I’m a facilitated communicator for an FC user named Jake Willman. His mom gave me your web-site last night and she said it was like seeing Jake in 10 years. Here is an email I sent to Sryacuse University just today. Let me know your feedback and or advice. I would love someone like you to help me become the best FC for my buddy Jake. He is so important to me, and I strive every day to fully capture his own words. However his AM facilitator does not. I can tell that his thoughts and words aren’t being relayed by her. She simply comes to do her “job” and shows no connection with Jake. Have you ever experienced this disconnect with a facilitator??? Any advice? I wish you the best and hopefully one day Jake and myself could possibly meet you. We’re all in Indiana!!! How amazing. Hope to hear from you soon. My email is mickey09193@yahoo.com.

p.s. Is there any books written by facilitated communicators?? I am going to write a book this summer that I hope will change more people’s minds about FC and will help FC’s to keep theirselves accountable

After watching the Frontline video on facilitated communication, I was appalled. My name is Michelle Dickey and I live in Fishers Indiana, a small suburb of Indianapolis. After a recent breakup with my ex-fiance, I found myself searching for my “purpose” in life. I held a degree in Elementary Ed., but I knew I didn’t have the passion to teach in a “regular” classroom setting. A lot of elementary teachers are very “right brained” thinkers, I am very sporadic and ADHD. I have the personality that is better if I am given a problem and I have to find a way to “fix” it. Most general ed. teachers stick to their guns and their college teachings in ways they try and help their kids. They try to fit their kid to the mold they already hold, instead of inventing a new mold for a child that doesn’t fit the ones they know and own.
After taking some time off, I had to make a career choice. Do I stick with elementary ed. and try it out, or do I try something I’ve always loved…special needs children. As a child growing up I worked with our special needs program and learned how good I was at it AND how much I loved it. Both things being equally important. After living in Chicago for a year, and realizing it wasn’t for me, I moved back home. Moved home to the suburbs I loved, the quietness I deserved, the family I loved and missed, the world that made me feel secure.
A friend of mine’s dad found me a job as an instructional assistant in the very same elementary school that I attended growing up in suburban Fishers. I’m a Christian and I believe God put me there for a very important reason. I ended up working with a second grader named Ester, who is Autistic, and speaking English as a second language to her native Hungarian, only being in the US for a couple of years. Previously to her, I had never worked with, or met any autistic children. I was terrible, and had no clue how to help this little girl. On top of that no one else really had any training on Autism at that particular school.
As the school year ended, I found a job as a waitress, and found myself torn between going to night school for two years to get my endorsement in special ed. or going to “beauty school”. After the horrific year I had with Ester, I doubted my abilities as a special needs educator. People on the outside would have put money that I would be a hair dresser in less that 2 years. But for some strange reason, I chose to go back to get my endorsement in Special Ed. Subconsciously I think I remembered how great I was when I had someone to teach me how to work with these kids.
I made the decision about 2 weeks before the school year started and 1 1/2 weeks before I learned that I no longer had my job at Cumberland road with Ester. Frantically I contacted my friend’s dad again, and he gave me 3-4 options, all of which I called and tried to secure interviews with. I think I would have eventually set up interviews with all the instructional assistant jobs, but the third school I called, and the first I interviewed at, I received divine intervention from God.
I started the interview knowing it was for an instructional assistant position, but not knowing for what class or what student. After falling in love with the principal, she told me the job was for the LIFE SKILLS ROOM. God was whispering and chanting in my ear…”you mad the right choice, b/c I made it for you”.
After my first day of work there, I knew with 100% certainty that I had made the correct choice. I loved my job and all of the kids I worked with. But I’ll never forget the day when Jacob Willmann walked into my life. This bright eyed kid walked in, disabled in the fact that he couldn’t show emotion on his face like he wanted to (mobious syndrome), but all the emotion was concentrated in his eyes. You could tell he was happy to be back at school. When he walked in he had one goal in mind, to get out his dizzy disc and “stim out”.
To make a long story short, Jake’s parents went to the conference at Syracuse last year when Jake was in first grade. His first grade year was the first and only year he spent not fully included with general ed. kids. I met Jake on his first day of second grade and we bonded rather quickly. Now three fourths of the way through the school year I have a better understanding as my job as his facilitator, and have become instant friends with an eight year old who shows maturity beyond his years.
From day one, I talked to Jake like I know I would want to be talked to/interacted with if I was imprisoned by my own body. I read all of the information from the conference, and understood the emotional support and bonding involved in working with Jake. Of course as time and experiences occurred between us I started to understand Jake more and more. Then I watched the frontline video, and it made me take a look at my responsibility as a facilitator. Was I challenging myself enough, or was I falling into a rut (rut has become one of the words I have picked up from Jake, he uses this word often to explain 2nd grade work)??
As bonds grow between typers and facilitators, and I know that a bond must first be established, facilitators must learn to step outside the “rut” and have their students tell them information that only the student knows. I started doing this with Jake by starting off simple. I would ask him where a paper was that he had been working on, or if he had finished a certain assignment with his morning facilitator. I then worked up to asking the name of his new tutor at home, etc… Finally I started to put more trust in myself by letting him answer questions I hadn’t even read. And just last week I’ve started to look away and or close my eyes when Jake types.The results have been amazing. And I’ve found it puts more responsibility on Jake to stay attuned.
It was weird because it was never that I didn’t trust Jake’s abilities, but I didn’t trust my own. What if I failed??? What if I failed him?? I had to let go of all my insecurities and trust my ability as a facilitator, otherwise I would never grow as a facilitator. That’s what I hypothesize happened with the blind study in the frontline video. The facilitators stopped developing their relationship with their students and they eventually started to subconsciously type for their kids. They never got past the initial bond with their kids. Did they every have conversations with them? Did they ever share about their own life and feelings?
I am very excited to say that this Friday I will be at your conference in Syracuse. Joining me will be my lead teacher, our speech teacher, Jake, his mom and dad, and his Grammie. I am too excited to see and meet everyone who will be there. I almost feel like this is Christmas for me. Please feel free to send me any information that will help me understand fc better. Thanks for all of your time and God bless y’all for helping these kids soar.

