For many years, there has been a controversy on whether facilitated communication (FC) users are actually the authors of their own thoughts or not. This has also raised issues of independence and intelligence of the FC user. Many people question the autistic person’s competence with FC and tend to assume they are ‘mentally retarded’. However, Sue Rubin (2001) who communicates through typing that has become independent with many years of physical support and Libby Grace (2015) who is an academic who often gives lectures and presentations verbally, but she also thinks about communication through writing prove to people whose assumptions of ‘mental retardation’ are wrong and with practice they can become independent FC users. In the article, Independence, Participation, and the Meaning of Intellectual Ability by Rubin, Biklen, Kasa-Hendrickson, Kluth, Cardinal, and Broderick (2001), they discuss Sue Rubin’s process through FC. Just like Grace (2015) who is the author of Who Knows?, Rubin (2001) has also been to many conferences. “Able to type independently... my presen-tations (at conferences) were acts of …show more content…
Becoming independent brings respect and equality (Rubin, 2001, p. 422). Facilitated communication changes lives because non-verbal speaking people are able to communicate with the world around them. According to Rubin (2001), “Loneliness no longer is a part of my life…they respect my advice and enjoy being with me” (p. 422). All the things non-verbal speaking people would like to do in life wouldn’t be complete if they didn’t have some sort of communication. “It is quite clear to all of us that we know what we are thinking and what our lives are like, and that communication is greatly important, and indeed a fundamental right,” Grace (2015) justifies (p. 13). James seems to understand exactly what he wants and reassures everyone through expressions when people understand
In “Hidden Intellectualism,” Gerald Graff pens an impressive argument wrought from personal experience, wisdom and heart. In his essay, Graff argues that street smarts have intellectual potential. A simple gem of wisdom, yet one that remains hidden beneath a sea of academic tradition. However, Graff navigates the reader through this ponderous sea with near perfection.
As the video introduces the audience to facilitated communication, a treatment which at the time was considered a revolutionary and miraculous treatment, I began to experience a strong sense of happiness followed by a rush of hopeful and optimistic emotions which were attributed to the implications of such treatment. No longer, I thought, will children who are born with such a horrible disorder will have to continue to experience the horrors of the inability to
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.
The topic for today’s reading was Functional Communication: What It is and What It is Not. The assigned reading, Facilitated Communication—what harm it can do: Confessions of a former facilitator, presented the case story of the Wheaton daughter’s facilitator where she said that twenty years ago, she was the facilitator in the Wheaton case, a story featured on Frontline’s Prisoners of Silence and, later, in a 20/20 episode with Hugh Downs. She admitted to held Betsy Wheaton’s hand and typed out accusations against her family members. These accusations were graphic depictions of rape and sexual assault that had no bearing in reality. No physical evidence of abuse existed, but her words typed through the guise of FC, put in motion events that caused serious damage to many people including Betsy and her brother who were removed from their home to foster care, while her parents were charged. All this irreparable heartache was caused by my unshakeable belief in FC. During all this happened, she wanders how could she not noticed that she was moving the child’s hand for all this time, and realized that she was having conversations with herself. Also she expressed how everyone in the room, including the guardian ad litem, knew that FC was fake and that she was not the child’s facilitator but the one moving her arm. FC is more about the facilitator’s desire to connect with their disabled family member or client than it is about the disabled person’s ability to communicate through FC. On the other hand, the frontline video showed how non-verbal people with normal intelligence were able to have relevant conversations, and how this people treated as non-functional individuals were using keyboards to break the silence between children...
The Joy of Canning: Motivation in a Productive Home” by Erica Strauss. Strauss had my full-on attention with her writing methods. She was crystal clear in her message without even having to explain the portions of her article that hardly pertained. It’s the beauty that I see in writing and daily language. There are no boundaries of what a person can talk about so long as they get the main idea back into circulation. If there’s one thing that I’ve learned from college is that the thought process of an article needs to be as spontaneous without drawing out boredom as possible in order to retain the thoughts of students. So once again the question of, why am I exiled from groups like there’s no tomorrow? Easy enough to answer, but hard to explain; my writing techniques follow me into the speaking world. If there’s one place that a person hates to be led around in a flashy display of words, it’s within speech. The reason being is that they won’t comprehend it the first time and don’t have the luxury of rereading it in order to grasp a better understanding of what’s being said. I strive for this “imperfection” on the behalf of my speaking capacities. The reason being is that I love watching people get flustered over the fact that they weren’t paying close enough attention to find the point of a conversation. It’s a conversation checker to see who is worth the time to speak to. An introduction into the complexity of which is my mind; the only constant is the hamster on the wheel that powers my
Somebody Somewhere offers a rear glimpse of the world of autism—from within. Australian born Donna Williams was diagnosed as psychotic at the tender age two, later as deaf, and ultimately as autistic; “Autism had had me in its cage for as long as I had ever known” (p. 5). In her book she describes her escape from “my” world, into “the” world. She talks about “picking up the pieces after a war” and “learning how to build somewhere out of nowhere and a somebody out of a nobody” (p. xi); yet she has something for everyone: “within each of us there is a stranger (or strangers) lurking in the shadows of our subconscious minds” (ibid). The author
Wainer, Allison L. "The use of innovative computer technology for teaching social communication to individuals with autism spectrum disorders". Research in autism spectrum disorders , 5 (1), p. 96.
