This presentation caught me off guard. Going in I did not realize that Barb was non-verbal and has Tourette's. I assumed she would be physically talking about her life and her book. This obviously did not cause any issues because she was able to communicate through her I-pad. This leads me into the use of facilitated communication. For those who are not familiar with facilitated communication; "it is a process by which a person referred to as the "facilitator" supports the hand or arm of a communicatively impaired individual while using a keyboard or other devices with the aim of helping the individual to point and thereby to communicate" (Wikipedia). The presenter that helped Barb was the "facilitator" as Barb used her I-pad to communicate to the audience. At first, this seemed to be amazing; and it was interesting to see someone with autism an apraxia to use this technology. After seeing facilitated communication first hand, I decided to do a little research about this practice. The following article submitted by the American-Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) discusses the intent and implications of facilitated communication. FC has drawn skepticism and left me doubted after seeing and researching. It was hard for me to understand how it could be possible for a person that does not speak or read to develop the capability to spell out words in a diverse vocabulary. Barb seemed to understand what was going on and could actually type using the technology, but with the facilitator's help it seemed she was being led into what words to type. The words that the facilitator wished to speak, not necessarily the words that Barb thought. The support of a hand on the back was obviously helping Barb to regain focus and deal with her apraxia. However, it seemed like her hand remained in the same position as the facilitator moved her to the necessary letters on the keyboard. We were told that she is capable of typing emails and this method has allowed her to open the lines of communication to many people. This I believe is her own words and thoughts. Other words that I felt like was truly hers during the presentation were the constant announcement of "goodnight". I know she has Tourette's, but to me 'goodnight' was what she was trying to tell everyone, she was tired and ready to go home. I do not intend to take away with the possibility of someone with autism communicating and having their own thoughts. It just seems outlandish that an 'aut' could develop answers to questions completely on her own.
The presenter, forgive me for forgetting her name, talked about psychology and the expectations that are set for students and persons in general. Her analogy of the rose and other types of flowers through testing seemed to be a little askew. I agree that we hold students to norms, but these norms are created by using tests that are given to everyone, not some made up standards that cannot be met by most individuals. She used the example of a rose being the "premier" flower with other types of flowers falling short and considered as lesser flowers that have issues. These norm-referenced scores are calculated into a bell curve that is used to evaluate everyone. However, the presenter made it seem like these tests had no validity or relevance. I understand the complications with norms but it remains a standard way to assess, not a test that is pulled out of thin air.
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