Facilitated Communication Debunked

Finally!  And I say finally, not because it took some great feat, or long, arduous process to disprove this nonsense, but because the test was so ridiculously simple I can't believe it has taken this long.  If you don't know what facilitated communication is, or what I'm talking about, here's an old post where I talk about it, or you can watch this video to see why it has been in the news recently (and if you do watch the video, you'll see why I am amazed that anyone could believe that this was anything other than the "facilitator" doing all of the typing, and yet, people did, including doctors at the medical center, and Dr. Nancy Snyderman.)

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As for the supposed brain scans mentioned in the video, apparently no such scans were done, and, of course, the facilitated communication has been shown not to work.  So, what was this test that has taken since November of last year to carry out?

"Objects and words were shown to the patients in the absence of the facilitator who was then called back into the room. The patient was then asked to say what they had seen or heard."

Yeah, that's it.  And guess what, Rom Houben, the Belgian man in the story couldn't correctly answer the questions posed when the "facilitator" came back into the room, suggesting that she had been controlling the typing all along.  Go figure.