Facilitators' Comments and Writings


Judy Bailey — Augmentative Communication with Mother: Lessons from Pesky Laryngitis to End of Life Impairment. The moving force behind this website talks about the roots of her involvement in AAC. http://everyonecommunicates.com/judybailey/communication_with_mother.html

Charlene Brandl — See Us Smart!: Facilitated Communication Case Studies (1999) presents real life stories of facilitated communication training use told by an experienced special education teacher, showing the questions and the victories. Available from the AutCom Bookstore: http://iod.unh.edu/bookstore.html. Chapter 10, "Get Me Out of My Autism" is available online at http://www.robbiedeanpress.com/readingroo m/rr007.htm#Contents

Rosemary Crossley — One of the first people to develop the techniques of Facilitated Communication, beginning in the mid-1970s in Australia. Her book Speechless: Facilitating Communication for People Without Voices Dutton (New York, 1997) is a rich and detailed accounts of the author's experiences with numerous people who found a means of communicating through facilitated communication training, one of whom regained speech after many years without it following encephalitis.

Beth Komito-Gottlieb — "Some Thoughts on Bridges, Some Thoughts on Barriers", published in the Bridges Over Barriers newsletter, Spring 2006, p. 2. http://www.ont-autism.uoguelph.ca/BoB-2006-1.pdf

Marjorie Olney is with the Facilitated Communication Institute in Syracuse. Her essay "Musings of a Skeptical Facilitator" "is about my own personal struggle with facilitated communication. In it I describe different 'ways of knowing' that indicate to me that facilitated communication is real communication." http://www.inclusioninstitutes.org/index.cfm?catID=30&articleID=342

Collections of Writings and Personal Accounts

A Foot in Both Worlds: A Collection of Personal Accounts from Speakers, Their Families, Friends and Facilitators, Edited by Mary Lapos. Excerpts From A Foot in Both Worlds at http://www.inclusioninstitutes.org/index.cfm?catID=30&articleID=347 http://www.inclusioninstitutes.org/index.cfm?catID=30&articleID=345 presents a detailed account of initial FC session with a woman and her support team. "She was perceived to be a person who was extremely sensitive to anyone touching her or, for that matter, going near her. She was completely nonverbal and from staff descriptions, was in perpetual motion." After a successful two-hour session, Mary Lapos writes, "I found myself wondering how such a delightful young woman (with such a difficult reputation) had managed to survive all those years. How do any of the people who are 'silent' manage? It is a thought that consumes my waking and sleeping hours. How many times have I encountered a resilience that defies description? How is it possible to endure that isolation and live completely within your own mind? I suspect more and more that the saying 'we only use a small percentage of our capacity' is more right than we could ever know. The people who navigate this unique internal landscape have developed incredible coping skills and mental vigor. They have survived under circumstances that would baffle most, if not all, of us who are considered typical. We are the fragile ones in comparison!"