Prisoners of Silence

Belief perseverance is defined by Meyers as "Persistence of one's initial conceptions, as when the basis for one's belief is discredited but an explanation of why the belief might be true survives." This phenomenon is readily observable and at many times throughout the film Prisoners of Silence. It can be observed in the man who discovered facilitated language, parents of autistic children, teachers, facilitators and even in the view of the film.

The video begins by introducing a revolutionary new possibility in the understanding of what autism is and how to approach those persons afflicted. Through a technique called "facilitated language" many autistic children were seemingly freed from the inability to communicate. Many were able to "speak" freely through a letter keypad with the help of a facilitator or guide. There are stories upon stories of success - of students, teachers, families, etc.

But the success couldn't last. Things truly were too good to be true. As we saw, red flags were being thrown up all over the place. The evidence was growing overwhelmingly that the words being attributed to the patients were, in fact, the words of the facilitators.

Study after study confirmed this suspicion. Patients could not identify objects not also in view of the facilitator; they could not communicate at all without facilitator guidance. The patients never needed to be taught language. Could that be possible? How is it that patients could type so clearly without ever looking at the keypad? The questions kept on coming.

First of all, despite the evidence, very few were convinced that facilitated speech could be untrue or ineffective. An interview with the founder is the strongest example of belief perseverance in...

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... studies disproving it, a large amount of cognitive dissonance was surely felt.

The conflicting ideas are the scientific facts disproving facilitated speech and the belief by individuals that they have seen it work. In order to reconcile the conflict and ease the dissonance, the people in the examples given have begun to use both the confirmation bias and belief perseverance. While neither of these fallacies are consciously chosen, each allows the experienced dissonance to be eased.

It is clear that the film Prisoners of Silence holds many illustrations of concepts explained by Social Psychology. While the examples of belief perseverance and the confirmation bias are specifically pointed out here, one could find numerous others. This shows that one can examine situations and events occurring around and within one's own life and see Social Psychology at work.