Talk:Rapid prompting method

RPM as its own page instead of redirect to FC
Rapid prompting method (RPM) was redirected to a page called Facilitated Communication (FC). While these two techniques are similar, RPM is slightly different and, I believe, warrants its own page. Though I could find some articles discussing RPM in popular literature, much of the discussion in favor of its use, at this point, appears to be anecdotal rather than evidence-based. That's not to say it isn't available. I just couldn't find it in my searches. I would like to see more peer-reviewed, evidence-based articles from reliable sources included on the page. SojoQ (talk) 19:59, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

New section
My own son is a mainly non-verbal autistic, and I understand that the mainstream person as well as the whole industry of Applied Behavioral Analysis sees these kids and adults as less cognitive. It's hard to rationalize that a person has a high functioning intellect when they display very feral behaviors. I myself as a parent also did not believe that my son would ever have any cognitive growth. Then I saw him giving answers via a letter board to mathematical and algebraic questions that he could not have known. He was always exposed to the ABA model, which considers that these people are the bottom of the barrel. He was never taught advanced algebra, or how to solve mathematical word problems, or calculus. But I watched him with my own eyes give answers that were no trick, and these answers even sometimes were more accurate than his mothers, who has two PHDs in mathematics and works as a machine learning programmer. I know it's counterintuitive to see a person as intelligent who deals with stress by throwing themselves on the floor, screaming, or incontinence. It is even harder to imagine them having a far superior mentality than most humans. However these people have no other way to express themselves with others. Imagine if you were of superior intelligence, but could not express this through language, and had only been taught infant skills at dealing with stress and frustration because of your inability to speak or communicate. Since they are not able to express themselves and since childhood have been seen as "delayed" or cognitively inferior, they have developed very constrained modes of displaying their displeasure at being treated as such. Most nonverbal autistics listen and learn at an accelerated rate, however since they cannot express this to the world, they are labeled as less. As a human race we are so limited in our styles and modes of acceptable communication we are not able to meet these people at this time on their own ground.

The article only has a basis on a limited point of view. I doubt the writers have actually gathered enough empirical evidence despite the citings to justify that this is a "pseudoscience" as the conclusion is drawn. Let me explain.

As far as the argument that the letter board has unconscious prompting, this can be disproved very easily. In our son's ongoing training using letter boards, my wife often gave, at first by accident, incorrect answers for mathematical questions to my son. He always gave her the correct answer even with multiple prompting and her belief that her answer was correct. If this can be seen in a non-scientifically controlled sample then I would argue that it could be easily proven with control blinds. Simply give the holder of the board the incorrect answer. This would disprove the theory that "prompting" affects an answer. Even so this "prompting" in itself if it does happen, which is possible, indicates evidence of cognition beyond a feral state. It takes a lot of intuition on the part of the prompted subject to watch a person's hand movements, however subtle, and find the indicated answer.

The article also does not explain that the letter boards are only the first step, with the final outcome being the subject being able to type independently on a typical QWERTY keyboard. The level of "prompting" needed to fake answers given via typing, if this were true in any case, indicates that the person has superior intuitive skills. I doubt most people could do it. The argument in the article that this "prompting" makes the letter boards an unproven method is absurd.

In the article the section "Prompt dependency" states:

Prompts may include verbal reprimands, trial termination, physical redirection, slapping or shaking the letter board against the subject's face or chest, and blocking escape by positioning the subject between the table and walls.[1] Some of the verbal and gestural prompting procedures used in RPM are similar to the Pinchbeck Technique used by conjurers to "create the illusion of letter-by-letter communication."

This section of the article states that the person is influenced by the teacher using techniques similar to what most educators use regularly to teach typical students as such as reward or punishment, examples of correct answers, etc. This method of teaching itself does not explain the result - the person that learns to communicate in this way can at the end of this training type on a keyboard answers on their own to complex questions. Any "failures" on the subjects part would be more highly attributed to misunderstanding the question or a lack of skill by the subject being acquired in the method. These training methods cited are also very poorly demonstrated and even abusive in nature, indicating that more modern methods have not been researched or added to the Empirical evidence. The stated arguments of the below article seem as well to have been taken from an only partial observation of the entire training, failing to understand the final goal - non-prompted individual output from the subject. This kind of output happens over and over after the mastery of this training.

