High school and college classrooms around the United States were offered a free virtual screening of the movie Deej for Disability Awareness Month in October 2020. The film was marketed as a Peabody Award–winning, Emmynominated film on autism, adoption, and inclusion that was excellent for the virtual classroom. This might seem like a great opportunity to learn about the struggles and triumphs of living with autism, but unfortunately Deej— along with Autism Is a World (2004), A Mother’s Courage: Talking Back to Autism (2009), Wretches and Jabberers (2011), Far from the Tree (2017), and The Reason I Jump (2020)—is an uncritical promotion of a discredited technique called facilitated communication (FC).
Unfortunately, Deej is an uncritical promotion of a discredited technique called facilitated communication.