Three young adults who type with facilitation were taught games involving tasks such as unscrambling anagrams. They then played the games in the usual way while the computer screen was shielded from their facilitators. All validated their literacy and typing skills. The information gained will be used as the basis of a larger study. Each of the three participants was able to demonstrate genuinely independent communication through disclosure of specific information previously unknown to a facilitator.
Investigations involving more individuals are in progress.
Australian Studies Concurrently with the studies described above, DEAL staff have been involved in research with staff and students from the School of Communication Disorders at La Trobe University. The aim is to examine the factors that may af- fect test performance in individuals using facilitation, in particular testing experience, the nature of the task, the skills of the facilitator, and specific language impairments. Not all tasks involved typing. While the data analysis is incomplete, it is known that some participants did not complete sufficient tasks to provide meaningful data, and that four participants validated their ability to type with facilitation by providing detailed information about color photographs not seen by their facilitators. The information gained from this study will be used as the basis for future validation testing.