My son is semi-verbal at 9 (echolalia and wants and needs, with the latter really being three-word sentences. He just started using the "I" pronoun a few months ago.) Really appreciate your reporting here. When autistic kids are being routinely abused by the for-profit autism care complex, (not to mention being incredibly underserved by the fact that special education teacher pay is pitifully low) it's hard to not see podcasts like these as adding to the problem.
Thanks MCC. I didn’t include this in the piece but some parents take their kids around and make money off their so-called telepathy. There are many potential abuses.
That's my experience with my minimally speaking son as well. These days he prefers texting to the AAC, and he texts us about the same stuff he talks about: Football, what he wants to eat, why he's annoyed at his sister. He's never come out with some vast spiritual statement, nor would I expect him to.
Are there really no kids who use FC/RPM/etc and turn out to just be kids? Or is it that we only hear about the exceptional ones?
The answer is yes, there are many people (not just kids), who use these methods that talk about "normal" things. I invite you to visit many blogs from spellers out there. They are funny, relatable, and also give insight to what their life experience is like compared to ours.
My own nonverbal ASD son would be a great example. He's 9, he loves dinosaurs and fart jokes as a typical boy would. He also knows things he shouldn't, and it's unexplainable, and I also never expected it.
I am disappointed that parents are not only not believed, but pointed to as just wanting to seek attention. We don't, frankly we don't have the time or extra energy. You know this more than anyone. All I can say is I would've said it was impossible before we seen it for ourselves. The only harm done here is to parents who have had the courage to speak out being mocked and silenced. We'll never learn and grow as a society if we always reject what we don't understand.
Respectfully, I think it is unfair to equate the work done with this investigative article to the shaming you feel is occurring. As evidenced, Dickenson is using sleight-of-hand to make her case and was not truthful about how Powell lost her medical license.
Does he ever know anything that you didn't know at the time he said it? If not, we should assume this was the Clever Hans effect. That shows your son has a great sensitivity to subliminal cueing, which is a remarkable cognitive skill, but it is not telepathy
I’m a parent of a minimally speaking 5 year old who uses an AAC device. I looked into s2c because he loves letters and I believe he will learn to spell and read. What I saw in the spellers groups was confusing and very different than the AAC groups - missives of activism, spirituality, ramblings, etc. The telepathy tapes have left me uncomfortable. I think they’re dangerous to the nonverbal community. My child is wonderful but he is not telepathic. On his AAC he discusses Mario, candy, cookies, and people at school - typical things for a 5 year old. I have watched videos of spellers and the children and young adults often appear distressed as they are spelling, and, as you mentioned, protest. It’s very confusing to me as the first rule of AAC is to model but not force.
In the pieces I’ve done on this topic I’ve noticed this. Kids using spelling methods are often writing political treatises or having Meta conversations about being nonverbal. Most kids, in my experience, just want to be kids. It strikes me as off what the spelling is producing.
I cannot disagree with anything you have said here Alison. The groups are full of some very odd stuff and whether or not they are true, they do nothing in helping the perception of these as techniques. That being said there is some great info if you can wade through the noise and i certainly believe that these letterboard methods can be excellent for some non speakers in gaining independent communication. Being able to have multiple communication partners is a very key step. While i agree "most kids want to be kids" most kids are not non speaking neurodivergent kids who may learn in different ways. Some i expect do but I have no doubt there are those who have amazing minds due to having to learn in a much more though provoking way. In the same way there will also be non speaking individuals who also have intellectual disabilities.
The average kid asks approx 400 questions a day between 2 and 5 years old. Just imagine how clever you need to be to learn to do tasks without ever being able to ask questions. It is a massive difference in how people learn. I remember having a conversation with a young adult who was independently typing and asking how they learnt at a young age. They said they were forced to be a very good listener and had time to think maybe more deeply than others on how things work.
Early in the first episode, discussing Mia, the Dr says: "I noticed it looks like she's not even looking at the board. Is that true – that she oftentimes is just kind of pointing like this without even looking? I wonder how she does that…" Her sister replies: "In her diary, Mia wrote that when she reads, she sees different colors." The host's voiceover helpfully notes: "scientifically, this is known as synesthesia." (???)
