FC/RPM/S2C News Roundup: January to July, 2025

It’s been about 6 months since our last news roundup of FC/S2C/RPM, and we just finished our seven-part series on the Lower Merion trial, so we thought it appropriate to roundup and post the FC/S2C/RPM. news items that have come out since the turn of the year.

One striking thing, overall, is how few of these articles are about the Telepathy Tapes, briefly the number 1 podcast on Spotify, and perhaps still the more popular podcast on non-speaking autism. I guess, for all their love of a feel-good story, few journalists want to go quite as far as telepathy—except (as we’ll see) in the context of critical, curious, investigative journalism.

So here, in chronological order, is what’s come out since our last news roundup in the way of feel-good stories about FC/RPM/S2C. I’ll follow these up with a few news items were significantly more critical (yes, there were actually several of these this year!).

January, 2025

A January 10th article in Disability Scoop entitled Communication Method Finally Gives Nonverbal Woman A Voice.

This article presents the usual miracle cure story of someone opened up by S2C. The person it showcases, Talia Zimmerman seems to have like what the DSM-IV called Childhood Disintegrative Disorder, now considered part of the DSM-5’s “autism spectrum disorder.”

The article characterizes S2C as a “relatively new communication method” (Elizabeth Vosseller “invented it” a decade ago) and as “pointing at letters on a panel held up by a trained practitioner” (as if there’s some special training, specifically, in how to hold up a panel).

The article is unusual in acknowledging that S2C is controversial: author Susan Glaser mentions the warnings by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) against its use. But, as is clear from the title onwards, Glaser simply assumes that S2C works for Talia Zimmerman, as well as for the other non-speakers she mentions in passing.

A January 20th article in the Irish Independent entitled Non-verbal boy from Wexford wrote letter to Taoiseach which touched hearts around the world.

As authors Isabel Colleran and Gorey Guardian explain, the boy in question

used the Rapid Prompting Method (RPM) to write a letter to Taoiseach Simon Harris [the Deputy Prime Minister of Ireland] after meeting him during the official launch of Gorey Hill School [a school for students with autism]”

This letter was “shared online worldwide because of its heartfelt message.”

No mention of the complete lack of evidence base for RPM or of any of the many health, education, and advocacy groups that have expressed serious concerns about it.

A January 23rd article in the University of Toronto Magazine entitled When Words Won’t Cooperate.

This article discusses how a neuroscientist in the University of Toronto psychology department, Morgan Barense, “aims to crack the mystery of non-speaking autism.” Author Alison Motluk focuses on an autistic person named Isaiah Grewal, who, at age 2, was not only non-speaking, but also not “responding normally when people spoke to him.” This suggests that his language challenges included not just speech but (as is common in profound autism) comprehension. Nonetheless, once introduced to S2C, Isaiah began typing out the typical messages attributed to autistic individuals who are purportedly “unlocked” through FC/RPM/S2C:  messages about his “freedom from prison” and about wanting people to know “that I’m in here.”

Barense, too, seems to have swallowed the FC talking points about autism: namely “that many autistic people who don’t speak may be hindered not by problems of intellect but motor control”, specifically “apraxia.” She plans to use fMRI scans to “look for complex patterns of brain activity that reflect high-level comprehension but do not require motor output. What she’s after sounds to me like a really low-resolution signal that could easily be generated by noticing changes in vocal prosody and recognizing the sounds of familiar words, as opposed to actual comprehension.

Both Barense and Motluk assume that Isaiah’s S2C-generated messages are his own and treat them as reliable, first-hand testimonials about autism.

I asked what autism felt like to him. Via keyboard, he answered, “Like swimming underwater 24-7 because everything feels hard to control.” I asked what he and his friends talk about when they get together online. “We mostly trash talk,” he responded. Then, later, after I’d stopped laughing, he said, “We just like to hang out in the same space and eat pizza.

No mention of the complete lack of evidence base for S2C or of any of the many health, education, and advocacy groups that have expressed serious concerns about it.

A January 30th article in the Westfair Business Journal entitled Cohen Abilis Advancement Center opening in Stamford.

This center, author Gary Larkin reports, includes “enhanced space for Abilis’ Supported Typing/SteP program (“supported typing” being another term for classic, touch-based FC).

No mention of the complete lack of evidence base for FC or of any of the many health, education, and advocacy groups that have expressed serious concerns about it.

February, 2025

A February 6th article in Yahoo News entitled Spelling to Communicate fundraiser.

This article announces an S2C fundraiser by the nonprofit Angelo's Angels for Communication to support families who patronize the Mind Over Body clinic and to “raise awareness about individuals who use letterboards as an alternative form of communication.” (Both organizations are included in our list of organizations supporting FC/RPM/S2C).

No mention of the complete lack of evidence base for S2C or of any of the many health, education, and advocacy groups that have expressed serious concerns about it.

