This book is a fantastic collection of accounts of moving, diverse personalities who all share one thing in common- the have no functional verbal speech. Rosemary, as the character who becomes involved with these very different characters, has a wonderful humorous and passionate writer's voice, making this comparable to books like Oliver Sachs' The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat.
Rosemary Crossley discovered (or rediscovered)facilitation training (FCT), and here she tells how and why. FCT is a means of communication with people with communication impairment - people with autism, or Down syndrome, or cp - and the real point of Speechless is that it makes us ask whether these people can't talk because they're mentally retarded or whether they get labelled as retarded because they can't talk.