A lot of conscious effort is put in to design (convincingly!) the tests such that it really is only the parent, and not the child, who knows the correct answer before the child is asked to spell it out. No test is done where the parent is blindfolded rather than the child, to first lay the basic foundation that they can spell a single word that the parent is *not* thinking of.
Would anyone interested in the truth structure their investigation like this? This almost seems like an elaborate joke where the host is FC'ing the listeners into thinking "telepathy" is an apt explanation for the behaviors being shown.
I noticed that and it was actually kind of shocking that Ky left it in. Because it was a huge red flag.
I've heard the synesthesia line before and it's kind of odd. Even if you see colors around letters, if you have a letterboard with 26+ letters and numbers, how are you distinguishing where you type even if with your peripheral vision you see colors? Peripheral vision is good enough to tell you there is something in your periphery. It can't really tell you what. That's why we all turn to look.
Im a speaking individual with autism and color-grapheme synesthesia, the type Mia seems to have, and I can vouch there’s something to this.
Everyone’s experience with synesthesia is different (including the colors), but for me, the first few letters of a word turn the word into a particular color- a block of color. And a sentence looks like a series of colorful blocks. I can memorize the series of colors (and even see them in my mind when I close my mind) and so doing, memorize long lines of text by just remembering the color pattern. Sounds crazy, but that skill has made it really easy for me to memorize huge amounts of information (very helpful for me as an academic).
I’m not quite sure what Mia was doing and I wish they expanded on it, but synesthesia could certainly be playing a part in this phenomenon.
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about that. After you’ve not fooled yourself, it’s easy not to fool other scientists. You just have to be honest in a conventional way after that."
I appreciate your take on this. I enjoyed the podcast series, but after looking into FC and S2C, I really hope Dickens continues the research while taking your criticisms into account.
While I’d love to believe there’s something more profound going on, we need to do the less glamorous work of improving methodology.
I also appreciate that you acknowledged that Dickens has good intentions rather than just calling her a scammer. This is the kind of productive conversation we need around these topics.
As long as she doesn't get any taxpayer funding to fuel this exploitative (intentional or not) waste of money. Otherwise, in 10 years, it'll be a hate crime to say that Telepathic Kids don't exist.
I’m certain you know people who have had prophetic dreams or unusual intuitions that proved to be correct. It’s a fairly common experience across cultures.
Can you prove that all of these occurrences are simple coincidences or are explainable through physical materialism? Or do you just hand-wave those people away as idiots?
Dreams are fragmented and confused. Any “plot” a dream has is mostly constructed after the fact. If an event occurs, it’s very easy for someone to “remember” a prophetic dream. But it’s really just a reconstruction. The fact that it’s historically common just shows this is an easy illusion for humans to experience.
That’s a likely conjecture for most cases, but unless you’re a neurological researcher doing this research and reaching definitive conclusions, it’s still only conjecture.
I know adopting an uncritical materialist viewpoint can make the world seem more rational and under control, but it closes some paths that, in my opinion, deserve to be explored.
Definitely wasn’t talking about FC practitioners. I can’t tell if you genuinely didn’t pick up on that or if you’re being intellectually dishonest.
Some people involved with FC definitely did some bad things, and it seems to be an unreliable method at best.
I was talking about dismissing everyone who has had direct paranormal experiences as idiots. There are too many experiences of sane, reasonable people to ignore with an offhand comment.
Just like everything else in this world, while it’s true for some, not all cases of FC are “vicious fraud”. I’m not endorsing it, I’m just being a reasonable person.
That said, Akhil seems to have been using an AAC device unassisted at one point during the podcast. That’s the kind of thing I’d like to see more of, as would Dr. Powell according to her statement in the article.
Hi George! I'd love to represent a person with daily firsthand knowledge on this topic. My son communicates on a letterboard. I think you may be referring to a very old way of thinking about FC. There are always people who take advantage of others, and this is no different. However, you would probably be surprised, just as we were, of the awful conditions and treatment that we have seen in specific "autism" schools (especially ABA). There is a general mindset that nonverbal = low IQ, and we actually left a school because they would use what they called a "seclusion" room. The seclusion room was a small padded closet with a window and a lock. (We did not know they used such a barbaric practice before enrolling). So I guess my point is that we were overwhelmingly surprised how archaic the education system is set up for nonverbal ASD.
