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At least since the early 1990s, educators in inclusive schooling as well as scholars in Disability Studies have critiqued prevailing notions of intellectual ability and have suggested the importance of interpretive communities for constructing student competence (Biklen, 1990 Biklen, D. 1990. Communication unbound: Autism and praxis. Harvard Educational Review, 60(3): 291–314. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Goode, 1992 Goode, D. A. 1992. “Who is Bobby? Ideology and method in the discovery of a Down syndrome person's competence”. In Interpreting disability: A qualitative reader, Edited by: Ferguson, P. M., Ferguson, D. L. and Taylor, S. J. 197–212. New York: Teachers College Press. [Google Scholar], 1994 Goode, D. A. 1994. World without words: The social construction of children born deaf and blind, Philadelphia: Temple University Press. [Google Scholar]; Kliewer, 1998 Kliewer, C. 1998. Schooling children with Down syndrome: Toward an understanding of possiblity, New York: Teachers College Press. [Google Scholar]; Kluth, 2003 Kluth, P. 2003. “You're going to love this kid.” Teaching students with autism in the inclusive classroom, Baltimore: Brookes. [Google Scholar]; Linneman, 2001 Linneman, R. D. 2001. Idiots: Stories about mindedness and mental retardation, New York: Lang. [Google Scholar]). This work follows in the tradition of education-as-dialogue, which some have argued is a sine qua non for conceptualizing education with individuals who have been traditionally marginalized (see for example, Ashton-Warner, 1963 Ashton-Warner, S. 1963. Teacher, New York: Simon & Schuster. [Google Scholar], Freire, 1970 Freire, P. 1970. Pedagogy of the oppressed, New York: Herder and Herder. [Google Scholar]). The core of this article is a conversation between a university educator and a high school student with autism who types to communicate. Out of this essay, the authors find a series of principles for inclusive schooling, the most central of which is the idea of presuming competence of students.
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Notes
1. All of the text written by the second author of this article was produced after he learned to speak as he typed (he can say the words before and as he types them). In the year prior to our writing this article, the student developed the ability to type without any physical support. For all of his writing, the second author had a facilitator sit next to him as he typed. Parts of the discussion were first drafted by the second author for speeches and for an essay that appears in the book, Autism and the Myth of the Person Alone (Biklen, 2005 Biklen, D., ed. 2005. Autism and the myth of the person alone, New York: New York University Press. [Google Scholar]), adapted here with permission.
Controversy about the method of facilitated communication centers on the question of authorship. It has been shown that a facilitator's physical touch of the typist's hand or arm may influence the person's pointing. A number of studies have demonstrated this fact and/or have failed to validate authorship (Bebko, Perry, & Bryson, 1996 Bebko, J. M., Perry, A. and Bryson, S. 1996. Multiple method validation study of facilitated communication: II. Individual differences and subgroup results. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disabilities, 26(1): 19–42. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Bomba, O'Donnell, Markowitz, & Holmes, 1996 Bomba, C., O'Donnell, L., Markowitz, C. and Holmes, D. 1996. Evaluating the impact of facilitated communication on the communicative competence of fourteen students with autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 26(1): 43–58. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Cabay, 1994 Cabay, M. 1994. 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These studies use one basic type of assessment, namely message passing; that is, the person being assessed was required to convey information that could not be known to the facilitator. Other studies, using a wider range of test situations as well as linguistic analysis and documentation of physical, independent-of-facilitator typing have successfully demonstrated authorship (Broderick & Kasa-Hendrickson, 2001 Broderick, A. and Kasa-Hendrickson, C. 2001. “Say just one word at first”: The emergence of reliable speech in a student labeled with autism. Journal of the Association for Persons with Severe Handicaps, 26(1): 13–24. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Calculator & Singer, 1992 Calculator, S. N. and Singer, K. M. 1992. Preliminary validation of facilitated communication. Topics in Language Disorders, 13(1): ix–xvi. [Google Scholar]; Cardinal, Hanson, & Wakeham, 1996 Cardinal, D. N., Hanson, D. and Wakeham, J. 1996. 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[Google Scholar]; Rubin, Biklen, Kasa-Hendrickson, Kluth, Cardinal, & Broderick, 2001 Rubin, S., Biklen, D., Kasa-Hendrickson, C., Kluth, P., Cardinal, D. N. and Broderick, A. 2001. Independence, participation, and the meaning of intellectual ability. Disability and Society, 16(3): 415–429. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Sheehan & Matuozzi, 1996 Sheehan, C. M. and Matuozzi, R. T. 1996. Investigation of the validity of facilitated communication through the disclosure of unknown information. Mental Retardation, 34(2): 94–107. [PubMed] , [Google Scholar]; Tuzzi, Cemin, & Castagna, (2004) Tuzzi, A., Cemin, M. and Castagna, M. 2004. “Moved deeply I am” Autistic language in texts produced with FC. Journe?es internationals d'analyse statistique des donne?es textuelles, 7: 1–9. [Google Scholar]; Weiss, Wagner, & Bauman, 1996 Weiss, M. J. S., Wagner, S. H. and Bauman, M. L. 1996. A validated case study of facilitated communication. Mental Retardation, 34(4): 220–230. [PubMed] , [Google Scholar]; and Zanobini & Scopesi, 2001 Zanobini, M. and Scopesi, A. 2001. La comunicazione facilitata in un bambino autistico. Psicologia Clinica dello Sviluppo, 5(3): 395–421. [Google Scholar]). The studies by Cardinal and his colleagues (1996) Cardinal, D. N., Hanson, D. and Wakeham, J. 1996. Investigation of authorship in facilitated communication. Mental Retardation, 34(4): 231–242. [PubMed] , [Google Scholar], Sheehan and Matuozzi (1996) Sheehan, C. M. and Matuozzi, R. T. 1996. Investigation of the validity of facilitated communication through the disclosure of unknown information. Mental Retardation, 34(2): 94–107. [PubMed] , [Google Scholar], and Weiss, Wagner, and Bauman (1996) Weiss, M. J. S., Wagner, S. H. and Bauman, M. L. 1996. A validated case study of facilitated communication. Mental Retardation, 34(4): 220–230. [PubMed] , [Google Scholar] all involved message passing experiments, but unlike many of the assessments in which individuals failed to demonstrate authorship, these involved extensive testing sessions, with the possible effect of desensitizing the subjects to test anxiety.
2. It is perhaps fitting that the psychiatrist is played by the film's director, Barry Levinson, for the film itself, his film, conveys the message that a person who is different belongs in an institution and has no place in the everyday world inhabited by the undiagnosed.
3. Crossing midline refers to a person's ability to move an arm from one side of the body to the other, a skill one needs for playing most games and for many other tasks.
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