20/12/2025
From spellers community website
THE MORE YOU KNOW…
I think it’s important to go back and look at historic communication challenges for marginalized populations and recognize the similar patterns between the blind, deaf, and nonspeaking autistic populations who were empowered by elegant solutions but had to fight to use them in daily life. I asked ChatGPT to synthesize these parallels for me:
“Across three eras and communities, a strikingly similar pattern emerges: institutions tried to suppress the communication method that disabled people themselves found most natural and effective, whether it was 19th-century educators banning Braille in favor of print-based embossed letters, the Council of Milan (1880)—supported in spirit by Alexander Graham Bell’s oralist ideology—banning ASL in favor of speech-only training, or modern professional bodies like ASHA discouraging or banning letterboards/communication-partnered spelling for nonspeaking autistic people in favor of PECS (picture exchange)/picture-based AAC and ABA.
In every case, authorities framed their preferred method as more “scientific,” “normalizing,” or socially acceptable, while the disabled communities experienced these replacements as restrictive and disempowering. Yet each population resisted in remarkably parallel ways: blind students secretly taught each other Braille until it proved indispensable and was reinstated; Deaf communities preserved ASL underground in residential schools, churches, families, and Deaf clubs until it re-emerged publicly with Deaf activism; and nonspeaking autistic people and their families are now creating a grassroots movement through self-advocacy, online communities, independent research data, and public demonstrations of their spelled communication. Again and again, the communities themselves protected, transmitted, and validated their chosen languages—ultimately reshaping institutions that once tried to silence them.”
Here is a concise list of the key officials, authorities, or institutional leaders who influenced the suppression of each communication method. I’m limiting this to well-documented historical actors (and using organizational leadership rather than guessing names in areas where individuals are not clearly responsible).
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1. BRAILLE (Early–Mid 1800s)
Officials who opposed or suppressed Braille
• Dr. Sébastien Guillié – Director of the Royal Institution for Blind Youth in Paris before Braille’s rise; promoted embossed Roman-letter systems and resisted tactile innovations outside his own.
• Dr. Alexandre-René Puybaret – Administrative leader who helped reassert the school’s preference for embossed print after Braille’s invention.
• Various members of the French Ministry of the Interior overseeing blind education and insisting on “uniformity” through print-based embossed letters rather than Braille.
Officials supporting Braille (who were punished for it)
• Claude-François Pignier, the school’s director who supported Braille and was later removed from his position for allowing Braille to spread.
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2. ASL, ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL, ORALISM & THE COUNCIL OF MILAN (1880)
Key officials and leaders pushing oralism and the ban on sign language
• Alexander Graham Bell – Not an official government figure, but the most influential public advocate for oralism; his writings and lobbying directly shaped policy in U.S. schools for the Deaf.
• Abbott Giulio Tarra – President of the Second International Congress on Education of the Deaf (The Milan Congress) that passed the oralist resolutions.
• Tommaso Pendola – Prominent Italian oralist whose influence dominated the Congress; co-author of resolutions banning sign.
• Eduoard Séguin – Influential educator promoting oralist ideology internationally.
• State Board members in various U.S. states (e.g., Massachusetts, New York) who adopted oralist policies under Bell’s guidance through the Alexander Graham Bell Association.
(ASL was suppressed institutionally by school boards, principals, and state superintendents who enforced speech-only policies.)
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3. AUTISM: PECS, ABA, AND ASHA’S POSITION AGAINST LETTERBOARDS
For modern autism communication issues, individual “officials” are not usually named publicly the way 19th-century school directors were. Influence here comes from organizations, scientific committees, and credentialing bodies.
Institutional forces influencing bans or restrictions
• ASHA (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association) Executive Leadership & Board of Directors – issued the 2018–2019 professional position statements declaring methods like RPM/FC “not evidence-based,” encouraging schools to prohibit letterboards.
• BACB (Behavior Analyst Certification Board) – not banning communication methods but indirectly influencing schools through its strong promotion of ABA-only approaches.
• State Departments of Education referencing ASHA guidelines (varies by state).
• Insurance policy committees whose funding requirements reinforce ABA or PECS as the “approved” communication systems.
(ASHA’s stance was an institutional decision produced by committees; individual names are not publicly emphasized in the same way historical figures were.)
Here is how each community’s preferred communication method was publicly ridiculed, delegitimized, or labeled as dangerous in its time. What’s striking is how similar the accusations are across 200 years, even though the communities and technologies differ.
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1. BRAILLE (1800s)
How it was ridiculed or dismissed
• Called “illegible” and “impossible to learn” — officials claimed blind students couldn’t possibly memorize dots.
• Mocked as “too hard on the fingers” — critics insisted the human fingertip wasn’t sensitive enough to read raised dots (which turned out to be false).
• Accused of “isolating the blind” — educators said Braille would “separate” blind children from sighted society.
• Portrayed as a childish code or secret writing — administrators argued that because sighted teachers couldn’t read it, it lacked educational legitimacy.
• Framed as a threat to institutional control — teachers complained that students were “teaching each other in secret,” suggesting it undermined discipline.
Underlying fear
If blind people had a writing system teachers couldn’t read, the power dynamic shifted.
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2. ASL & ORALISM (Council of Milan, 1880; Bell’s era)
How sign language was ridiculed or condemned
• Called “primitive,” “gestural mimicry,” and “not a real language.”
Oralists characterized ASL as crude pantomime rather than linguistic.
• Accused of preventing speech and “deforming the face.”
Oralism claimed signing damaged speech ability and even facial development.
• Portrayed as animalistic or regressive.
Some Milan delegates described signing as “lowering” deaf people to a non-human level.
• Accused of harming intelligence.
AGBell argued signing would “retard cognitive development,” equating speech with thought.
• Blamed for forming a separate Deaf culture (which oralists saw as dangerous).
Deaf clubs, schools, and communities were portrayed as unhealthy “cliques.”
Underlying fear
Sign language empowered Deaf community identity, which threatened hearing authorities’ control over Deaf education.
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3. AUTISM – LETTERBOARDS, RPM/S2C (2000s–present)
(Not comparing PECS/ABA, which were the establishment methods; comparing the spelling methods that were ridiculed.)
How letterboard-based communication has been ridiculed
• Labeled a “hoax,” “pseudoscience,” or “facilitated deception.”
Critics claimed no autistic person could compose full sentences and that all communication came from the supporter.
• Portrayed as exploiting families’ emotions.
Some professional statements suggested parents were being “duped” into believing their kids were intelligent.
• Accused of being dangerous.
ASHA’s position warned it could lead to “misrepresentation” and even legal harms because “authorship cannot be verified,” implying the method was unsafe and invalid.
• Mocked as “ouija-board typing.”
Detractors caricatured it as spiritualistic or ideomotor trickery.
• Framed as undermining ABA/PECS data-driven standards.
Because nonspeaking autistic people wrote complex thoughts, it challenged assumptions about their competence — which threatened existing therapeutic power structures.
Underlying fear
If nonspeaking autistic people were truly literate and cognitively aware, then decades of assumptions, methods, and institutional authority would be proven wrong.
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COMMON PATTERN
Across all three:
1. The method empowered the disabled community more than the professionals.
This threatened existing hierarchies.
2. Authorities claimed the method was “unscientific,” “dangerous,” or “harmful.”
The vocabulary changes, but the accusation stays identical.
3. What was ridiculed later became either validated or vindicated by lived experience