Communication is an essential component for effective leadership and management. Without it, the organization will struggle carry out their mission. Simply communicating is not enough. Effective communication hinges on the clarity of the message. As Popovic and Hocenski (2009) stated, a “Leader must be able to communicate clearly to others in a language that they can understand on all levels in an organization, from the most unskilled worker through to the Chief Executive” (pp. 15-16). There are a lot of elements that can affect one’s ability to accomplish that. A small, but distinctly important, few are discussed in the following paragraphs.
Andrews, K. (2002). Interpreting autism: a critique of Davidson on thought and language. Philosophical Psychology, 15(3). Retrieved from:
The ability to articulate my thoughts, aspirations and hardships has been a big part of my recent literacy. From personal essays to an open discussion with a panel. To put my thoughts into words on a paper or have a discussion, I have had the privilege to be heard from many around my city and in other states.
Communication is an essential part of the world’s population in order to get in touch with one another. Simply “getting in touch” is not the simplest way of putting it. Our world that we live in today, the population is generally moving away from the classic face to face conversation, to conversing through new forms of technology such as phones and social media. We live in what is known as a digital nation, this digital nation is what makes up the more standardized forms of communication. We all converse with each other. This being said, there are many different forms of communication and how we use these tools and techniques to get around personal problems and avoiding arguments. Face to face communication, calling, texting, or social media
Being a teacher, is not an easy job, especially when we face problems with parents refusing to accept that their son or daughter has a learning disability. Communicating to parents that their child has a special need or has behavioral issues is not easy for teachers. A few years back, I had a student that would come to my class late and would be absent most of the time. Every day, he would just sit in the back of the room and make no effort to work. I would talk to him about being more responsible, but he seemed not to care. I would ask him if I could help with anything that he needed so he could do his work, but he would become aggressive. I decided to talk to other teachers to see if they were having the same issue with him and find approaches in how we could resolve this problem with the student and meet his needs. According to Friend and Cook (2013), collaboration gradually has
The ability to socialize enables humans to become better in contact with each other. Our eyes study facial expressions with body movement and in cooperation with language and context of a situation, we can better comprehend what it means to truly understand an individual and their thoughts. There are several ways humans can go about trying to make sense of another person’s reality such as relating to an event through personal experience or simply just understanding emotion, but is it different when we relate to a non-human character? We can empathize with living creatures because we can identify life in that organism and make connections, in one way or another, to determine what that organism is feeling. Yet, when empathizing with an object such as a rock, it becomes hard to connect with that entity unless we give it human traits that suddenly makes the rock more “alive”. We need to have apparent traits that act like bridges in order to better understand direct communication. The methods of how we put ourselves in another’s place are like gateways and I will explain how we can relate to others in a higher degree by comparing integration of another’s
For example, I can usually use verbal communication to effectively communicate what I want to say, but there are some situations where talking is not the most efficient option. In these situations, I use my ability to read and write to try to express my feelings and communicate my ideas through writing in the form of texts, emails, or letters. Without literacy, I would not be able to send texts to my parents informing them that I need a ride and I would not be able to look up information about events happening around me. Fredrick Douglas was also able to use his ability to read to figure out how to communicate his thoughts. In his writing, Fredrick Douglas described how he would have thoughts about slavery and his situation but he would always ignore the thoughts until they went away, but after reading “The Columbian Orator” and some of Sheridan’s speeches, he was “enabled…to utter [his] thoughts, and to meet the arguments bought forward to sustain slavery…” (Douglas 102). These readings allowed Douglas to organize his silenced thoughts and to figure out how to communicate his ideas to other people and go on to eventually write and give speeches against slavery. Fredrick Douglas proved that communication and literacy are closely linked by explaining how reading the someone else’s’ thoughts helped him to express his own
Communication is one of the most important factors in our lives. It dictates the relationships formed with the individuals in personal and professional lives. Effective communication provides a foundation for trust and respect to grow. It also helps better understand a person and the context of the conversation. Individuals often believe that their communication skills are much better than what they actually are. Communication appears effortless; however, much of what two people discuss gets misunderstood, thus leading to conflicts and distress. To communicate effectively, one must understand the emotion behind the information being said. Knowing how to communicate effectively can improve relationships one has at home, work and in social affairs. Understanding communication skills such as; listening, non-verbal communication and managing stress can help better the relationships one has with others.