The state presented a rebuttal witness to challenge Rutgers-Newark professor Anna Stubblefield's claims that "facilitated communication" is effective
NEWARK -- At Rutgers-Newark professor Anna Stubblefield's sexual assault trial, prosecutors took aim on Wednesday at the typing method she claims to have used to communicate with a disabled man.
While the 34-year-old man, known as D.J., is unable to speak beyond making noises and the state's experts have said he is intellectually impaired, Stubblefield has testified they communicated through a controversial technique known as "facilitated communication."
Under that method, advocates claim facilitators provide physical support to assist users with typing on a keyboard. Critics have said the method is ineffective in light of studies showing facilitators influencing the users' messages.
After Stubblefield finished her testimony on Wednesday, the state presented James Todd, a psychology professor at Eastern Michigan University, as a rebuttal witness to challenge her claims about the overall effectiveness of the method.
Todd argued every "methodologically sound" study of facilitated communication have determined it to be an invalid means of communication. Such studies have demonstrated the facilitators controlled the users' responses, Todd said.
Todd also explained the alleged flaws in numerous studies cited by Stubblefield as evidence that the technique works.
"There are zero methodologically sound studies showing facilitated communication actually works," Todd testified. "It's become the single most scientifically discredited intervention in all of developmental disabilities.
"Facilitated communication is overwhelmingly rejected by the scientific community," he later added.
But on cross-examination, Stubblefield's attorney, James Patton, told Todd, "you have a lot of people that disagree with you" in regard to the validity of facilitated communication.
Patton noted how "peer-reviewed articles" have been published that depicted the technique as being effective.
Patton also highlighted how certain higher education institutions support facilitated communication. He also listed several universities that have faculty members who have endorsed the effectiveness of the technique as well as academic institutions that have included the method in their conferences and curriculum.
Todd claimed "peer-reviewed articles" are reviewed by a small number of individuals to determine whether they meet the standards of a given journal. Such review does not necessarily mean "the results are scientifically valid," Todd said.
As for the continued presence of facilitated communication within higher education settings, Todd said "there's lots of people who are highly educated who's been fooled by this."
Todd added that facilitators may believe the users are typing, but they are unknowingly moving the users' hands as part of the "Ouija board phenomenon," referring to the classic board game supposedly used to connect players to the spirit world.
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The former chairwoman of the philosophy department at Rutgers, Stubblefield, 45, of West Orange, is facing two counts of aggravated sexual assault for allegedly abusing D.J. in her Newark office in 2011.
Rutgers has placed her on administrative leave without pay.
D.J., who suffers from cerebral palsy and other ailments, wears diapers and requires assistance with walking, bathing, dressing and eating, his mother has testified. Other than making noises, D.J. does not speak, his brother said.
D.J.'s mother and brother have been designated as his legal guardians.
The state's experts have said D.J. has intellectual disabilities and is unable to consent to sexual activity, but Stubblefield claims D.J. is not intellectually impaired and that he consented through facilitated communication.
Stubblefield met D.J. in 2009 through his brother, then a Rutgers student, who was taking a course of Stubblefield's during which the professor discussed the technique. The brother later asked her for more information about the method to see if it might help D.J.
Over the roughly two years Stubblefield worked with D.J., she claims he wrote papers that were presented at conferences and wrote essays for a literature class he took at Rutgers.
Stubblefield said she and D.J. fell in love and ultimately disclosed their sexual relationship to his mother and brother in May 2011.
When Stubblefield was on the witness stand on Wednesday, Essex County Assistant Prosecutor Eric Plant pressed her about whether she thought it was wrong to have sex with the brother of a Rutgers student in her university office.
But Stubblefield claimed she was "not the first professor to engage in sex in my office." She said it was not wrong to use the private space "to see somebody in a mutual relationship."
"I don't think that was a terrible, horrible thing to do," Stubblefield said. "I don't think it was Rutgers' business.
"I think that it's OK for adults to engage in mutual relationships in private," she later added.
Bill Wichert may be reached at bwichert@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @BillWichertNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook.