Lucy Blackman is a university educated author

Author

An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

 with autism

Autism

Autism is a disorder of neural development characterized by impaired social interaction and communication, and by restricted and repetitive behavior. These signs all begin before a child is three years old. Autism affects information processing in the brain by altering how nerve cells and their...

. She received a BA (Hons) in Literary Studies

Literature

Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...

 at Deakin University

Deakin University

Deakin University is an Australian public university with nearly 40,000 higher education students in 2010. It receives more than A$600 million in operating revenue annually, and controls more than A$1.3 billion in assets. It received more than A$35 million in research income in 2009 and had 835...

 in Geelong, and subsequently a M.A.

She was the first functionally non-verbal person with autism in Australia to become a published author with her book Lucy's Story (2001). Having begun to use typed communication in adolescence Lucy progressed to being an independent typer via the controversial communication technique of Facilitated Communication

Facilitated communication

Facilitated communication is a process by which a facilitator supports the hand or arm of a communicatively impaired individual while using a keyboard or other devices with the aim of helping the individual to develop pointing skills and to communicate...

 through Melbourne's DEAL communication centre, run by Rosemary Crossley

Rosemary Crossley

Rosemary Crossley AM is an Australian author and advocate for disability rights and facilitated communication.-Authorship and advocacy:...

, beginning at the age of 14.

As an adult Blackman has given public presentations on her experiences with autism and the importance to her of facilitated communication

Facilitated communication

Facilitated communication is a process by which a facilitator supports the hand or arm of a communicatively impaired individual while using a keyboard or other devices with the aim of helping the individual to develop pointing skills and to communicate...

 in having given her a voice. Blackman's ability to communicate via typed communication is, today, undisputed. Advocates of facilitated communication believe Blackman's case provides strong evidence supporting the claim that this technique is a viable pathway to communication where verbal speech may otherwise never develop.

"I find it difficult to understand why other people are more interested in the process of what I produce than the content." --Lucy Blackman

Lucy Blackman authored a chapter in the book Autism and the Myth of the Person Alone. In the introduction to her chapter, Douglas Biklen

Douglas Biklen

Douglas Paul Biklen is an American educator best known for promoting the controversial theory of "facilitated communication", an augmentative and alternative communication technique for people with communication impairments, particularly autism.Biklen learned of the theory of facilitated...

 writes:

In all my personal interactions with Lucy Blackman, I have found her opinionated, articulate, humorous, ever so candid, and always ready to challenge my ideas or anyone else's. In her chapter, these qualities persist. At several points, she suggests that my questions are from a nonautistic perspective and therefore not about topics that she would herself choose to discuss; she seems to find mine annoying, For that matter, she questions other normate takes on autism as well. For example, she points out that if experts insist on focusing on communication impairment and social interaction as diagnostic markers for autism, then the field may fail to notice other factors that lead to these "peculiarities" (Blackman's term).

Works

• Lucy's Story: Autism and Other Adventures by Lucy Blackman. Foreword & Afterword by Tony Attwood
  Tony Attwood
  Tony Attwood is an English psychologist who lives in Queensland, Australia and is an author of several books on Asperger's Syndrome....
  
   (Jessica Kingsley, 2001) ISBN 9781843100423, also published with the title Lucy's Story: Theoretical and Research Studies Into the Experience of Remediable and Enduring Cognitive Losses by the University of British Columbia Press
  University of British Columbia Press
  The University of British Columbia Press is a university press that is part of the University of British Columbia. It was established in 1971.-External links:*...
  
   ISBN 1843100428.

• Review by Christi Kasa-Hendrickson in Facilitated Communication Digest, The newsletter of the Facilitated Communication Institute vol.9, no.1, 2001 http://suedweb.syr.edu/thefci/9-1hen.htmSyracuse University
  Syracuse University
  Syracuse University is a private research university located in Syracuse, New York, United States. Its roots can be traced back to Genesee Wesleyan Seminary, founded by the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1832, which also later founded Genesee College...
  
   ]

• "Reflections on Language" by Lucy Blackman, pp. 146–167 in Autism and the Myth of the Person Alone ed. by Douglas Biklen
  Douglas Biklen
  Douglas Paul Biklen is an American educator best known for promoting the controversial theory of "facilitated communication", an augmentative and alternative communication technique for people with communication impairments, particularly autism.Biklen learned of the theory of facilitated...
  
  . New York University Press, (2005) ISBN 0814799280

• Review by Patricia D'Antonio Nursing History Review, 2007: Volume 15 p. 206-07 Google Books
• Review by Sue Bond in Metapsychology Volume: 11, Number: 4 (2007

• "Strategies to Teach Improved Behaviours to a Non-Speaking Adolescent and Adult Who Had Not Received Formal Early Intervention" by Lucy Blackman and Mary A. Blackman. Presentation with video at The ARMS Global Autism Conference, Brisbane
  Brisbane
  Brisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...
  
  (2006) Abstract