April, 2025

An April 10th segment on WLWT News 5 Today (out of Cincinnati) entitled Son of Cincinnati radio personality defying the odds during Autism Acceptance Month.

This segment features an interview with the “well-known Cincinnati radio personality,” Q-102 radio's Jenn Jordan, whose autistic son is “using his platform to defy the odds.” Her son is Jakob Jordan, and his platform involves “communicat[ing] through spelling after being diagnosed with autism and apraxia.” While Jakob sits in silence, Jenn, who is still unable to do S2C with her son and didn’t bring along his S2C “communication partner,” does all the talking. She characterizes apraxia, falsely, as causing a “brain-body disconnect” and a reluctance to try new things. She also states that the intellectual disability Jakob was initially diagnosed with was a “mislabeling.”

No mention of the complete lack of evidence base for S2C or of any of the many health, education, and advocacy groups that have expressed serious concerns about it.

May, 2025

A May 2nd piece on Jefferson Public Radio entitled Medford psychiatrist’s research into autism and telepathy sparks debate over communication.

This piece showcases Johns Hopkins-trained psychiatrist Dr. Diane Powell, whose name should be familiar to anyone familiar with the Telepathy Tapes podcast: she’s the podcast’s star scientist. While the piece focuses on Powell and on how she came to believe that non-speakers are telepathic, it’s also, necessarily, an article about RPM/S2C.  That’s because a video-taped RPM/S2C session that Dr. Powell has “watched countless times” is part of what convinced her—or so journalist Justin Higginbottom suggests.

Like the January 10th Disability Scoop piece, this article does acknowledge the controversy surrounding RPM/S2C. Indeed, Higginbottom even speaks, at length, with one of the directors of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA). But then Higginbottom returns to the usual RPM/S2C talking points (non-speaking autism as involving motor skills deficits that are serious enough that they require a communication partner), and also cites Heyworth et al’s highly problematic Presuming Autistic Communication Competence and Reframing Facilitated Communication article in which it is claimed that 100 peer-reviewed studies have validated FC/RPM/S2C (stay tuned for a later post on that claim). Naturally, he also cites Jaswal et al.’s highly problematic eye-tracking study.

A May 12th article on SILive.com entitled Legacy of Staten Island man who died at 25 cemented with street renaming, as ‘The Changer’ honored.

Here, author Faith Archibald describes how

[t]he corner of Annadale Road and Lorraine Avenue in Annadale now bears the name “Nick D’Amora ‘The Changer’ Way,” honoring Nicholas D’Amora, a 25-year-old Staten Islander who paved the way for non-verbal autistic individuals. 

[D’Amora died in May 2023 of a seizure—a common cause of early death in profound autism.]

Archibald explains that:

Nicholas D’Amora was non-verbal, and overcame challenges utilizing the spelling to communicate method, an innovative approach that his mother said enabled him to express himself and communicate with others.

It’s interesting how, 10 years since its “invention” by Elizabeth Vosseller, S2C is still being described as “innovative” (see also the January 10th Disability Scoop article).

The article then mentions Crimson Rise, one of the S2C-promoting organizations on our growing list, which was purportedly co-founded by D’Amora:

CrimsonRise will also soon open the Nicholas D’Amora Center for Spelling and Advocacy.

No mention of the complete lack of evidence base for S2C or of any of the many health, education, and advocacy groups that have expressed serious concerns about it.

June, 2025

A June 5th segment on NPR Weekend Edition entitled Two nonverbal actors star in a new opera — with an assist from AI

This article returns us to Jakob Jordan and discusses a musical in which he’s co-starring. When discussing how Jakob communicates, author Jeff Lunden focuses on the novel elements of the technology, which he characterizes simply as a form of AAC, and on the supposed input regarding the technology by “the non-verbal community.” He leaves out the fact that Jakob and other members of the non-verbal community are being facilitated, and their communications therefore likely authored, by their FC/RPM/S2C communication partners.

No mention of the complete lack of evidence base for S2C or of any of the many health, education, and advocacy groups that have expressed serious concerns about it.

A June 10th article in The Oklahoman entitled G-O-S-P-E-L: Oklahoman's ministry plans include his faith and his letterboard

This article trots out the usual apraxia claims, but mixes into them some Christian spiritualism:

Taylor is a non-speaker due to motor apraxia, he is on the autism spectrum ― and he's also taking seminary classes.

At 26, he is studying so that he may share the message of Christ with others, particularly members of the Speller Bros, his friends who are also non-speakers who communicate via letterboards.

"Jesus rescued me from my sin and gave me purpose in life — he wants to do that for everyone," Taylor said, spelling out his thoughts on his letterboard.

"I want people, really non-speakers, to know how much Jesus loves them."

Author Carla Hinton quotes the pro-S2C International Association for Spelling as Communication as claiming that S2C "empowers non-speakers to overcome communication barriers posed by traditional oral communication."

