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Ten years or more at least. It's something I ran into when my son's autism was first diagnosed and I was around a lot of people whose job in life (to ME, at that time) was to make me realize I had it easy. The person looks at an alphabet on a chart, and the computer picks up the eye movements and puts it up on screen. Amounts to a very slow word processor, for severely impaired people, though when the news guy tried it it worked pretty fast for him once he got the hang of it. It works even when a person has difficulty controlling his or her eye movements, since erratic movements can be ignored by the computer. I think it was on 60 Minutes. Remarkable technology! And rather cheap as these things go. Of course I can't be certain that Terri could have done it but the point is that Mr. Schiavo never let anything like that be tried. He curtailed any and all therapy that might have helped her build new neural networks for communication and coordinated, purposeful movement.

My luck with Google lately has been awful. I don't know what it is but I can't find anything on there anymore. I just get porn and weird stuff back when I try to look for anything, even recipes.

Terri communicates with her eyes. There is technology available that could have made it possible for her to have communicated complete thoughts.

Thats great. What technology is that? How long has it been around?

Any person who has even one muscle they can control voluntarily can operate a communications device. The technology isn't particularly new; Steven Hawking has had his for over a decade. Whether Terri would, or would have, been able to operate such a device is unclear, but any guardian who actually had her best interests at heart would have been able to find out.

They are called AAC's, or Augmentative and Alternative Communications devices. They can be as complex as a computer-contolled sound device, or as simple as a board with pictures of things or actions that might be desired by the patient. They are used by the disabled to communicate their needs. they can be controlled by eyeblinks, or puffs of air, many other ways, as well. If Terri has the cognitive ability to blink her eyes, as she is seen doing in the videos I've seen posted on FR, or to control her exhalations as I've heard her do on the same videos, she can communicate using pictures or words or whatever. Her lack of ability to speak is probably because she has received no therapy since she was disabled. Because of the brain damage, she may be limited to very simple thoughts, like "hungry" or "thirsty" as she must be by now, but she was excited to hear her mother's voice on that video, and looked pretty bright-eyed to me, so I expect more for her. She may not have what would be called normal intelligence left, but she is still a person. She may even remember...

I worked with a high-school girl who had an aneurism that blew out. She had cerebral palsy as a result, her most erect posture left her body in an "S"curve, and she remembered being "smarter." She had trouble speaking, doing math and english and history, and she couldn't even control her bladder. She was, and IS still a person, and of value to the world as herself. If nothing else, you have only to meet her to know how lucky you are.