Wetherblog

I had done it all, or so I thought. I had been to the prom. I had walked across the graduation line to accept my high school diploma in front of nearly a thousand people. I had been baptized in front of my whole church. Now, I was about to be […]

Longing to escape from my prison, longing to let someone know that I was very smart, longing to stop wasting my years in school and longing to say “I love you” to my family, I tried once again to alert someone to my predicament. My hopes for success weren’t very high.
I am autistic — […]

“Habit is a cable; we weave a thread of it each day, and at last we cannot break it.” Horace Mann, American Educator, 1796-1859.
Good habits make everyone’s life easier. When faced with difficult situations, they allow us to react the right way without conscious thought, leaving us no time to choose otherwise. […]

>Until I get to heaven, I will probably always be autistic, yet I am in no hurry to leave this life. Nobody can walk in my shoes but me, so no one is able to experience my silence of speech and inside-of-my-body thoughts but me, so most people don’t think my life is […]

We meet other kids who can talk using FC
Here are some of my favorite chapters from our book. They bring back some poignient memories.

Designer babies I
Designer babies II
Above are two links to a new controversy. It seems that doctors can do in-vitro fertilization and determine the sex of an embryo before inserting it into the uterus. This has already been done to “screen out” embryos of either gender with genetically identifiable diseases that are fatal at a […]

Here are chapters 10 thru 16. I hope you are enjoying this.
A New School Experience

Here are chapters 2 thru 9. I forgot to say that there are excerpts in these chapters written by my mom, brother and school facilitator. Enjoy —
The Earliest Days

Here is chapter 1 and the Introduction to the book. Remember that my words are in Italics and that I was quite new to using Facilitated Communication.
Introduction & Chapter1

Below is a link to the prologue to a book that I helped my dad write when I was first beginning to use FC. I was thirteen and had not talked since I was two. Dad wrote the entire prologue. I will add the remainder of the book in later posts, chapter […]

It is quite probable that Iraq did have weapons of mass destruction and managed to move them out of the country before the allied invasion. Really, it doesn’t matter if they did or not. Bush realized that Saddam Hussein was a threat […]

Some FC users who were echolalic (at best) can now read what they have written aloud.

FC allows the FC users to point to things like letters on a letter board or keyboard or to pictures or to words like “yes” or “no”, which they couldn’t otherwise point to on their own.

Facilitated Communication is a method of communication, not a communication device.

Many FC speakers can (and probably should) communicate through multiple facilitators.

Several FC speakers have taken college classes and some have graduated from college.

Not only autistic people use FC. Other people who are not autistic but have speech impairments use FC.

In the beginning, it is really important for the FC user to look at the communication board while typing, because someday being able to type independently will require the FC user to look at the board.

Good Facilitation requires trust between the Facilitator and the FC user (I am an FC user).

Way long ago in another time, I was lost and adrift, though I wasn’t far from shore. I could see the shore, but nobody on shore could see me. One day I tried my best (again) to get someone’s attention and, wonder of wonders, someone noticed me. She wasn’t sure that I […]