Pitfalls
Cueing
Once, many years ago when I was just learning to spell, I spelled a word that came from what my Communication Partner expected me to spell, not from what I intended to spell. Worse, and this may happen to other beginners too, though I don’t know if it does, once I had spelled the word I thought it must be what I meant, so I built on it with the rest of the sentence. Fortunately there is an easy fix and all these years later I still encourage it, especially with a new Communication Partner: after each complete thought that I express, first read it back to me aloud and then ask me if that is what I mean. It can also be useful to check using torn pieces of paper.
I don’t know why this problem exists, but keep in mind that we minimally-speaking people with autism are all encouraged to trust our caregivers’ judgment over our own impulses. This is fine when it comes to crossing the street without being run over, but it would be good if it didn’t carry over into spelling. Whatever the cause, and I hope future research uncovers the nature of the problem, it illustrates the absolute necessity of conducting our spelling enterprise patiently and in good faith.
Message Passing
Perhaps related to the cueing problem above, is that I will probably have a fiendishly difficult time telling you factual information that I have experienced and you don’t already know. That doesn’t mean that we can’t discuss such things, but if you ask a question like, “Did you already eat breakfast?” you may not get a trustworthy answer.
Epistemologically, it is interesting to ask whether I know the answer and can’t overcome your ignorance or whether I don’t know it, and what we mean by “know.” In practical terms, it means you should always check with a neurotypical person who knows the answer (this should be distressingly easy as I am so rarely alone). Most of my Communication Partners avoid these sorts of questions, and in any case spelling must never be used in accusation unless the evidence contained in the accusation can be corroborated, so don’t ask me to bear witness, false or otherwise, against my neighbor.
This problem is not hard-and-fast, but it does generate uncertainty. Message passing can be learned, and one speller, Eugene Marcus, who has autism, learned to beat an experiment which had been used to discredit the first technique for assisted spelling, which was called Facilitated Communication. But it took him a year (see “Sorting it Out Under Fire: Our Journey, by Eugene Marcus and Meyer Shevin in Contested Words, Contested Science edited by Douglas Biklen, Columbia University Teachers College Press, 1997). I myself have passed messages when I mistakenly thought my Communication Partner already knew the answer, and sometimes even when I knew my Partner didn’t know the answer, but it’s an area of uncertainty. Shared knowledge is not a problem: if you ask me a question in French I can probably answer in French, but if you ask me how to say something in French (and I don’t think you know), that may not work.
I am enjoying teaching you as I make this site, and I certainly hope that future research solves this problem, so I can teach as well as learn in everyday conversation.
Touching
As you are a new Communication Partner we should not get into the habit of holding hands while we spell, and all recognized methods of helping people with autism to type forbid it.
However, I think the topic is complicated. I get something out of your presence that I couldn’t get from a brilliantly designed keyboard stand that moved as it tracked my glances, and touch likely improves the flow of whatever-that-is. Since human contact and the relationship between us is at the heart of this endeavor, it is important to note that touch can communicate many things that are harder to get across in words, such as support, affection and trust. If you are spelling with someone who grabs your hand, please don’t drop it as if it’s on fire. Holding your hand may help with the motor and sequencing challenges of spelling, but it does increase the risk of cueing, so work harder at verifying what is spelled. It also looks terrible, and if we do it, anyone watching us will think you are the author of what we type together.
Skepticism
You should know, as someone may soon tell you when you talk about working with me, that not everyone believes in the validity of assisted spelling. Some researchers have drawn an unfortunate conclusion from the pitfalls I have listed above. They have asked whether minimally-speaking people with autism really have any sophisticated ideas to express or are really capable of understanding abstract ideas. I have reviewed much of the scientific literature on both sides of this question. Scientists who set out to confirm a diagnosis of intellectual disability have devised experiments to confirm it, whereas those whose experiments are based on what they call the “presumption of competence” demonstrate that they were right. For a quantitative experiment that does not presume competence, but nevertheless demonstrates that spellers are authoring their own communications, see this peer-reviewed eye-tracking study. I am not disputing that passing messages is tough for me, but the leap from there to suggesting that I have no thoughts and am not the author of this website is unwarranted. My disclaimer is also a claim: the opinions expressed on this site are my own.