But even an article as spiritually focused as this one can’t resist the ableist celebration of intact intelligence:

"People can know me and find out my thoughts. Before the letterboard, all people didn't see me. Now they know I am smart. It makes all the difference."

Now leaders of the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina have suggested that Taylor enroll in the seminary's GO Certificate program. Crucially:

The program offers video-based theological education that students may take at their own pace.

Remote learning has been, and continues to be, much more S2C-friendly than in-person learning has been.

The article notes, incidentally, that Taylor attended the Griffin Promise Autism Clinic—one of many S2C-providing clinics on our growing list.

No mention of the complete lack of evidence base for S2C or of any of the many health, education, and advocacy groups that have expressed serious concerns about it.

A June 23rd piece on local CBS News Boston entitled Nonspeaking Brookline teen with autism Viraj Dhanda will attend MIT

The real headline here is that MIT, like Stony Brook (see the January 23rd article), will soon join our growing list of institutions of higher education that have enrolled non-speakers whose communications are likely being hijacked by their facilitators. That list includes Berkeley, Cal Lutheran, Columbia, Harvard, Oberlin, Penn, Rollins, and Tulane, Vanderbilt, and Whittier.

Once again, we have the ableist rejoicing over intact intelligence:

Although Dhanda is unlike any other MIT applicant, his acceptance letter has proved those who doubted him wrong. Dhanda was diagnosed with autism at two years old. After a variety of therapies, adults believed he had low intellectual ability.

And once again we have, in what surely is a new trend, a focus on the technological details of the device rather than the communication-hijacking elephant in the room:

[W]hen he was 10, it was suggested he use an alternative communication device. Now, at 19, he uses a Lenovo tablet with a regular keyboard to communicate. He types using only his right thumb and produces about eight to 10 words per minute.

Who is the elephant in the room? Who really got into MIT? Video obtained by WBZ-TV, “show[ing] the moment Dhanda was notified of his acceptance,” is suggestive:

"You got in!" his father yelled. "Oh my goodness! Give me a (fist) bump. I'm so proud of you. I'm so, so proud of you. I can't even begin to express it."

The article reports that Dhanda's “favorite subject is math,” and that on the math ACT (an alternative to the SAT) he scored a 35 out of a possible 36 on the math section. This raises red flags about whether the ACT’s accommodations expressly allow letterboards. I haven’t been able to find any mention of letters, boards, typing, or spelling on the ACT website or in its accommodations document), but in a blog post on the pro-S2C I-ASC website, Jennifer Binder-Le Pape lists the ACT as one of three examples of testing companies that allow “laminated letter boards” and “CRPs” (the S2C acronym for “communication partner”). (The other two tests listed here are Pennsylvania’s upper school achievement tests and New York’s high school equivalency exam). Perhaps Binder-Le Pape has heard about these accommodations through word of mouth from the broader S2C community; and perhaps the testing companies themselves prefer to keep mum about this.

Tellingly:

Dhanda plans to take a gap year before he begins taking classes at MIT in the fall of 2026. He and his father will move to Cambridge together.

If Dhanda is using his device independently, why does his father need to move to MIT also? To modify, slightly, what my son said when I told him that his alma mater had admitted an autistic non-speaker who is facilitated by his mother into its graduate program in neuroscience, “Someone’s going to be getting a degree in math from MIT.”

A June 26th article on the University of Minnesota Center for Genomics Engineering website entitled Celebrating Emelia: Science for All

Emelia, 11 years old, is described as “bright, bold, and brilliant,” and as having “a rare genetic mutation known as DDX3X.” She is also subjected to S2C. Steph Kennelly, the author of this article and also the program manager for the Center for Genome Engineering, dismisses the (extremely high) association between DDX3C and intellectual disability, and claims, falsely, that the autism associated with DDX3C causes—you guessed it!—a brain-body disconnect.

Steph Kennelly characterizes Emelia’s S2C-generated output as—you guessed it!—extraordinarily insightful, in particular in her insights about the genetics research happening at the Minnesota Center for Genomics Engineering. And, despite the fact that Emelia’s S2C communication partner comes up repeatedly in another report about Emelia, namely, Episode 7 of the Telepathy Tapes, Kennelly systematically omits any mention of a communication partner in this article—even as she acknowledges Emelia’s participation in the Telepathy Tapes.

No mention, as well, of the complete lack of evidence base for S2C or of any of the many health, education, and advocacy groups that have expressed serious concerns about it.

July, 2025

A July 3rd piece on Local 12 News (Cincinnati) entitled My world has opened up': Son of local radio host changes life through tech, therapy

This takes us back once again to Jakob Jordan, his S2C-generated output, and his brain-body disconnect.

No mention of the complete lack of evidence base for S2C or of any of the many health, education, and advocacy groups that have expressed serious concerns about it.

A July 13th episode of Vermont Public Radio’s Rumble Strip show entitled Mark Utter's beautiful mind

This episode is a tribute to a facilitated man who died this past October. Here, once again, autism is characterized not as a cognitive disorder, but as a disorder that locks people in:

Mark Utter was born with a form of autism that made it impossible for him to say what he was thinking for the first 30 years of his life.