~How can one be content to creep when they are destined to soar.

Jakeism’s (unique Jake sayings)

1. “going to hit my joint” (meaning go home and chill)
2. When Jake’s dad explained to him that he fitted people for respirators, Jake typed “and they trust you?”.
3. “loopy” when he’s having an off day, or is very stimulated and needs more back pressure.
4. Jake has started using the words FYI and tip: to fill me in on different aspects that work well with him.
5. “you pretty” and I love you are his favorite things to type to me, about 5-6 times daily, along with at least 10 kisses. I’ve actually found that verbal praising is working very well with him.
6. One day I was looking for one of his papers that he had started with Miss Celia, and I asked Jake where it was. He typed “in my desk”. I looked and looked and couldn’t find it. All the while he had started to laugh. I was frustrated, but his laughter made me smile. I then told him it wasn’t in his desk, and to that he responded “on the top shelf”. The paper had been there the whole time, I just couldn’t see it.
7. Jake uses words all the time that I have to look up in the dictionary. One day we were in art and instead of drawing Van Gough’s Sunflowers, I had him write about him. He said, “Van Gough’s redressed his style of mourning in Starry Night and Sunflowers. I figured redressed meant to dress again. I was adamant to him that he was wrong until I looked up the word, it means to set up.

There are so many more, but I know this email is too long already. Hopefully you will get a chance to meet Jake yourself. He is an amazing little man.

Love to all,

Michelle Dickey, (a.k.a. Miss Mickey)

I am so very happy to have found your website! I support a number of people who use fc and who are working on self-control and focus.

Are you familiar with the Autism National Committee? Their website is www.autcom.org
I think you will find their definition of autism much more accurate than that of ASA. Check it out and let me know what you think.

One thing I particularly like about the organization is that about half of the members of the Board of Directors experience autism, and about half of them use fc. We have had a President who communicates with fc.

Your very long-time friend,
Sandi