to people who make technology, and they say that it would be very difficult to get a robotic contraption to do the things I have described it needing to do. Like be able to discern the difference between an involuntary push forwards and a voluntary one, and be able to discern the many differences between various responses to the support itself, including being pushed in the direction that one’s hand is being pushed in, as well as being pushed in the opposite direction, as well as meeting the pressure with an equal amount of resistance (and the same person can cycle through all three, so it’d have to be able to recognize that in a split second and differentiate it from voluntary movements). These are things that only human, or perhaps only mammalian, brains can deal with. Or else, the technology hasn’t been fully invented yet that would handle it.
Another thing is helping a person be aware of where certain body parts are. Often people’s body parts can feel like they don’t exist (or are fuzzy, or lost) unless they’re being actively touched by someone, and it can be hard to deliberately move something that doesn’t feel like it’s there. Fortunately, my cat has learned to do this part for me much of the time, and the only influence she exerts on me is to head to the cat food bowl and feed her. :-) (But seriously, when experiencing motor freezes without any services, I probably owe this cat my life because she developed a series of rapidfire body-nudges that helped me get moving to do things. The reporter from Wired even saw a bit of this, surprisingly enough. Her response was, “That’s the most amazing cat in the entire world.” Which I’d agree to, but I’m heavily biased.)
Some other people talk about emotional support, to the point where when they have no need for physical support they might still need someone trusted sitting next to them. That part can even be true of people who speak, of course, especially people who speak but have trouble speaking. Despite the fact that the vast majority of the time I type independently (and fast), I still have sometimes needed someone in the room in order for me to be able to communicate what I meant, at all.
One of the problems is that there are a huge number of things that are all called FC. Failing to differentiate them from each other, doesn’t help. Nor does turning an abuse case into an “FC case” — I know a woman who uses FC, and who won in court against her abuser, who suddenly did an about-face and confessed to the crimes the moment the woman was able to type with physical independence. Not all abuse claims in any case are valid, and children are easily manipulated even if they can talk, but this doesn’t mean that just because someone reports abuse while someone is touching them to help them type, then it’s not real.
Amanda
Mar 13, 2008 at 6:51 pm
Er, I meant the photographer, not the reporter, sorry.
Bonnie Sayers
Jun 7, 2008 at 4:21 pm
The latest issue (available online for free) of The Autism Perspective (TAP) has an article on Facilitated Communication. this is on pages 21-29 and includes a page from Sue Rubin.
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