Ronald was a frail nonverbal ten-year old boy with autism.
He held a pencil in his right hand as he tapped a continuous rhythm against his left forearm.
The rhythm of the pencil tapping his arm engaged him more than anything else.
Ronald was in my classroom in 1990 when I read an article in the New York Times about Ben Lehr and his use of facilitated communication, a technique where hand or arm support is given to an individual, usually nonverbal, who has difficulty typing on his own.
When he began typing, people were surprised by his apparent literacy skills.
Most of my nonverbal students were able to match picture to word cards.
Many had also used facilitated handwriting, but I had never thought of using a letter board until that fateful day.
Ron--due to apparent movement issues and his interfering self-stimulatory arm tapping--had difficulty matching word cards to picture cards, and selecting answers from a field of choices.
However, if I stood behind him, pulled one hand back and then released it as I held the other arm quiet, he could choose the correct word and/or picture response from a group of possible responses.
Since it appeared at the time he was able to read when interfering stimuli and motor issues were dealt with, I felt he was an excellent candidate for FC.
He immediately took to it.
However, since we were providing arm support, I wanted to be sure I was not inadvertently cuing him.
His former teacher, Sally, and I decided to test him.
We were trying to think of a question that I did not know the answer to, as I was going to facilitate.
Sally asked me, "Do you know Ronald's sister's name?" After I said "No", I vaguely remember a fleeting thought that it might possibly be Tina, but I did not say anything.
Sally, on the other hand, was confident that she knew Ronald's sister's name.
As she stood about three feet behind us, I provided Ronald with wrist support as I asked,"What is your sister's name?"Ronald typed "Tina.
"Immediately, I turned around and I asked Sally to tell me Ronald's sister's name.
She confidently said, "His sister's name is Tina.
"Overjoyed, we called Ronald's mom our incredible news.
She casually replied, "That's nice that he typed Tina, but his sister's name is Sue.
" As soon as I recovered from the initial shock and disappointment, I analyzed what had occurred.
Had he picked up my fleeting ambiguous thought, that his sister's name might possibly be Tina?Or even more astonishing, had he picked this misinformation from his former teacher, Sally, standing a few feet away, who was so confident in her misinformation?Or, had Ronald picked up the name "Tina" from both of us?From that day on, I knew that some type of telepathy for want of a better word was powerful component of the process.
Lessons Ronald taught me: o It helps some children if you work from behind as it prevents gestures and eye cuing.
Speaking into the right ear may help them process.
o Holding one arm back and releasing may help some children with motor planning issues.
o Some children may glean information from mental prompts of the facilitator or a third party privy to the information.
This can occur when working on language or activities using responses from a field of choices, as well as facilitated communication.
(See Critique of FC article.
)