The spelling community, on the other hand, has been the most open and compassionate group I've ever experienced.
Spelling for them is very labor intensive, but it is the only way my son can "control" his body to communicate. He doesn't love it sometimes, especially doing homework, just like any other kid. But for those who experience it in the day to day, we have a very different viewpoint than those who regurgitate old thinkings because they have no other experience on this topic. It's time we listen to the people who actually live this than those seeking clicks.
Do you think I refuse to do a study, or that I am in a position to do so? I would love to do a double blind study, then perhaps the actual harm of dismissing this method will finally be removed. I would take a guess though that once that does come out, you still will not be swayed due to cognitive dissonance and hubris. "If it doesn't happen to me, it doesn't exist", right? But hey, that's the typical human reaction to facing a new belief, as history has proved time and time again. Just disappointing that we still repeat the same mistakes we always do, always thinking that THIS generation is at the peak of all knowledge. There's nothing else to learn, right? So why listen to anyone with actual firsthand knowledge? No one will address the thousands of examples of how they could provide information they shouldn't know. I too will not be swayed because I've seen it. I just wish we listened more instead of the knee jerk reaction of dismissal.
Thankfully, I think the letterboard will be a moot point in the next 5 years now that eye gazing technology is on the horizon. Then the nonverbal ASD community won't have to waste any more time proving that they are in fact quite intelligent.
My son has a severe neuro-genetic disorder and like everyone who has it, is entirely non-verbal and intellectually/physically disabled. Another mother in the community wrote an entire book through her kid using hand over hand FC and claims said kid is a spokesperson for all the kids who have it. I don't doubt that my son has a fascinating inner world, but for all the reasons this article brings to light, like going from never receiving a lesson in literacy in her whole life to writing an articulate entire book in less than a year... there's absolutely no way that really happened. I am not however dismissing the possibility that these telepathic abilities exist, I very much believe they could on one level or another... and I hope that as this very intriguing research moves forward they do take more steps to protect its integrity from FC shenanigans. After experiencing FC in my own community I fully believe that caregivers who do it believe with their entire hearts that the communication is authentic and they can say without lying that they are not doing anything to knowingly skew results. If it isn't "real," it is not intentionally so and I hope folks can be kind to them because at the end of the day they are devote caregivers and trying very hard to be good parents to extremely vulnerable people. Demonizing or harassing them into existential crises will not improve the quality of their children's or families' lives, and there are not heroes waiting in the wings to take the kids away to "qualified places." They're stuck with the caregivers they've got 99.9% of the time whether armchair critics like it or not.
I'm the father of an 8yr old non-verbal autistic boy . He wants to communicate so badly but we have yet to hit on the right device, technique, therapy etc etc for him. I have spent a lot of time watching and learning what works for others over the years and one thing has always puzzled me .You touch on it in your article and it's mentioned briefly in the Telepathy Tapes . How is it that some children using letterboards and spelling boards start out barely able to attribute A to Apple or T to Train , let alone arrange them to form certain words , that each mean a different thing .... then , in time still using the same sort of device to communicate with are confidently composing sentences , sharing their personal thoughts in writing , asking and answering questions and joining in conversations ? Learning to construct words and finding out what they mean is fine but what comes next is crazy. Assembling sentences , where and why , right and wrong , grammar and comprehension , tone , intention and somehow working out what 'your voice ' is . I have found it almost impossible to find examples of these type of autistic students working through that part. Remembering how hugely different their path of learning is , I'm fascinated about how that information gets in and gets processed . I found the 'always listening' and 'sharing information telepathically' comments in the podcast very interesting . I'm not sold but not a skeptic and as I said, have wondered about how that learning gets in for years.
I appreciated your article very much but are you suggesting that the parents and the caregivers , siblings and friends of all the subjects have potentially colluded and all gone to extraordinary lengths , all at the same time , from all over the country , to all figure out individual ways to convince us of this particular thing ? Just getting my son to put on pants is a complete circus , I can't see why all these folks would bother making their days anymore challenging by constructing a fraudulent ruse and risk humiliation if it was proved fake.
I don’t think the parents or facilitators are colluding to present a false story.
