Cinewrite Therapy: Closer Look at Facilitated Communication from the TV Movie Touch of Truth (Cries from the Heart)

Facilitated communication which is also known as supported typing is intended to have a positive impact on the neurodivergent person. Some believe that facilitated communication can help neuroatypical people have a voice and say what’s locked up inside them. Others conclude that this strategy can help differently-abled persons to articulate their thoughts, feelings, needs, and how to cry out to ask for help. By employing it some claim that neurodivergents can share what they think, feel, and need, and enables them to cry out to ask for help. They can also voluntarily express their emotions to be understood and tell what they want to do.

If the assisted is acting strange such as being more irritable, throwing things, hitting themselves, hurting others, and not sleeping and eating, facilitated communication might help the neurodivergent person to express what’s burdening them. Through the assistance of their facilitator, they can type their opinion, experiences, observations, reasons behind their sentiments, and the bad things that have been done to them

How it works: learning and expressing words

Even if a neurodivergent person is mute, it is believed that they can possibly learn words through what they see or hear. They could learn it from books, TV, and signs. Though they are not speaking, they can communicate because they are absorbing language, and they may just need a way to express the words they know.

How Facilitated Communication is Performed

To make writing possible, the facilitator has to provide emotional and physical support to the neurodivergent person.

1. Hold the assisted person’s hand and help them point. Eventually, work your way up to the helpee’s arm. Ensure that you only guide the hands and arm of the assisted properly. Refrain from controlling their pointer finger to allow them to freely point their hands to the keys on the typeboard.
2. Ensure that their attention is focused on the activity. Ask the assisted to look at the keyboard and encourage them to talk. This strategy requires much patience especially when the helpee is not focusing.
3. Encouraging the assisted consistently and positive reinforcement can help you to motivate them to write and communicate.
4. Allow the assisted to be familiarized with the device. Let them type or navigate the keyboard.
5. Be sensitive about the gestures of the helpee to know when they’re giving signals that they want to type to communicate.
6. The words written by the assisted could be incorrectly spelled, so be more sensitive to figure out what the assisted is trying to communicate.
7. If the helpee communicated well through typing, let them know that they did well and you appreciate it. Help boost their confidence so they’ll stay motivated to communicate and believe that they can do it well.
8. Consistently engage them in a conversation and encourage them to respond through typing to establish a routine.
9. Enabling differently-abled people to find their voice is not only the goal when teaching them to communicate. It’s also about guiding them on how to use it.
10. Once the neurodivergent person has gotten used to the strategy, their guardians can also be taught on how to facilitate communication with them, so they can conveniently talk with each other even without the assistance of a therapist. When the assisted becomes familiar with the activity, it will be easier for them to do it with their guardians. Facilitators can also remind the helpee to do their routines similarly to their guardians so they’ll know how to do it.

Concerns issues about facilitated communication

People who really like to help neurodivergent people are eager to try the potential of facilitated communication. However, many are hesitant about this method because of the following:

1. Differently-abled people might not be able to express themselves through typing especially if they can’t spell or are perceived to be unintelligent.
2. Possibility that the facilitator would do typing instead of the assisted. Several research shows that it’s ineffective and facilitators control the typing during facilitated communication.

Watch this video to see how it being done.

Movie clips courtesy of:

• Cries from the Heart  (Touch of Truth) 1994. Grossbart Barnett Productions

Recommended Readings:

Learn more about facilitated communication by reading the experiments and case studies below.

• Montee, B. B., Miltenberger, R. G., Wittrock, D., Watkins, N., Rheinberger, A., & Stackhaus, J. (1995). An experimental analysis of facilitated communication. Journal of applied behavior analysis, 28(2), 189–200. https://doi.org/10.1901/jaba.1995.28-189 (You can access it through this link https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1279809/)
• Sherry, M. (2016). Facilitated communication, Anna Stubblefield and disability studies. Disability & Society, 31(7), 974–982. https://doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2016.1218152 (Access it on: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09687599.2016.1218152)
• Bomba, C., O’Donnell, L., Markowitz, C. et al. Evaluating the impact of facilitated communication on the communicative competence of fourteen students with autism. J Autism Dev Disord 26, 43–58 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02276234 (You can access it through https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02276234)