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Systematic Review of Authorship in Rapid Prompting Method, Spelling to Communicate, and Variants: Outcomes, Significance and Clinical Implications
This is a systematic review of authorship in Rapid Prompting Method (RPM), Spelling2Communicate (S2C), Spellers Method and variants, techniques akin to Facilitated Communication which are increasingly promoted for use on autistic individuals or people with intellectual or developmental disabilities who are minimally- or non-speaking. In this systematic review, RPM/S2C or variants had to be evaluated as an intervention using a research design capable of empirical demonstration of authorship. The resulting empty review documents a persistent knowledge gap which, in the context of increasing popularity and similarity to Facilitated Communication, constitutes a finding with clinical significance. Controlled authorship trials of RPM, S2C, and Spellers Method are warranted. Given the instrumental similarities between RPM, S2C, Spellers Method, and traditional Facilitated Communication, these methods should be discontinued (if in use) or not adopted until independent authorship studies have shown that these methods are indeed valid. Ethical implications of the findings are also discussed.