As someone who has spent years as a tutor and part time educator I can say that any work you do alongside a child you can easily influence. Everything from verbal affirmation to body language can signal to the child what the correct answer is. And you can do it without even catching yourself doing i.
My discussions with parents for the October piece led me to believe many parents are desperate for a breakthrough so they’re happy to see their children writing complex essays…even if they can only do it with a facilitator. Do they have doubts deep down inside? I can’t say but I understand why they’re motivated to believe.
Hi Mike, same experience over here with us. Our nonverbal ASD 9 yr old son uses a letterboard to communicate. We had to find a method that worked for him, not us. Once he started spelling, (which took almost 2 years of daily practice to finally be able to accomplish pointing at letters with a pencil), he did not go through the typical stages of learning that we expect. He just knew it.
I understand that we dismiss all parents that report this, but I know firsthand that he is authoring what he spells. The simplest way to prove this is that he spells things that we, or his facilitator don't know. Whether that be complex math or personal information, we have to "fact check" what he says, and it's correct. It's unexplainable, but it's happening all over the world. I'm just one of thousands out there.
We also deal with the erratic behaviors... the feces smearing and random nakedness. It's almost as if they represent 2 people, the body they can't control led by impulse and the mind that is totally separated by it. I always think about a post in a blog authored by a speller, and he wrote "I feel like a 6 foot drunken toddler."
Good luck on your communication journey. I know our son does not have the motor function to effectively use current AAC out there, so it took us a long time to find what worked. I would 100% encourage you to look into letter boarding. (I also was very dismissive that anything would work, frankly).
Listen to the people that are actually living it, instead of people that have very strong opinions on things they don't experience firsthand or fully understand. It would've been the mistake of our lives, and more importantly our son's, if we too dismissed spelling as "fraud".
Is it really telepathy , or another part of the brain that is not damaged and paying attention to what is going in the world around them? It is interesting the example you gave from the drunken toddler comment.
From research into cognition and brain function, Neuro scientist can show how our brain compartmentalizes information. Carl Jung a famous psychologist and researcher not only of the workings of our minds/brain, but also an investigator of the Nature of reality, who explored unexplainable phenomena, describes how our subconscious mind is always awake and aware and recording everything... Could the subconscious mind be playing a part in these abilities?
I just listened to the first episode, and I was very intrigued but knew I HAD to find what really smart people had to say about it. So glad I found this piece— so well-written and researched. I learned a lot. I hope the podcast producer continues on to more rigorous research now. it’s something to explore, yes, but not at the cost of vulnerable children.
Glad you pulled this all together. As I listened to the podcast, I also immediately thought of Tell Them You Love Me, and group think/wishful thinking in action.
Like, why are there no autistic adults featured? Why all “spellers?”
Though, I have a teen with the condition formerly known as Asperger’s and long before she had the diagnosis, when she was really young, we always thought she could see ghosts. It often seemed like she was looking at things and reacting to things that weren’t there before she could speak, (she’s 17 now and speaks, though will stop speaking when she gets burned out) to the point that I remember almost verbatim a convo with her grandma about it.
It was strange, but… idk. I’m sure explainable.
However, I’m glad that the podcast is maybe humanizing these kids and parents. Many are so looked down upon by others.
Great article, and brings to mind Happiness Falls by Angie Kim which is a novel exploring these ideas—I read it this year and it gets into the pitfalls of spelling. It’s fiction of course, so it’s not engaging in these debates from an academic perspective, but I enjoyed the read and this supplements it well!
Elizabeth Bonker is facilitated and Jordyn Zimmerman, who isn’t facilitated, isn’t profoundly autistic and, as she herself says “I can speak. I can even have a conversation with you.”
"Diane and I share your desire for greater examination, as this is precisely what Diane hopes to achieve through her goal of establishing a dedicated center to study these phenomena. She is actively working to secure the necessary funding to conduct the rigorous research that this field demands."
What are the odds this Telepathy Development Center ends up concluding that Telepathic Kids exist?
My son is semi-verbal at 9 (echolalia and wants and needs, with the latter really being three-word sentences. He just started using the "I" pronoun a few months ago.) Really appreciate your reporting here. When autistic kids are being routinely abused by the for-profit autism care complex, (not to mention being incredibly underserved by the fact that special education teacher pay is pitifully low) it's hard to not see podcasts like these as adding to the problem.
