This article originally appeared in Vol. 2 No. 4 (August 1994) of the Facilitated Communication Digest, [pp. 12-14].

PROPOSAL FOR A PRACTICAL SHIFT IN OUR LANGUAGE

Mayer Shevin
Facilitated Communication Institute
Like many people reading this article, I am a person involved in facilitated communication who has become weary of defending myself and my friends against the same accusations over and over, weary of seeming to not be listened to. I have often wondered despairingly, "Why don't we seem to be getting our point across? Are these people deliberately ignoring us, or what?" It occurred to me recently that the problem may be that we've been trying, and failing, to speak to our critics in their own language. We are, perhaps, awkwardly using language that does not accurately represent what happens in our daily experiences with facilitated communication. Rather than continuing that effort, it might be more fruitful and less frustrating to develop our own more descriptive language for what's really going on.

Mary Daly uses a wonderful image in her writings, talking about background and foreground (Daly, 1978; Daly & Caputi, 1987). To oversimplify, the background is the everyday world in which real lives are lived, real connections among beings and nature are established and maintained, and in which most real things happen.

Background (Denise D. Connors) n: the Realm of Wild Reality; the Homeland of Women's Selves and of all other Others; the Time/Space where auras of plants, planets, stars, animals and all Other animate beings connect. Compare foreground. (Daly & Caputi, 1987, p.63.)

foreground (Denise D. Connors) n: male-centered and mono- dimensional arena where fabrication, objectification, and alienation take place; zone of fixed feelings, perceptions, behaviors; the elementary world: FLATLAND. Compare Background. (Daly & Caputi, 1987, p.76).

The foreground is an artificially constructed stage or arena, where self-important people do self-important things, and which they confuse with the real world. Applying these concepts to the "non-debate" about facilitated communication (in which we often talk, but not usually to each other), we can visualize the background as a rich environment of interrelationships, understandings, growth and decay, coming together and falling apart -- an environment that is familiar to all of us who have logged our hours on the planet -- and an environment which is being totally ignored by most critics of facilitated communication. Instead, the critics have their attention fixed firmly on the foreground: a small puppet stage set to look like a physics lab with a one-way mirror, in which puppets dance awkwardly on the stage, manipulated by Good Scientist and Fake Scientist puppeteers.

Unfortunately, those of us involved in training and research which supports facilitated communication have more and more been finding ourselves talking "foreground talk." For many of us, it was not our natural tendency to do so. Coming from traditions which were respectful, qualitative and multidisciplinary, we began with a great interest in hearing, in peoples' own words, what they have to say. However, many of us have been drifting more and more toward talking in the language of our critics. This is, I think, to be expected, given the situation in which we have found ourselves. We are often in the position of providing point-by-point responses to criticism; such responses are, of course, likely to use the critics' language as their frame of reference.

Is there anything to be lost by "talking foreground talk?" I think there are three great risks. First, when we engage in such discussion, we make ourselves, rather than the people for whom we facilitate, the focus of discussion. Also, the language of the laboratory and the quest for the definitive experiment make it almost impossible to talk about the daily lived lives of facilitated communication users and facilitators. Most importantly, by using "foreground talk," we legitimize a narrowly defined experimental approach even as we refute it -- we act as if a particular conversation about facilitated communication is the whole conversation, or the only possible conversation.

In order to avoid such a tactical and conceptual trap, it may be useful to consider adopting language and practices which more accurately reflect our understanding of what's going on. One means of doing this is by continually following our first impulse, which is to feature prominently the words of facilitated communication users in our writings about facilitated communication, and to incorporate their input whenever decisions are being made on their behalf. Ultimately, it's by what they say, and by the changes we see in their lives, that we know we're on the right track.

A second way, and the one that's my main reason for writing this paper, is for us to learn to talk "background talk." Our language must incorporate the honoring of the people who inhabit that background, their strengths, and their active role in their own lives.

There are, of course, many ways of changing our language; the one I'd like to suggest here is that we pull back from focusing discussion on "facilitator influence," and instead shift our focus to the topic of "cue-seeking" by facilitated communication users.

Consider these two terms, "facilitator influence" and "cue- seeking," in terms of the ideas of foreground and background. "Facilitator influence," as used by critics of facilitated communication, is quintessential "foreground talk."

  1. "Facilitator influence" is unidimensional; most critics are uninterested as to the mechanisms involved, content to know that "influence is occurring."
  2. "Facilitator influence" focuses entirely on the actions of others -- facilitators do it, and experimenters expose it. What facilitated communication users do doesn't even enter into the discussion.
  3. Arguments over "facilitator influence" are played out on an abstracted battlefield, with no attention to the effects on the "subject." As far as most experimenters are concerned, "debriefing" ends the encounter, and even that probably doesn't exist for the facilitated communication user.
  4. "Facilitator influence" is linear and judgmental; it exists in a certain percentage of cases, and the more often it happens, the worse it is.
In our efforts to meet point-by-point attacks by our critics, we have often been baited into talking about "facilitator influence." Some of us have attempted to expand upon the complexity and the normality of influence in communication; for example, Sonnenmeier (1993) describes the collaborative construction of meaning which exists in all communication. However, many of us find ourselves sounding as if we wish to eliminate all facilitator influence if we could -- but we can't -- so we're doomed to failure. (I know most of us don't THINK this, but our language SOUNDS like we do.)

We might be able to avoid being backed into this particular corner by a shift of focus to "cue-seeking." Cue-seeking is, of course, one of several things taking place during any communicative interaction, which also includes the conscious and unconscious sending and picking up of signals. The acts of collaboratively creating meaning in association with communication partners and with other aspects of the environment are very complex. What I am calling for here is to make cue- seeking a focus of our research and our thinking on these issues, rather than pretending that it's "all there is," as has happened with the concept of "facilitator influence."

As opposed to "facilitator influence," "cue-seeking" represents terminology which is much more background talk.

  1. "Cue-seeking" is something that goes on all the time for everyone involved in interacting with their environment -- not just something that is happening while facilitation takes place.
  2. More importantly, cue-seeking is an active behavior on the part of facilitated communication users. Using this language recognizes them as agents in their own lives, something more than merely the passive recipients of our influence.
  3. Rather than being a unidimensional concept, "cue-seeking" is by definition multifaceted, layered, complex. It does not lend itself to being easily quantified or analyzed -- it can, however, be acknowledged, honored, and understood.
  4. In terms of a parent, teacher, or therapist's approach to cue-seeking, our goal is not to eliminate it, but rather to support the facilitated communication user in gaining greater control of his or her communication through being conscious of it. We can begin to discuss assisting people with the metacognitive skills related to cue-seeking, with facilitated communication users, facilitators, and their broader communities all learning from each other. We can also turn attention to code-switching skills, that is, the ability to use different strategies in different social situations. When the politics of the situation becomes something that is named, it then can be negotiated; ultimately, astute contextual analyses can be swapped back and forth among members of the communicating community.
There may be some risks associated with changing the focus of our discourse. Critics may charge that we are changing the rules mid-game (although they may need to be reminded that we never agreed to their rules in the first place!) Moreover, we've spent a few years getting good at speaking "foreground talk"; a new approach may represent something new to get good at, which will feel awkward at first. However, our awkwardness using this language will be nothing compared to what would happen if facilitated communication's critics tried to address our positions in our language. The mere use of the terminology would force them to acknowledge an agency by facilitated communication users that has never to date been part of their discourse.

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