[7] Sometime later, his daughter was diagnosed with autism, prompting Jaswal to change his research focus to studying the condition, particularly communication in non-speaking autistic people.
[2] During his career, Jaswal has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the Jacobs Foundation, the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and the National Institute of Mental Health.
[3] In 2016, Jaswal and his wife, Tauna Szymanski, pulled their 7-year-old daughter, who is a non-speaking autistic person,[2] from school, due to concerns that she would not receive the educational environment she needed in a separate classroom for students with disabilities.
[1] However, several autism researchers, including Howard Shane, argue that the authenticity of the messages produced by facilitated communicators is questionable.
Flawed methodology with no explanation of why it is necessary to have the facilitator hold the letterboard in the air instead of flat on a table or on a easel.
"[10] Drexel University autism program professor Katharine Beals claims that Jaswal's eye-tracking study "is based on faulty assumptions that undermine both its rationale and its conclusions.
[13] Jaswal's work challenges assumptions that non-speaking autistic people have less intelligence, a lack of social motivation, and cannot think for themselves.