Thanks MCC. I didn’t include this in the piece but some parents take their kids around and make money off their so-called telepathy. There are many potential abuses.
That's my experience with my minimally speaking son as well. These days he prefers texting to the AAC, and he texts us about the same stuff he talks about: Football, what he wants to eat, why he's annoyed at his sister. He's never come out with some vast spiritual statement, nor would I expect him to.
Are there really no kids who use FC/RPM/etc and turn out to just be kids? Or is it that we only hear about the exceptional ones?
The answer is yes, there are many people (not just kids), who use these methods that talk about "normal" things. I invite you to visit many blogs from spellers out there. They are funny, relatable, and also give insight to what their life experience is like compared to ours.
My own nonverbal ASD son would be a great example. He's 9, he loves dinosaurs and fart jokes as a typical boy would. He also knows things he shouldn't, and it's unexplainable, and I also never expected it.
I am disappointed that parents are not only not believed, but pointed to as just wanting to seek attention. We don't, frankly we don't have the time or extra energy. You know this more than anyone. All I can say is I would've said it was impossible before we seen it for ourselves. The only harm done here is to parents who have had the courage to speak out being mocked and silenced. We'll never learn and grow as a society if we always reject what we don't understand.
Respectfully, I think it is unfair to equate the work done with this investigative article to the shaming you feel is occurring. As evidenced, Dickenson is using sleight-of-hand to make her case and was not truthful about how Powell lost her medical license.
Does he ever know anything that you didn't know at the time he said it? If not, we should assume this was the Clever Hans effect. That shows your son has a great sensitivity to subliminal cueing, which is a remarkable cognitive skill, but it is not telepathy
I’m a parent of a minimally speaking 5 year old who uses an AAC device. I looked into s2c because he loves letters and I believe he will learn to spell and read. What I saw in the spellers groups was confusing and very different than the AAC groups - missives of activism, spirituality, ramblings, etc. The telepathy tapes have left me uncomfortable. I think they’re dangerous to the nonverbal community. My child is wonderful but he is not telepathic. On his AAC he discusses Mario, candy, cookies, and people at school - typical things for a 5 year old. I have watched videos of spellers and the children and young adults often appear distressed as they are spelling, and, as you mentioned, protest. It’s very confusing to me as the first rule of AAC is to model but not force.
In the pieces I’ve done on this topic I’ve noticed this. Kids using spelling methods are often writing political treatises or having Meta conversations about being nonverbal. Most kids, in my experience, just want to be kids. It strikes me as off what the spelling is producing.
I cannot disagree with anything you have said here Alison. The groups are full of some very odd stuff and whether or not they are true, they do nothing in helping the perception of these as techniques. That being said there is some great info if you can wade through the noise and i certainly believe that these letterboard methods can be excellent for some non speakers in gaining independent communication. Being able to have multiple communication partners is a very key step. While i agree "most kids want to be kids" most kids are not non speaking neurodivergent kids who may learn in different ways. Some i expect do but I have no doubt there are those who have amazing minds due to having to learn in a much more though provoking way. In the same way there will also be non speaking individuals who also have intellectual disabilities.
The average kid asks approx 400 questions a day between 2 and 5 years old. Just imagine how clever you need to be to learn to do tasks without ever being able to ask questions. It is a massive difference in how people learn. I remember having a conversation with a young adult who was independently typing and asking how they learnt at a young age. They said they were forced to be a very good listener and had time to think maybe more deeply than others on how things work.
Early in the first episode, discussing Mia, the Dr says: "I noticed it looks like she's not even looking at the board. Is that true – that she oftentimes is just kind of pointing like this without even looking? I wonder how she does that…" Her sister replies: "In her diary, Mia wrote that when she reads, she sees different colors." The host's voiceover helpfully notes: "scientifically, this is known as synesthesia." (???)
A lot of conscious effort is put in to design (convincingly!) the tests such that it really is only the parent, and not the child, who knows the correct answer before the child is asked to spell it out. No test is done where the parent is blindfolded rather than the child, to first lay the basic foundation that they can spell a single word that the parent is *not* thinking of.
