| Deej | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Robert Rooy |
| Written by | David James Savarese |
Release date | |
Running time | 72 minutes |
| Neurodiversity paradigm |
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Deej is a 2017 documentary about David James (DJ) Savarese, a nonspeaking autistic teenager who communicates with a voice synthesizer. The film has been criticized as using the scientifically discredited facilitated communication technique. [3]
The film was directed by Robert Rooy. David James Savarese, known as DJ or Deej, was also credited as a director and co-producer of the documentary. [4] The film depicts Savarese as an activist with the goal of promoting communication access for nonspeaking autistic people as part of the neurodiversity movement. [5]
Savarese was adopted from the foster care system and diagnosed early in life as autistic. [6] As a child, his adoptive parents struggled to ensure his inclusion in the local public school system. [7] Eventually winning the right for Savarese to receive education in public schools, his parents framed their challenges as a civil rights struggle against ableism. [8] [9] [6] Since the events featured in Deej, Savarese was awarded a degree from Oberlin College. [9] [10]
The film's relationship to facilitated communication was the subject of one critical essay in a peer reviewed journal. [12] Behavioral scientist and author Craig Foster notes that Deej is never shown independently communicating or exhibiting his "hidden intelligence", even though the documentary implies that he does. Foster states the documentary does not mention that scientific studies have raised questions about facilitated communication and that "skepticism toward facilitated communication is necessary to ameliorate its harmful influence and to encourage genuine acceptance of people with complex communication needs." [12]
Janyce L. Boynton, a former facilitator who has become a critic of facilitated communication, judges the film in a review to be "uncritical promotion" of facilitated communication and notes that the film's editors "chose to leave out some vital information." She concludes that the documentary is a "missed opportunity to teach people what about what living with autism is really like" and that the story the film tells is "one sided and built on facilitator-authored messages." [13]
Facilitated communication (FC), or supported typing, is a scientifically discredited technique, which claims to allow non-verbal people, such as those with autism, to communicate. The technique involves a facilitator guiding the disabled person's arm or hand in an attempt to help them type on a keyboard or other such device which they are unable to properly use if unfacilitated.
Diagnoses of autism have become more frequent since the 1980s, which has led to various controversies about both the cause of autism and the nature of the diagnoses themselves. Whether autism has mainly a genetic or developmental cause, and the degree of coincidence between autism and intellectual disability, are all matters of current scientific controversy as well as inquiry. There is also more sociopolitical debate as to whether autism should be considered a disability on its own.
The neurodiversity paradigm is a framework for understanding human brain function that recognizes the diversity within sensory processing, motor abilities, social comfort, cognition, and focus as neurobiological differences. This diversity falls on a spectrum of neurocognitive differences. The neurodiversity paradigm argues that diversity in human cognition is normal and that some conditions generally classified as disorders, such as autism, are differences and disabilities that are not necessarily pathological. Neurotypical individuals are those who fall within the average range of functioning and thinking.
The autism rights movement, also known as the autistic acceptance movement, is a human rights social movement allied with the disability rights movement. It emphasizes the neurodiversity paradigm, viewing autism as a set of naturally occurring variations in human cognition, a disability with both strengths and weaknesses, rather than as a disease to be cured or a medical disorder, diverging from the medical model of disability.
Autism Is a World is an American short subject documentary film by Academy Award Producer and Director Gerardine Wurzburg and allegedly written by Sue Rubin, an autistic woman who is said to have learned to communicate via the discredited technique of facilitated communication. It was nominated in the 77th annual Academy Awards for Best Documentary Short Subject.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to autism:
Douglas Paul Biklen is an American educator, fine art photographer, leading proponent of facilitated communication, a scientifically discredited technique which purports to allow non-verbal people to communicate; and an advocate of educational inclusion. A graduate of Bowdoin College, Biklen joined Syracuse University in 1969 and completed his doctorate there in 1973. He was controversially appointed Dean of the Syracuse University School of Education in 2005 and retired in 2014. Biklen has authored and co-authored several books and served on production teams for several documentary films, including 2004's Autism Is a World.
The Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit advocacy organization run by and for individuals on the autism spectrum. ASAN advocates for the inclusion of autistic people in decisions that affect them, including: legislation, depiction in the media, and disability services.
Autism, or autism spectrum disorder (ASD), is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by repetitive, restricted, and inflexible patterns of behavior, interests, and activities, as well as deficits in social communication and social interaction, and the presence of high or low sensory sensitivity. The underlying spectrum of ASD results in a variety of manifestations and support needs of the disorder. For example, some are nonverbal, while others have proficient spoken language.
Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) or autism spectrum conditions (ASCs) describe a range of conditions classified as neurodevelopmental disorders in the DSM-5, used by the American Psychiatric Association. As with many neurodivergent people and conditions, the popular image of autistic people and autism itself is often based on inaccurate media representations. Additionally, media about autism may promote pseudoscience such as vaccine denial or facilitated communication.
The Reason I Jump: One Boy's Voice from the Silence of Autism is an autobiography of Naoki Higashida, a largely nonspeaking autistic person from Japan. It was first published in Japan in 2007. The English translation, by Keiko Yoshida and her husband, English author David Mitchell, was published in 2013.
The rapid prompting method (RPM) is a pseudoscientific technique that attempts to aid people with autism or other disabilities to communicate through pointing, typing, or writing. Also known as Spelling to Communicate, it is closely related to the scientifically discredited technique facilitated communication (FC). Practitioners of RPM have failed to assess the issue of message agency using simple and direct scientific methodologies, saying that doing so would be stigmatizing and that allowing scientific criticisms of the technique robs people with autism of their right to communicate. The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association has issued a statement opposing the practice of RPM.
Nonverbal autism, also called nonspeaking autism, is a subset of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) where the person does not learn how to speak. One study has shown that 64% of autistic children who are nonverbal at age 5 are still nonverbal 10 years later.
Loving Lampposts is a 2010 documentary film directed by Todd Drezner, exploring the neurodiversity movement and the principle of autism acceptance through a series of interviews and candid footage. Drezner is the father of an autistic child whose attachment to and fascination with lampposts gave the film its title.
Citizen Autistic is a 2013 documentary film directed by William Davenport exploring the advocacy work of autism rights activists. Citizen Autistic features interviews with autistic activists including Ari Ne'eman, co-founder and former president of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, and Zoe Gross, creator of the Disability Day of Mourning annual vigils held in honor of filicide victims with disabilities. The documentary covers topics important to neurodiversity such as the debate over whether researchers should seek a cure for autism and controversies surrounding the nonprofit organization Autism Speaks and the Judge Rotenberg Center, a residential institution known for using electric skin shock aversive treatment as a form of behavioral modification.
Soma Mukhopadhyay is credited with creating rapid prompting method, a pseudoscientific technique that attempts to aid people with autism or other disabilities to communicate through pointing, typing, or writing. It is also known as RPM and Spelling to Communicate.
Ido Kedar is a non-speaking autistic person who has been described as having learned to communicate through the rapid prompting method, a pseudoscientific technique that attempts to aid people with autism or other disabilities to communicate through pointing, typing, or writing. He is credited as the author of an opinion piece and two books, the book Ido in Autismland and the novel In Two Worlds.
Vikram Kenneth Jaswal is a developmental psychologist known for his work on autism, particularly augmentative communication supports for nonspeaking autistic people using the discredited method of facilitated communication. He holds the position of Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia.
Ralph James Savarese is an American academic, writer, poet, and activist. As of 2024, he is a professor of English, Science, Medicine, and Society at Grinnell College. He is the author of five books, including Reasonable People (2007) and See It Feelingly (2018), and has published several chapbooks and poems.