Purportedly, Mark was able to learn language just by listening to words, but was only able to express himself through old-school touch-based facilitated communication. People, purportedly, didn’t realize that he was taking in everything all the time.

Host Erica Hellman acknowledges that some agencies recommend against FC, but instead of saying why, tells us that “This is not a story about the controversy; it’s a story about Mark.” She goes on to assure us that Mark had a number of communication partners, that they only lightly touched his elbow, and that they had no control over which letters Mark touched. And she quotes Mark as saying, through FC, that “this light helped to focus him both physically and mentally.”

In other words, like most people, Hellman doesn’t know what she doesn’t know. But as a journalist, she might (like all the other journalists mentioned above) have better informed herself about the power of subtle cues, the fact that having multiple communication partners doesn’t validate FC, and the circular reasoning involved in using FCed messages as evidence that FCed messages are valid.

Instead, she informs us that Mark had paranormal abilities: he could apparently move backwards in time, and can also “condense” time. Through his facilitator, he apparently typed “I can move back in time because of the way my mind holds information.” Earlier I wrote about a synesthesia meme that seems to have penetrated the world of FC/RPM/S2C; I’m now wondering whether another meme is afoot: one about being unstuck in time, like Billy Pilgrim in Slaughterhouse Five. Here are two quotes from the FC-generated memoir attributed to Naoki Higashida (which I originally blogged about here):

For us, one second is infinitely long—yet twenty-four hours can hurtle by in a flash. (Higashida , p. 63)

We who have autism, who are semi-detached from the flow of time…” (Higashida , p. 67)

No mention of the complete lack of evidence base for FC or of any of the many health, education, and advocacy groups that have expressed serious concerns about it.

A July 16th piece on Good Things Guy (A South African news website) entitled How an ID Application Became a Beacon of Belonging for a Non-Speaking Autistic Son

This article, the first pro-FC/RPM/S2C news story I’ve seen from this part of the world, describes how an autistic non-speaker applied for a South African ID Card using S2C—and how this application was “met with nothing short of heartwarming kindness, patience and inclusiveness.”

No mention of the complete lack of evidence base for S2C or of any of the many health, education, and advocacy groups that have expressed serious concerns about it.

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In subsequent posts, I will elaborate on several of these articles: the ones on neuroscientist Morgan Barense, psychiatrist Diane Powell, musical star Jakob Jordan, and Telepathy Tapes star Emelia.

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As I mentioned, this year was also distinguished by a few articles critical of RPM/S2C, which warrant a short roundup of their own.

April, 2025

An April 23 article in The Cut entitled “I can hear thoughts.”

Here, journalist Elizabeth Weil meets some of the families involved with the Telepathy Tapes and describes what she witnessed first-hand, including purported instances of telepathy that are highly unconvincing. Weil also consults with a mentalist who points out instances of subtle cueing in the S2C-generated communications in the Telepathy Tapes videos.

June 11, 2025

A piece in the i Paper (A UK paper) entitled Our autistic son was manipulated by speech therapists who put words in his mouth

This piece reports on how the parents of a non-speaker were told by staff at his son’s residential school that their 24-year-old son could communicate via a letterboard via a hand-over-hand method that looks just like FC, but which they claimed was different. They called the method “co-construction support” and stated that, unlike FC, it was “initiated by the student taking the support worker’s hand.” This sort of initiation, even if it truly happens, doesn’t rule out facilitator control over letter selection.

Apparently impervious to this possibility, the school told the parents that their son had communicated that he didn’t want to come home for the school vacation. The school also attempted to revoke the parents’ guardianship, claiming that “your son has the capacity to make decisions about consenting to his own care,” and that he “had expressed a wish to live in a different town after college.” To contest this, the parents “paid £23,000 to have Alex independently re-assessed,” confirming his severe intellectual disability and highly limited language skills and emotional development age.

The parents had been skeptical of FC all along. They found the literacy, sentence structures, and vocabulary allegedly coming from Alex, which included such terms as “mental health,” “reassurance,” and “multidisciplinary,” to be “highly improbable,” and suspected facilitator control.  Especially because they were unable to replicate the hand-over-hand FC with Alex when they tried it themselves.

July 16, 2025

A piece on Richmond 6 News entitled Dad jailed after being accused through controversial autism communication method.

This piece recounts yet another instance of false abuse allegations generated through FC (see our FC and the legal system page). Many of them, including this one, involve estranged spouses, one of whom acts as the child’s FC facilitator, and the other of whom, in this case, the father, is skeptical about FC.

The article recounts how the father, Kevin Plantan, was arrested out of the blue “for alleged sex crimes against his own daughter.” Journalist Tyler Layne reports how Plantan’s daughter was introduced to FC in 2020 and later, at the age of 14, produced a typed letter through FC that “accused him of sexual abuse dating back several years.” As Layne quotes Plantan:

"[T]hat was enough for them to arrest me and charge me with four mandatory life sentences of rape and sodomy of a child 13 or under.”