Would anyone interested in the truth structure their investigation like this? This almost seems like an elaborate joke where the host is FC'ing the listeners into thinking "telepathy" is an apt explanation for the behaviors being shown.
I noticed that and it was actually kind of shocking that Ky left it in. Because it was a huge red flag.
I've heard the synesthesia line before and it's kind of odd. Even if you see colors around letters, if you have a letterboard with 26+ letters and numbers, how are you distinguishing where you type even if with your peripheral vision you see colors? Peripheral vision is good enough to tell you there is something in your periphery. It can't really tell you what. That's why we all turn to look.
Im a speaking individual with autism and color-grapheme synesthesia, the type Mia seems to have, and I can vouch there’s something to this.
Everyone’s experience with synesthesia is different (including the colors), but for me, the first few letters of a word turn the word into a particular color- a block of color. And a sentence looks like a series of colorful blocks. I can memorize the series of colors (and even see them in my mind when I close my mind) and so doing, memorize long lines of text by just remembering the color pattern. Sounds crazy, but that skill has made it really easy for me to memorize huge amounts of information (very helpful for me as an academic).
I’m not quite sure what Mia was doing and I wish they expanded on it, but synesthesia could certainly be playing a part in this phenomenon.
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about that. After you’ve not fooled yourself, it’s easy not to fool other scientists. You just have to be honest in a conventional way after that."
https://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.htm
I appreciate your take on this. I enjoyed the podcast series, but after looking into FC and S2C, I really hope Dickens continues the research while taking your criticisms into account.
While I’d love to believe there’s something more profound going on, we need to do the less glamorous work of improving methodology.
I also appreciate that you acknowledged that Dickens has good intentions rather than just calling her a scammer. This is the kind of productive conversation we need around these topics.
As long as she doesn't get any taxpayer funding to fuel this exploitative (intentional or not) waste of money. Otherwise, in 10 years, it'll be a hate crime to say that Telepathic Kids don't exist.
You sure are certain.
I’m certain you know people who have had prophetic dreams or unusual intuitions that proved to be correct. It’s a fairly common experience across cultures.
Can you prove that all of these occurrences are simple coincidences or are explainable through physical materialism? Or do you just hand-wave those people away as idiots?
Dreams are fragmented and confused. Any “plot” a dream has is mostly constructed after the fact. If an event occurs, it’s very easy for someone to “remember” a prophetic dream. But it’s really just a reconstruction. The fact that it’s historically common just shows this is an easy illusion for humans to experience.
That’s a likely conjecture for most cases, but unless you’re a neurological researcher doing this research and reaching definitive conclusions, it’s still only conjecture.
I know adopting an uncritical materialist viewpoint can make the world seem more rational and under control, but it closes some paths that, in my opinion, deserve to be explored.
Definitely wasn’t talking about FC practitioners. I can’t tell if you genuinely didn’t pick up on that or if you’re being intellectually dishonest.
Some people involved with FC definitely did some bad things, and it seems to be an unreliable method at best.
I was talking about dismissing everyone who has had direct paranormal experiences as idiots. There are too many experiences of sane, reasonable people to ignore with an offhand comment.
Just like everything else in this world, while it’s true for some, not all cases of FC are “vicious fraud”. I’m not endorsing it, I’m just being a reasonable person.
That said, Akhil seems to have been using an AAC device unassisted at one point during the podcast. That’s the kind of thing I’d like to see more of, as would Dr. Powell according to her statement in the article.
Hi George! I'd love to represent a person with daily firsthand knowledge on this topic. My son communicates on a letterboard. I think you may be referring to a very old way of thinking about FC. There are always people who take advantage of others, and this is no different. However, you would probably be surprised, just as we were, of the awful conditions and treatment that we have seen in specific "autism" schools (especially ABA). There is a general mindset that nonverbal = low IQ, and we actually left a school because they would use what they called a "seclusion" room. The seclusion room was a small padded closet with a window and a lock. (We did not know they used such a barbaric practice before enrolling). So I guess my point is that we were overwhelmingly surprised how archaic the education system is set up for nonverbal ASD.
The spelling community, on the other hand, has been the most open and compassionate group I've ever experienced.
