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Psychology 101 Discussion The purpose of this study is to test the methodology of facilitated communication in order to prove what is really taking place, beyond appearances, whether disabled subjects are actually able to communicate as a result of their own free will using facilitated communication, or are subjects being intentionally or unintentionally persuaded by the facilitator to type messages not of their own volition. The hypothesis posed in the introduction is as follows: that subjects are indeed being influenced by the facilitator as a result of the facilitators interaction with the subject, therefore subjects are not typing of their own volition. The general design of this study was experimental. The dependent variable was the number of correct or incorrect responses to stimulus cards throughout the sessions. The independent variable was the manner in which the stimulus was presented, and the method or absence of communication or contact. There were three different ways to present the stimulus cards, the facilitated condition which specified that the subject be shown a stimulus card, but the facilitator is not, the not facilitated condition which specified that conditions would be the same as the facilitated condition except the facilitator was not allowed to physically interact with the subject, and the distractor condition which specified that subject and facilitator would both be shown stimulus cards, but half of the time the cards would be the same, and half of the time they would be different.
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