Plantan was promptly jailed for 10 months. But, as Layne reports, when the judge ordered a message-passing test, and the prosecutor learned that the test had a 100% fail rate, she became skeptical, and the mother “felt the risk would be too great” and decided to drop the charges.

This seems to be the typical outcome in such cases: whenever message-passing tests are allowed at trial, charges are dropped, and/or previously unaccepted settlement offers are accepted. In fact, I’m aware of no instances since the early 1990s of message-passing tests actually making it to trial.

Interesting, the article reports that the teachers at Plantan’s daughter’s school had warned against FC as non-evidence based, and that

the school's speech-language pathologist tried supported typing with the child "on multiple occasions" over two years but the attempts were "unsuccessful" and the student could only type "strings of letters."

This makes me wonder how often, when the person doing the facilitation isn’t either a highly suggestible individual, a true FC/RPM/S2C believer, or a parent who, like Jakob Jordan’s mother, still isn’t able to do S2C with her son, the resulting messages are gibberish.

Readers can read more Plantan’s story in  Stuart Vyse’s recent piece in Skeptical Inquirer.

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REFERENCES

Higashida, N. & Mitchell, D. (2013). The Reason I Jump. Random House.

 

Spelling to Communicate Goes on Trial: Part VII, The Conclusion

 This is the seventh and final installment in a series on a Spelling to Communicate (S2C) lawsuit against a school district. You can read more about the background in my first post, but, in brief, the lawsuit arose because the school district, the Lower Merion School District of Lower Merion PA, refused to hire an S2C “communication partner” for the parents’ non-speaking autistic son (A.L.).

This series focused primarily on a hearing that occurred on December 2nd of last year. The hearing was a Daubert hearing, aka a “voir dire” (an oral questioning/examination) of several of the plaintiff’s expert witnesses whom the School District sought to disqualify.

In my previous six posts (starting here), I described and excerpted the examinations and cross-examinations of the five people in the voir dire hearing:

• Dr. Anne Robbins, the neuropsychologist whom A.L.’s parents hired to do an independent, neurocognitive assessment of A.L.: an assessment that was based, in part, on output that A.L. generated via S2C
• Dr. Wendy Ross, a highly celebrated figure in the Philadelphia autism and neurodiversity scene and A.L.’s former developmental pediatrician, who testified under oath that she believes that S2C works for A.L.
• Tom Foti, the founder of the local S2C clinic and the designated communication partner for A.L. for A.L.’s testimony at the upcoming trial that was scheduled for January 7th.
• The Foti-A.L. facilitator dyad, in which Foti held up the letterboard and prompted A.L., and A.L. poked at letters.
• The Binder Le-Pape-A.L. facilitator dyad, in which A.L.’s mother, Jennifer Binder-Le Pape, held up the letterboard and A.L. poked at letters.

Takeaways from the previous posts include, from Dr. Robbins (posts I and VI):

• That A.L. has average or above listening comprehension capabilities but (on certain nonverbal subtests) didn’t understand what she was asking him to do.
• That A.L. couldn’t point to a numbered choice on a stationary surface but could point to a number on a held-up letterboard.
• That A.L.’s scores, based on S2C-generated output, were much higher on verbal subtests than on nonverbal visual pattern subtests: a striking reversal of what’s generally found in autism.
• That A.L. is the only person Dr. Robbins has ever evaluated using S2C, but that she nonetheless judged S2C effective based, in part, on her of clinical experience with a “very, very diverse and complicated population of students.”
• That this clinical experience, combined with:
• her observations of A.L (see the “naïve realism” fallacy)
• her notion “there was no other way to test him” (untrue)
• “the consistency and reliability with which he performed across multiple sessions, across multiple tasks” (circular reasoning), and
• “I did what I was asked to do” (rings like a creepy evasion of responsibility)

provided sufficient justification for assessing A.L. through this method that she knew had been warned against by the American Speech-Language Hearing Association.

• That A.L.’s description of a picture of a tornado approaching a house as “Sweets with kids” indicated not necessarily that he couldn’t do what was asked, but rather that he wouldn’t do it.

From Dr. Ross (posts II and III):

• That apraxia is something that affects “any body part that moves” (not really), and that bodily apraxia is associated with autism (not really).
• That she’s witnessed evidence of facilitator control over messages in some of her patients: the first public admission of facilitator control that I’m aware of by someone who believes that S2C is valid.
• That clinical observation trumps formal testing and that holistic assessments trump scientific measurements, and that observations that “the board is not being moved and no one is touching him” establish that A.L.’s S2C-generated output must represent messages coming from A.L. rather than from his communication partner.
• That there’s more cause for concern about falsely accusing someone of not communicating than about the possibility that this person’s communication is being hijacked, and his personhood suppressed, however unwittingly, by someone else.

