Speechless: Facilitating Communication for People Without Voices [Hardcover]

Rosemary Crossley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 1997

The developer of Facilitated Communication, a method of helping mutes communicate using a keyboard or spelling board, recounts her legal battles to encourage its acceptance and the stories of people who have benefited from its use. 20,000 first printing. Tour.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Facilitated Communication (FC) is a controversial technique for helping those who cannot speak use a communication aid. A "facilitator" assists the person without speech in using a spelling board or keyboard to create words by either pointing out letters or typing on the keyboard. Controversy centers on who is actually communicating?the facilitators or their charges. Crossley is credited with developing FC, first used in the mid-1970s with Anne McDonnell, who was severely disabled and assumed to have a mental age of several months. By presenting the stories of numerous individuals she has worked with (she runs the DEAL Center for people with severe communications disabilities in Melbourne, Australia), Crossley chronicles and defends her development and use of FC with those lacking functional communication owing to autism, brain injuries, Down syndrome, and other disorders. She details and answers criticisms, paying particular attention to the use of the technique in the United States. Recommended for special collections.?Kate Kelly, Massachusetts General Hosp. Lib., Boston
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Dutton Adult (April 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0525941568
• ISBN-13: 978-0525941569
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,766,577 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A fascinating new perspective on the meaning of mental retar, April 7, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Speechless: Facilitating Communication for People Without Voices (Hardcover)

Rosemary Crossley discovered (or rediscovered)facilitation training (FCT), and here she tells how and why. FCT is a means of communication with people with communication impairment - people with autism, or Down syndrome, or cp - and the real point of Speechless is that it makes us ask whether these people can't talk because they're mentally retarded or whether they get labelled as retarded because they can't talk. If you believe it really happens, that is: there's a lot of controversy around FCT, and Crossley has been accused of many things, charges she answers in this book. A must for anyone dealing with a non-speaker

5.0 out of 5 stars A writer who takes risks and asks important questions, January 11, 2006

By 

Mark Twain - See all my reviews

This review is from: Speechless: Facilitating Communication for People Without Voices (Hardcover)

This book is a fantastic collection of accounts of moving, diverse personalities who all share one thing in common- the have no functional verbal speech. Rosemary, as the character who becomes involved with these very different characters, has a wonderful humorous and passionate writer's voice, making this comparable to books like Oliver Sachs' The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat. You don't have to be interested in Facilitated or Augmented Communication techniques to find this book a thoroughly good read in its own right. You simply have to enjoy the inner worlds of human beings and how remarkable it is when those worlds get their first change at expression.

Rosemary Crossley casts aside the taboos and tackles the serious issues, never taking herself overly seriously. She's a credit to a world that takes far fewer risks and asks far fewer important questions than she does.

Read it if you dare.