“Apple early this morning shared a new pair of videos on its YouTube channel highlighting the effect that technology has on those with special needs,” Chance Miller reports for 9toMac. “As this month is Autism Acceptance Day, the video, called Dillan’s Voice, features a teenager named Dillan and shows how he uses Apple products to express his thoughts.”
“Dillan is autistic and nonverbal but yet has very complex and powerful thoughts that he is able to express using his iPad with an augmented and alternative communication app,” Miller reports. “Dillan has been using his iPad to help communicate for around three years and the product has quickly become an integral part of his daily life.”
“The iPad allows Dillan to communicate with his peers, his family, and his teachers, something his month says is “’incredible’ to her,” Miller reports. “‘Hearing Dillan’s voice is incredible,’ Dillan’s mother says. ‘He’s insightful and smart and creative.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: For more information about Autism Acceptance Month, visit: http://www.autismacceptancemonth.com
Thank you, Apple.
A powerful, profoundly illuminating story.
And, as advertisement goes, tastefully done. The product is only mentioned once, very discretely. The focus is really on the emotional story, the struggle to overcome obstacles and the gratification of the success.
I can’t imagine any other company delivering such a powerful message with tact and taste, without shoving the product in everyone’s face.
What round of shots got Dillan?
http://www.fda.gov/downloads/BiologicsBloodVaccines/Vaccines/ApprovedProducts/UCM101580.pd
You would take a cheap shot at this story of a young man’s bravery and overcoming a handicap by using discredited science to suggest this might have been avoided? Shame.
You aren’t just a freakin’ idiot Sid, you’re a freakin’ asshole too.
Sick comment!
We feel your pain Sid. It must be difficult for you to live as a self identified idiot.
Yeah that’s the spirit of Apple, empowering people to open their minds and hearts.
What iPad case is that brown leather one?
this is very good.
Besides for people outside I bet it also inspires the people who work at Apple , that their long hours can actually do great good.
Too long as if to preach. Repetitive. The point is made but then it makes the same point again.
Unfortunately, these videos are tacitly promoting the Rapid Prompting version of the discredited intervention, Facilitated Communication. (You might have seen FC mentioned in conduction with the recent Anna Stubblefield rape trial in NJ, for which I was an expert witness.)
The main difference between FC and RPM is that in FC the person is guided. In RPM, the output device is held and moved to provide cues for the letter selections. Sometimes they exist as a kind of hybrid, with the facilitator holding both the letter board and period, or even, after a time, working with indirect cues (e.g., gestures and audible signals) rather than direct physical ones.
Basically, over time the facilitators become increasingly unconscious of providing the cues and the subjects become increasingly sensitive to them. There is not a single methodologically sound scientific study showing either works to produce reliable expressive communication in people who are otherwise non-verbal. There are about three dozen showing how FC fails, and how the most reliable finding is evidence of facilitator authorship of the output.
The young man in the videos has been previously presented in the media as an example of successful RPM, with clear scenes of the aide holding and moving the letter board in the air. These videos seem to be designed to hide that history and the lack of objective validation of his authorship of the things attributed to him. These would not be the first videos made that hid an aide’s direct or indirect cueing of letter selections.
Ah, dictation. Sorry.
In my paragraph one “conduction” should be “connection.”
In paragraph two “period” should be “person”– as in “holding the letter board and the person.”
So, if a perfect stranger was given the iPad to hold, and held it still, the subject (Dylan, in this case) would produce gibberish? That seems like a pretty easy thing to test. Simply blindfold the person holding the board – it could still be his mom, so he’d have all the familiar cues and be within his comfort zone, but she could be wearing glasses that obscured her vision so that she was unable to participate / collude / provide guidance. Has anybody tried something simple like that?
Yes, the standard outcome in these situations is what you suggest. When the facilitator cannot see the board, you get gibberish. Occasionally, the subject can type some on his or her own, and then the output changes radically, usually to the few words that they might be able to type or sequences that are memorized. This is not to say that there are not people who can communicate by typing who cannot speak. However, we do not see the rapid acquisition of literacy late in life, after no history of any type of communication, and with little or no other behavior consistent with high levels of linguistic skill. That seems to be the case here
There is actually a substantial literature on this, over three dozen studies. In most, the facilitator and subject are shown different things, or asked different questions, and we see what comes out. It is usually nothing, or what the facilitator sees, indicating that the facilitator is the author. As I said, there is no good scientific evidence showing this produces reliable expressive communication and people who cannot otherwise communicate. Since I am dictating, it is hard to provide a link. Unless something has changed in the last few days, the Wikipedia article on Facilitated Communicationis actually pretty good. (Get it while it lasts.). You might also consider looking at my new chapter, excerpts of which you can read online in Google books: “Old Horses in New Stables: Rapid Prompting, Facilitated Communication, Science, Ethics, and the History of Magic.”
As for the simple test you suggest, those have occasionally been done in court cases, with the facilitator invariably producing gibberish. However, in most cases, the facilitated communication people will not agree to do tests. By now, it should be unnecessary anyway. Facilitated communication has become the single most scientifically discredited intervention in developmental disabilities. It would not pass the Daubert or Frye standards in court.
Yes, because people with autism are well known to be easily influenced, which is why it’s so simple to train them to appear normal. Not.
Todd is here showing one of the clearest possible examples of the opponents of FC refusing to accept the clearest possible evidence of their own eyes.
If it’s that easy to get a person with severe autism to type without physical contact, I’m mildly surprised that those like Todd haven’t rounded off their case by reproducing the effect.
Thanks to James Todd for bringing this article and comments to my attention. I hope to comment further within a couple of days or so.
Facilitated Communication – for the sake of persons with nonverbal autism, all sides must try to cooperate.
For purposes of this message, I note that the FC opponents have taken the position that RPM is a variation of FC. I believe it does not matter whether this position is correct or not and in order for all sides to try to cooperate, the FC supporters should go along with this position of FC opponents.
I am quite familiar with the public information about FC and do not find that all sides have tried to cooperate in the past nor at the present time except for my own mostly recent efforts. I believe that I have received substantial private information too. If there is information, public or private, that I have missed, I request that I be informed. For example, in the dozens of research studies, I do not find where FC supporters and FC opponents have co-authored even one research study. Although I am an FC supporter, I recently contacted 12 published authors who are FC opponents [including James Todd and Jason Travers], about my efforts to arrange a replication of the 1992 Wheeler study. None of these 12 persons have replied to date. My email is golden.arthur@gmail.com
Although I am personally aware that there are some cases for persons with nonverbal autism where Facilitated Communication was started to be tried by age 5 and seemed to result in fully independent communication (Alex Bain and Moshe Udwin – both achieving full speech), I recognize that other approaches when started to be tried by age 5 (including ABA) did result in fully independent communication. My focus in this message is on older persons with nonverbal autism, over age 5 and more so for over age 10. Over age 10 I am not aware of ABA resulting in communication beyond expressing the most basic needs, which of great concern to me is not adequate to protect such persons from the severe risk of abuse which happens so many thousands of times every year for persons with nonverbal autism without adequate communication. Again, if I have missed such information, I request to be informed.
[also posted to public yahoo!group autismfc at:
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/autismfc/conversations/messages/2324 ]