Facilitated Communication and Autism Ranking:

History

Facilitated Communication began in Australia in the 1970s. Rosemary Crossley, an aide at an institution for people with severe multiple disabilities, encouraged a young woman who had cerebral palsy to communicate by acting as her facilitator.

Crossley went on to establish the DEAL Communication Centre in Melbourne in 1986 which aimed to “assist people with no speech or with dysfunctional speech to find alternative means of communication”.

Interest in FC quickly spread to other countries – in particular the USA, Canada and Denmark and the UK. FC was widely promoted in the US by Professor Douglas Biklen who published many reports in the 1990’s claiming that FC could lead to “Communication Unbound”.

Updated

16 Jun 2022

Last Review

01 May 2017

Next Review

01 Aug 2023