Soma Mukhopadhyay is an Indian educator and the creator of the so-called "
Rapid Prompting Method", a form of
facilitated communication
Facilitated communication (FC), or supported typing, is a scientifically discredited technique that attempts to aid communication by people with autism or other communication disabilities who are non-verbal. The facilitator guides the disabled ...
. Her use of the RPM with her autistic son
Tito
Tito may refer to:
People Mononyms
* Josip Broz Tito (1892–1980), commonly known mononymously as Tito, Yugoslav communist revolutionary and statesman
* Roberto Arias (1918–1989), aka Tito, Panamanian international lawyer, diplomat, and journ ...
garnered media attention in America in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Mukhopadhyay came to the United States in 2001, and joined Helping Autism through Learning and Outreach (HALO) in Texas in 2005. She also hosts workshops involving RPM worldwide. RPM was featured in an
Apple Inc.
Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company b ...
commercial, which led to further controversy over her technique.
It has been noted that Mukhopadhyay gives a high rate of verbal, gestural, and physical prompts even to the most independent students, and uses
circular logic
Circular may refer to:
* The shape of a circle
* ''Circular'' (album), a 2006 album by Spanish singer Vega
* Circular letter (disambiguation)
** Flyer (pamphlet), a form of advertisement
* Circular reasoning, a type of logical fallacy
* Circula ...
to explain why she claims RPM is legitimate.
Mukhopadhyay has also acknowledged that a teacher who wants to move quickly could accidentally guide the student's arm through touch, when that is not allowed in RPM.
References
External links
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)
Indian women educators
People in alternative medicine
Educators from Texas
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