From Mr. Foti (post IV):

• The usual misrepresentations of the usual studies: “Penn State,” “Cambridge,” and “Virginia,” consistently (and inaccurately) cited as showing evidence either of the need for S2C, or of the validity of S2C.
• That placing the letterboard on a stationary surface is something that “has never been tried” in S2C. Instead, the steps towards what’s (inaccurately) called “independent typing” are a held-up letterboard followed by a held-up keyboard: a sequence that favors facilitator cueing over accommodations for alleged fine-motor challenges.
• That those subjected to S2C depend on their facilitators not just for linguistic expression, but also for comprehension, struggling to understand stuff that’s read out loud to them by someone other than their communication partners.
• That a written code of ethics prohibits S2C “practitioners” from participating in message-passing tests but does not rule out a non-practitioner “communication and regulation partners” participating in such tests.

From the Foti-A.L. facilitator dyad (post V)

• The sorts of messages you see only in FC—i.e., more reflective how facilitators may imagine autistic non-speakers than of how young men typically talk. For example: “Music is my haven to more calmness.”
• Several violations by Foti of the rules he says he’s trained to follow: not moving the letterboard while A.L. points; only resetting if A.L. types three letters in a row that don’t “make sense.”
• Foti’s frequent backtracking and retroactively altering his report of what letters were typed out in the course of the S2C message generation (such that, for example, “helped me to allow” becomes “has allowed me.”)

From the Binder Le-Pape-A.L. facilitator dyad (post V)

• A message that objects to a message-passing test as an insulting attempt to prevent A.L. from testifying a trial.
• A subsequent message that agrees to such a test after the judge made it clear she expected A.L. to cooperate if he, in fact, did want a trial.
• A second public message-passing failure (the first one was recounted in the court document I cited in my first post)
• A picture of a tornado approaching a house was described as “Sweets with kids.”
• After Binder Le-Pape was shown the picture, the Binder Le-Pape-A.L. facilitator dyad added that “That is before they arrive in Oz.”

The hearing having concluded, five weeks remained before the trial—five weeks and a flurry of proceedings.

Some of them had to do with the judge’s decisions following the Daubert hearing. Which, if any, of the plaintiff’s expert witnesses would she fully or partially exclude from testifying? This question was settled in a memorandum published on December 26^th (full text here).

Interestingly, there’s one expert whose name does not appear anywhere in this memorandum even though he was examined during the Daubert hearing: S2C practitioner Tom Foti. Foti had been designated as A.L.’s communication partner at trial, but had said during the voir dire hearing that his professional ethics code prevented him from participating in message-passing tests. Was he still going to facilitate A.L. when A.L. took the stand? That remained unclear.

On the other hand, several mostly non-local experts who weren’t present at the Daubert hearing, and whose credentials the Lower Merion lawyers had contested elsewhere, do appear. The first of these, also the first one the judge discusses, is a familiar name in the S2C world.

Dr. Barry Prizant

The plaintiff’s most famous, high-status witness, Barry Prizant, is known for his early work on echolalia, his neurodiversity-embracing book and podcast (both called “Uniquely Human”) and, most recently, his enthusiasm for S2C. Prizant has also posted critical comments on my blog posts (here and here). As an expert witness in this case, Prizant’s claims to expertise were:

·       viewing “approximately 185 minutes” of videos of A.L. using S2C;

·       interviewing A.L. on Zoom;

·       reviewing the “documented observations” of A.L. by Dr. Ross, Dr. Robbins, and others;

·       “years of experience at a clinical and research level in analyzing communication in non-disabled and disabled populations.”

In its discussion of Prizant, the judge’s memorandum acknowledges the lack of peer-reviewed, empirical research on S2C. But it also takes the contents of the report that Prizant wrote for this case, as compared with the report that Howard Shane wrote for this case, as evidence of a dispute “within the broader scientific community... as to the efficacy of empirical tests as a means of evaluating such techniques.” This makes me wonder whether Prizant, in questioning the efficacy of empirical tests, cited anyone other than himself—i.e., anyone who’s actually a member of the scientific community. In particular, the judge notes Prizant’s suggestion that the “significant social anxiety and social-communicative challenges definitive of autism” make such testing not as valid as observations of S2C purportedly are. Apparently autism-related challenges with social communication and anxiety, per Prizant, would explain why A.L. spelled “sweets with kids” when asked to describe a picture of a tornado approaching a house.

Re the lack of peer-reviewed, empirical research on S2C, the judge acknowledges one key exception:

Dr. Prizant does briefly reference one peer-reviewed study from 2020, entitled “Eyetracking reveals agency in assisted autistic communication,” which Dr. Prizant describes as “demonstrat[ing] efficacy and authenticity for individuals using a letterboard and CRP.”... [She’s referencing Vikram Jaswal’s highly problematic eye-tracking study.]

