facilitated communication

n. 1. A controversial technique in which facilitators help a person whose disabilities prevent him or her from communicating unaided to use a keyboard, picture board, or voice synthesizer in order to communicate. It is unclear how much of such communication is that of the disabled person and how much is the imagination of the facilitator. 2. Communication that is enhanced technologically such as the artificial speech device used by the famed physicist Stephen Hawking.