[Athen] facilitated communication

[Irwin, George]

Good Afternoon Andrea,
In my past life, I worked a Syracuse University where two education professor worked on creating Facilitated Communication.  I will start by saying it is slow where we speak at 145 to 165 words per minute, the facilitated communication user may be communicating at 5 to 6 words a minute or less depending on the disability.  Some users have a talking keyboard which letters are typed and words formed.  I understand now with word prediction if you can get two or three letters a possible word bank pops s and the student can choose the word
Now for the more controversial is when an aide guides the students hands to the letters on the key board.  The question is "is it the student or is it the aide speaking,  The aide needs to go through special training to do this.
Yet some students use flip charts (real low Tech) which means the instructor needs to keep an eye out for a possible response/question from the student.

The more the student can do, the easier will be the buy in with the instructor,
I wish you well on this.
From: athen-list [mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman13.u.washington.edu] On Behalf Of Andrea J Engle
Sent: Wednesday, July 06, 2016 3:35 PM
To: athen-list at u.washington.edu
Subject: [Athen] facilitated communication


We were wondering if anyone has any experience with facilitated communication at the college level? There is a student who would like to attend the university who uses facilitated communication.  We are unsure of the student's diagnosis (documentation has not been provided). However, it does not appear that the student has motor control in any meaningful way. From the research we have done facilitated communication is not an accepted or reliable source of communication.  Can anyone please help in providing us any feedback on your experiences with this communication method? Is there better technology that could assist a student with communicating? Any help would be greatly appreciated.







Thank you,

Andrea Engle

Alternative Media Specialist

Cleveland State University

419.280.3795

a.engle at csuohio.edu<mailto:a.engle at csuohio.edu>

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