The O.D. Heck Center in Schenectady, New York was one of the first in the United States to go public with their findings, which were that their clients produced meaningful responses through facilitated communication only when their facilitators had access to the correct responses. The report also ruled out issues of confidence or skepticism on the part of the evaluators. All twelve participants (people with disabilities) were chosen for the evaluation because their facilitators believed in their ability to communicate through FC. The study demonstrated that the communication partners were "systematically and unknowingly" being influenced by their facilitators. The researchers wrote:In fact, the nature of the findings permits us to assert that their output in facilitated communication was not only influenced, but was controlled and determined by the facilitators. To all appearances, these participants had been producing thoughtful communication, and several had consistently engaged in interactive conversations using facilitated communication. Many people serving these individuals believed that this output reflected the valid expressions of the participants.The result of the O.D. Heck study seemed so startling, especially in light of the positive response FC was getting in the popular press, that "Frontline" featured the story in its 1993 "Prisoners of Silence". In 1993, Genae A. Hall, research director for the Behavior Analysis Center for Autism, wrote: The fact that facilitators often control and direct the typing has been called "facilitator influence," which seems to be a misnomer. "Facilitator influence" suggests that the disabled person is emitting verbal behavior, and the facilitator is exerting partial control (or "influence") over that behavior. Although partial control certainly may occur when fading prompts within structured teaching programs, such control has not been demonstrated in most cases of FC. Rather than influencing the typed messages, the facilitator appears to be the sole author of those messages. Thus, the focus of analysis is shifted from the disabled person's behavior to the facilitator's behavior. Multiple other double-blind studies were being conducted at the same time, and whenever conditions were adequately controlled to prevent the facilitator from knowing the answers to questions, the results revealed facilitator influence, if not direct authorship.