Spelling for them is very labor intensive, but it is the only way my son can "control" his body to communicate. He doesn't love it sometimes, especially doing homework, just like any other kid. But for those who experience it in the day to day, we have a very different viewpoint than those who regurgitate old thinkings because they have no other experience on this topic. It's time we listen to the people who actually live this than those seeking clicks.
Do you think I refuse to do a study, or that I am in a position to do so? I would love to do a double blind study, then perhaps the actual harm of dismissing this method will finally be removed. I would take a guess though that once that does come out, you still will not be swayed due to cognitive dissonance and hubris. "If it doesn't happen to me, it doesn't exist", right? But hey, that's the typical human reaction to facing a new belief, as history has proved time and time again. Just disappointing that we still repeat the same mistakes we always do, always thinking that THIS generation is at the peak of all knowledge. There's nothing else to learn, right? So why listen to anyone with actual firsthand knowledge? No one will address the thousands of examples of how they could provide information they shouldn't know. I too will not be swayed because I've seen it. I just wish we listened more instead of the knee jerk reaction of dismissal.
Thankfully, I think the letterboard will be a moot point in the next 5 years now that eye gazing technology is on the horizon. Then the nonverbal ASD community won't have to waste any more time proving that they are in fact quite intelligent.
My son has a severe neuro-genetic disorder and like everyone who has it, is entirely non-verbal and intellectually/physically disabled. Another mother in the community wrote an entire book through her kid using hand over hand FC and claims said kid is a spokesperson for all the kids who have it. I don't doubt that my son has a fascinating inner world, but for all the reasons this article brings to light, like going from never receiving a lesson in literacy in her whole life to writing an articulate entire book in less than a year... there's absolutely no way that really happened. I am not however dismissing the possibility that these telepathic abilities exist, I very much believe they could on one level or another... and I hope that as this very intriguing research moves forward they do take more steps to protect its integrity from FC shenanigans. After experiencing FC in my own community I fully believe that caregivers who do it believe with their entire hearts that the communication is authentic and they can say without lying that they are not doing anything to knowingly skew results. If it isn't "real," it is not intentionally so and I hope folks can be kind to them because at the end of the day they are devote caregivers and trying very hard to be good parents to extremely vulnerable people. Demonizing or harassing them into existential crises will not improve the quality of their children's or families' lives, and there are not heroes waiting in the wings to take the kids away to "qualified places." They're stuck with the caregivers they've got 99.9% of the time whether armchair critics like it or not.
I'm the father of an 8yr old non-verbal autistic boy . He wants to communicate so badly but we have yet to hit on the right device, technique, therapy etc etc for him. I have spent a lot of time watching and learning what works for others over the years and one thing has always puzzled me .You touch on it in your article and it's mentioned briefly in the Telepathy Tapes . How is it that some children using letterboards and spelling boards start out barely able to attribute A to Apple or T to Train , let alone arrange them to form certain words , that each mean a different thing .... then , in time still using the same sort of device to communicate with are confidently composing sentences , sharing their personal thoughts in writing , asking and answering questions and joining in conversations ? Learning to construct words and finding out what they mean is fine but what comes next is crazy. Assembling sentences , where and why , right and wrong , grammar and comprehension , tone , intention and somehow working out what 'your voice ' is . I have found it almost impossible to find examples of these type of autistic students working through that part. Remembering how hugely different their path of learning is , I'm fascinated about how that information gets in and gets processed . I found the 'always listening' and 'sharing information telepathically' comments in the podcast very interesting . I'm not sold but not a skeptic and as I said, have wondered about how that learning gets in for years.
I appreciated your article very much but are you suggesting that the parents and the caregivers , siblings and friends of all the subjects have potentially colluded and all gone to extraordinary lengths , all at the same time , from all over the country , to all figure out individual ways to convince us of this particular thing ? Just getting my son to put on pants is a complete circus , I can't see why all these folks would bother making their days anymore challenging by constructing a fraudulent ruse and risk humiliation if it was proved fake.
Thank you for writing in Mike.
I don’t think the parents or facilitators are colluding to present a false story.
As someone who has spent years as a tutor and part time educator I can say that any work you do alongside a child you can easily influence. Everything from verbal affirmation to body language can signal to the child what the correct answer is. And you can do it without even catching yourself doing i.