And this appears to be sufficient grounds for validating Prizant as an expert witness. Right after the above remarks, the judge writes:

The Court thus finds that Dr. Prizant's lack of empirical testing as a basis for his opinions does not warrant preclusion of Dr. Prizant's report and testimony. 

Noting that Prizant's methodology need not have “the best foundation or be correct,” but, rather, “only [be] reliable enough to warrant the admissibility of Dr. Prizant's opinions,” the judge allows Prizant to testify on the efficacy of S2C for A.L.

Earlier I remarked on how the Lower Merion case has shown us yet again just how powerful the pro-S2C influence of high-status, self-styled autism experts like Prizant has been. In the judge’s assessment of Prizant, we also see yet again just how powerful the pro-S2C influence of one other factor has been: namely, Jaswal’s oft-critiqued, methodologically-challenged eye-tracking study.

Dr. Wendy Ross

The memorandum then turns to Dr. Ross, A.L.’s former developmental pediatrician and the director of the Jefferson Center for Autism and Neurodiversity. Citing her lack of credentials as a speech-language pathologist and her merely incidental exposure to S2C, the judge finds that

Plaintiffs have not proven by a preponderance of the evidence that Dr. Ross is qualified to opine on the efficacy of S2C as a means of communication for Alex.

On the other hand, she finds Dr. Ross qualified

to opine on the psychological and neurological impacts that being prohibited from using a letter board and communication partner at school had on Alex during the course of her treatment of Alex.

The judge reaches this conclusion despite the Lower Merion lawyers’ objection that some of Dr. Ross’s information was generated via S2C. The judge notes that Dr. Ross formed her opinion

based on her observations of Alex and information provided by Alex's parents and other members of Alex's care team as part of her treatment of Alex as his developmental pediatrician, all of which is standard information that developmental pediatricians use to make clinical decisions.

Dr. Manely Ghaffari

Next up is Dr. Manely Ghaffari, a child and adolescent psychiatrist who “focuses on neurodiverse patients” and has been A.L.’s psychiatrist since September, 2017. Dr. Ghaffari testified in an earlier hearing that the letter board was “extremely effective in allowing [A.L.] to express his thoughts and feelings.”

Dr. Ghaffari was not at the Daubert hearing, but Lower Merion had made arguments against her qualifications that were similar to those they’d made against those of Dr. Ross. Accordingly, the judge finds Ghaffari not qualified to opine on the efficacy of S2C as a means of communication for A.L., but qualified to opine about “the cause of Alex's declining mental and physical health during the course of her treatment of Alex”—which happened to coincide with the aftermath of the refusal by A.L.’s school to hire an S2C communication partner for him.

Dr. Anne Robbins

For reasons similar to those she gave with respect to Drs. Ross and Ghaffari, the judge finds Dr. Robbins unqualified to testify that S2C is effective for A.L. She also finds her unqualified to testify about

the information that she gained through use of this methodology, i.e., the results of her neuropsychological evaluations of Alex and any conclusions she drew from those results.

Moreover:

because Dr. Robbins' other opinions regarding Alex's ability to equally access the District's programs, activities, and services and Alex's loss of educational benefit are premised on her preliminary opinion on the efficacy of Alex's use of S2C, Dr. Robbins is precluded from offering those opinions as well.

And since these were the only opinions she was asked to offer, Dr. Robbins is entirely precluded from testifying at trial.

Interestingly, the judge does not dispute that Dr. Robbins was qualified to conduct her neuropsychological exams of A.L., even though she did these via S2C:

The Court does not dispute that Dr. Robbins is qualified to conduct the two neuropsychological evaluations of Alex that she conducted in 2018 and 2021.

True, Robbins is a licensed psychologist and certified school psychologist and, so far as I know, there are no explicit professional guidelines against permitting S2Ced output during neuropsychological exams. I imagine that telepathy isn’t explicitly ruled out either. But this does make me wonder just how much latitude someone with a professional license has to deviate from professional norms, even if those norms aren’t explicitly spelled out, and still be considered a reputable professional and a potential expert witness.

As far as Robbins serving as an expert witness in this case, the problem, in the judge’s mind, is that:

Dr. Robbins does not offer any independent opinion on those neuropsychological evaluations. Rather, these evaluations-though seemingly conducted for the purpose of assessing Alex's “cognitive capabilities” ...-are solely tied to Dr. Robbins' opinions on the efficacy of Alex's use of a letterboard and communication partner to communicate as partial bases for those opinions.

So apparently an “independent opinion” on her “neuropsychological evaluations” of A.L. would not have been precluded. (I’m not clear on how this differs from the testifying about results of these evaluations, which the judge has precluded). But whatever is meant by an “independent opinion” on her “neuropsychological evaluations” of A.L., it was apparently not included in what Dr. Robbins was asked to testify about—for better or for worse.

