Inability to communicate is the most devastating of all disabilities. People who can't talk can be labelled mentally retarded, or disturbed, or even vegetative, and they can't answer back.
Speech is comparatively fragile, and can be lost through many forms of brain dysfunction. Language is extraordinarily robust, and is almost impossible to eradicate completely. What is needed is a way to access it.
People who can't speak can use many alternative communication strategies if they can control their hands or bodies well enough.. Speaking computers can give these people a voice, but to use the voice you have to be able to access the computer.
Rosemary Crossley worked on the edge of the possible, with people who hadn't previously used any communication strategy effectively. She found that by making it easier for them to make controlled movements, so they could point to pictures, words or letters to create messages, she could release their language. The techniques she used are now known as facilitated communication.
Crossley first used facilitation in 1977 with Anne McDonald, a sixteen-year-old with cerebral palsy whose mental age was measured in months. Once able to communicate Anne sued to leave the institution in which she was confined and went on to graduate from college. In Speechless we also meet Penny, who screamed continually for eleven years; Fred, who smashed his head on the floor; Kim, who wrung her hands and many others trying to break through to the use of language.
From the beginning Crossley encountered those who said that facilitated communication was a hoax that offered false hope; that facilitators were making decisions, 'putting words into the hands' of their students. Speechless refutes those charges with an amazing array of stories of previously silent people who blossomed with facilitation.
Through her stories of working with people with diagnoses as varied as autism, brain injury, and Down Syndrome, Crossley emerges as a fiercely determined and driven women who cares deeply about the rights of the disabled. The stories of the remarkable people she helped will make readers rethink the very definitions of communication, as well as reminding us all how much society has to gain by listening to those who have been kept silent. For anyone who is interested in rights, or disability, or language, or knows a person with communication disabilities, Speechless is essential reading.
An extract from the book is available on-line.
Hardcover, 272 pages:
$24.95 (Amazon.com Price: $22.46)
E P Dutton
ISBN: 0525941568
More information on facilitation from DEAL Communication Centre.