My discussions with parents for the October piece led me to believe many parents are desperate for a breakthrough so they’re happy to see their children writing complex essays…even if they can only do it with a facilitator. Do they have doubts deep down inside? I can’t say but I understand why they’re motivated to believe.
Hi Mike, same experience over here with us. Our nonverbal ASD 9 yr old son uses a letterboard to communicate. We had to find a method that worked for him, not us. Once he started spelling, (which took almost 2 years of daily practice to finally be able to accomplish pointing at letters with a pencil), he did not go through the typical stages of learning that we expect. He just knew it.
I understand that we dismiss all parents that report this, but I know firsthand that he is authoring what he spells. The simplest way to prove this is that he spells things that we, or his facilitator don't know. Whether that be complex math or personal information, we have to "fact check" what he says, and it's correct. It's unexplainable, but it's happening all over the world. I'm just one of thousands out there.
We also deal with the erratic behaviors... the feces smearing and random nakedness. It's almost as if they represent 2 people, the body they can't control led by impulse and the mind that is totally separated by it. I always think about a post in a blog authored by a speller, and he wrote "I feel like a 6 foot drunken toddler."
Good luck on your communication journey. I know our son does not have the motor function to effectively use current AAC out there, so it took us a long time to find what worked. I would 100% encourage you to look into letter boarding. (I also was very dismissive that anything would work, frankly).
Listen to the people that are actually living it, instead of people that have very strong opinions on things they don't experience firsthand or fully understand. It would've been the mistake of our lives, and more importantly our son's, if we too dismissed spelling as "fraud".
Is it really telepathy , or another part of the brain that is not damaged and paying attention to what is going in the world around them? It is interesting the example you gave from the drunken toddler comment.
From research into cognition and brain function, Neuro scientist can show how our brain compartmentalizes information. Carl Jung a famous psychologist and researcher not only of the workings of our minds/brain, but also an investigator of the Nature of reality, who explored unexplainable phenomena, describes how our subconscious mind is always awake and aware and recording everything... Could the subconscious mind be playing a part in these abilities?
I just listened to the first episode, and I was very intrigued but knew I HAD to find what really smart people had to say about it. So glad I found this piece— so well-written and researched. I learned a lot. I hope the podcast producer continues on to more rigorous research now. it’s something to explore, yes, but not at the cost of vulnerable children.
Glad you pulled this all together. As I listened to the podcast, I also immediately thought of Tell Them You Love Me, and group think/wishful thinking in action.
Like, why are there no autistic adults featured? Why all “spellers?”
Though, I have a teen with the condition formerly known as Asperger’s and long before she had the diagnosis, when she was really young, we always thought she could see ghosts. It often seemed like she was looking at things and reacting to things that weren’t there before she could speak, (she’s 17 now and speaks, though will stop speaking when she gets burned out) to the point that I remember almost verbatim a convo with her grandma about it.
It was strange, but… idk. I’m sure explainable.
However, I’m glad that the podcast is maybe humanizing these kids and parents. Many are so looked down upon by others.
This was fascinating, thanks for diving into it.
Great article, and brings to mind Happiness Falls by Angie Kim which is a novel exploring these ideas—I read it this year and it gets into the pitfalls of spelling. It’s fiction of course, so it’s not engaging in these debates from an academic perspective, but I enjoyed the read and this supplements it well!
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. There is none.
Biklen was/is a fierce FC proponent and his book does not contain controlled studies. See this review:
https://www.facilitatedcommunication.org/blog/taking-shortcuts-a-review-of-contested-words-contested-science
Elizabeth Bonker is facilitated and Jordyn Zimmerman, who isn’t facilitated, isn’t profoundly autistic and, as she herself says “I can speak. I can even have a conversation with you.”
Thank you very much for this.
I think looking into this type of research but with non verbal spinal cord accident patients like Terri Schiavo would be a great follow up article!
There was no evidence of a spine injury with her case. She was brain dead.
At autopsy, Terri Schiavo's brain was half the expected weight for a woman of similar age height, and weight.
"Diane and I share your desire for greater examination, as this is precisely what Diane hopes to achieve through her goal of establishing a dedicated center to study these phenomena. She is actively working to secure the necessary funding to conduct the rigorous research that this field demands."
What are the odds this Telepathy Development Center ends up concluding that Telepathic Kids exist?