I also understand that several articles have been removed from Wikipedia because they were written by nonverbal autistic individuals who were trained with this method. I think that kind of blatant assumption that these articles from nonverbal autistic writers are a lie based on faulty studies done 19 years ago is a dangerous case of biased censorship on the part of Wikipedia editors. I would say if this has actually occurred that Wikipedia has a responsibility to replace these submissions based on the faultiness of the logic this article seems to espouse. Chrisglasater (talk) 13:44, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Please back up --Wikiman2718 (talk) 14:10, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Are you aware of any cases where the autistic person can type correct answers on a qwerty keyboard without any prompting? MainePatriot (talk) 23:38, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
 * How should a person who needs prompting to initiate many purposeful actions in their daily life use a qwerty keyboard completely without any prompting? Kjdlr (talk) 09:56, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

Personal Observations
I dusted off my Wikipedia account to add that while I am hardly an expert, I have known individuals that have used RPM to communicate, and it is amazing to see the communication taking place. I understand that the system may be considered "unscientific" but the results I have seen - with my own eyes - are very real, and that this article should be recast in a more positive (or at least open-minded) light. Rickthegeek (talk) 13:21, 7 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Because of your personal experiences with your own eyes - you think we should overturn science? Maybe you should read the RPM and FC page fully first. I've heard this argument before, some fan of a psychic says they have seen readings that were so spot on that "there was NO WAY the psychic could have know" and so therefore we should "go easy" on the psychic. Or "my friend's son got sick after a vaccination, therefore we should change the page for vaccines". Wikipedia does not work that way, we can't rely on "personal experience" and "what happens before your eyes". When RPM is tested by science under controlled conditions (just like we would expect with any new medical procedure) then this is published in a reliable source then Wikipedia can report the results on the Wikipedia article. That's how it works here. Sgerbic (talk) 16:03, 7 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Sgerbic, with respect, while personal observations are rightfully inadmissible as Wikipedia citations, it does not "overturn science" to use testimonial evidence (externally sourced, properly cited) in the absence of scientific studies. You will find that while outlets such as Spectrum emphasize doubt, the scholarly work behind this writing fails to reach any conclusion and stresses the need for more studies. It is clear from the sources that the current scientific status of RPM is that of a hypothesis: neither debunked nor confirmed. --73.13.242.253 (talk) 02:07, 17 September 2019 (UTC)


 * The only reason it's not debunked is because its practitioners refuse to let scientists study it. They argue that allowing scientific inquiry would "deprive people of their right to communicate", which in this case is a euphemism for "prove it doesn't work". --Wikiman2718 (talk) 03:12, 17 September 2019 (UTC)
 * What are you talking about? This has been totally discredited. Sgerbic (talk) 22:03, 17 September 2019 (UTC)
 * The only review that has ever been published called it pseudoscience based on a pseudoscience checklist, but its practitioners refuse let scientists run tests of authorship. This puts us in the position of being able to label RPM as pseudoscience even though it has never been studied in legitimate scientific experiments. --Wikiman2718 (talk) 22:24, 17 September 2019 (UTC)


 * A methodological or theoretical critique such as this does not yield a conclusion one way or another as to whether the technique works. There is an important distinction between practices which have been scientifically demonstrated not to work, e.g., acupuncture, and practices which simply lack scientifically acceptable evidence. The maneuvering or noncompliance of advocates or opponents may raise questions, but it does not raise scientific answers. The best indications available right now are nonscientific testimonials, both for and against. --73.13.242.253 (talk) 22:05, 20 September 2019 (UTC)
 * You neglect to account for the fact that this technique purports to allow people who can’t speak or sign or even read to write novels. The reviewers were right to call it pseudoscience. In fact, fringe guidelines allow any clearly impossible claim to be labeled as pseudoscience even in the absence of scientific research. —Wikiman2718 (talk) 22:16, 20 September 2019 (UTC)


 * There is nothing inherently impossible in the idea that a person whose sensorimotor difficulties prevent speech or sophisticated signing may still cognitively understand spelling, and may muster the control to thrust a finger at a chosen letter. It's puzzling to me that this would be dismissed as an impossibility. --73.13.242.253 (talk) 22:36, 20 September 2019 (UTC)


 * The problem is not motor control. The problem is lack of ability to acquire language. Also, never having been taught how to read or write. --Wikiman2718 (talk) 22:43, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

The problem is that we are just supposed to "assume competence" with no evidence. Sgerbic (talk) 02:27, 21 September 2019 (UTC)