User:Regutten/sandbox/fc

Janyce Boynton, who at one time was a strong proponent of the use of FC, is now one of FC’s leading critics. In the early 1990s, Ms. Boynton was the facilitator for a non-speaking high school girl with autism who, through FC with Ms. Boynton, described having been sexually abused by her parents, resulting in the girl and her brother being removed from the parents' home. Systematic testing by Howard Shane revealed, however, that the girl was incapable of being the author of the messages (see The Wheaton Case below and the description of the case in the 1993 PBS Frontline documentary “Prisoners of Silence”). Unlike many in the FC-proponent community (e.g., Douglas Biklin), Ms. Boynton accepted the clear evidence from this testing (and from other well controlled scientific studies) that indicated that FC was not a valid assisted communication technique. She stopped using FC, convinced her school administration to implement a system-wide prohibition on its use, and apologized to the falsely accused parents of the girl she had worked with. More recently, she has maintained a clearinghouse of professional articles and media coverage about FC, and has served as one of the leaders of a group of professionals who successfully brought scientific and media pressure on the University of Northern Iowa to cease their sponsorship of an annual workshop that included instruction in FC. As noted by another member of that group (Stuart Vyse), “this is just the beginning. There are a number of other universities and governmental organizations that tacitly or explicitly endorse FC and/or its related techniques, and Ms. Boynton and her allies have their eyes on a number of these future targets”, including the University of Syracuse (home to the FC-supporting Institute on Communication and Inclusion).