Dr. Amy Laurent

Dr. Laurent is a co-author with Barry Prizant of a book about a model for educating individuals with autism (the SCERTS model, a methodology found to be possibly effective for improving social communication skills in autism). Laurent is also a developmental psychologist and registered occupational therapist whom court documents describe as focusing on “autism and neurodiversity and the creation of educational programs and environments that facilitate active engagement and learning.” This makes her, along with Prizant, Ross, and Ghaffari, one of four pro-S2C expert witnesses in this case to tout neurodiversity credentials. And this, in turn, is a reminder of the unfortunate overlap in the belief systems, advocacy agendas, and professional associations of the pro-neurodiversity and pro-FC worlds.

As the judge points out, however, the plaintiffs have called on Dr. Laurent to testify not about the validity of S2C, but only about “the significance of trusted communication partners to support autistic individuals in developing social communication and emotional regulation abilities.” For this, the judge deems her qualified.

Implications for testimony about the efficacy of S2C for A.L. and jury instructions

In short, the only one of the plaintiff’s witnesses allowed to testify about the efficacy of S2C for A.L. is Barry Prizant—and this, possibly, was only because of Prizant’s brief reference to that highly problematic eye-tracking study.

This allowance of pro-S2C testimony, limited though it was to one expert, meant that there was now one more thing for the judge to address in the memorandum: namely, Lower Merion’s request for an “evidentiary hearing”

to decide the preliminary question concerning whether S2C is sufficiently reliable to permit expert opinion concerning its use and allow testimony and evidence purportedly elicited through use of S2C.

The judge turns down this request. She does so based on the Third Circuit court decision that had sent the case back to the federal court for a jury trial in the first place. As part of that decision, she reminds her readers, the Third Circuit had held “the efficacy of the letter board compared to other forms of communication” as a “disputed issue of material fact for the jury to decide,” and, indeed, “the most material fact at issue.”

In other words, it was up to the jury to decide whether S2C, compared to other forms of communication, was effective communication for A.L.

And this, in turn, made the precise instructions that the judge would be giving the jury another key question for all parties. As the memorandum states:

[T]he Court intends to provide a limiting instruction to the jury regarding expert opinions that rely on Alex's communications through S2C, which will remind the jury that, to the extent any evidence is derived from communications with Alex through S2C, the jury ultimately must determine whether S2C is an effective means of communication for Alex and represents Alex's authentic voice.

It’s worth noting that explicitly telling the jury that they must determine whether S2C represents Alex’s authentic voice would naturally raise jurors’ awareness of an issue that might otherwise completely elude them as naïve observers of S2C and as non-experts in autism. For most observers, that is, the natural assumption (one we’ve seen repeatedly) appears to be that of course the S2Ced individual is controlling their letter selections and intentionally composing the messages: after all, why wouldn’t they be? But once told to consider whether the messages that A.L. appears to be typing are genuinely his, most jurors, selected as they surely would be for a lack of vested interest in S2C, would surely start scrutinizing A.L.’s letter selections more closely.

Even with this caveat, however, the Lower Merion team was justifiably concerned about what members of a jury would make of A.L.’s letter pointing and of how his school had allegedly treated someone they would likely see as both sympathetic and vulnerable. Indeed, this was precisely why Lower Merion had tried so hard to avoid a jury trial. It was also why they’d made various settlement offers to the parents—all of which the parents had rejected.

Would a message-passing test be allowed at trial?

But what if Lower Merion could do a message-passing test at trial, as they had during the voir dire hearing? What if they could spend their entire cross-examination time with A.L. asking A.L. as many questions as possible about pictures that his communication partner couldn’t see? Imagine the likes of “Sweets with kids” over and over again. This could be a game changer.

So it was hardly surprising that the plaintiffs would seek to exclude message-passing tests at trial. On January 3^rd, in response to what I believe to have been an oral objection to message-passing tests made by the plaintiffs during a phone meeting involving lawyers from both sides, Mike Kristofco, the lead lawyer on the Lower Merion side, filed a memorandum that included the following:

Plaintiff has objected, without citing any authority, to the District’s use of a message passing test at trial. The failure to cite any authority should be a sufficient basis in itself to deny the objection.

Additionally, the irony of the Plaintiff’s Objection is palpable. Prior to Alex LePape being permitted to testify using Spelling to Communicate (S2C) in front of the jury, the District asked for a hearing to “determine the preliminary question of whether the use of S2C is sufficiently reliable that by using it the Court is assured that Alex’s own thoughts are being communicated to the jury.” The District’s request was backed up by a peer reviewed statement issued by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) that warned that information obtained through S2C “should not be assumed to be the communication of the person with a disability.”...

Plaintiff opposed this request, arguing that the efficacy of S2C was “the most material fact at issue” and that it should be decided by the jury. [And, as we see above, the judge agreed with the plaintiffs on this, citing the Third District decision.] Now, Plaintiff has asked the Court to preclude the District from cross examining Alex in the manner of its choice, which would show the jury that S2C does not represent Alex’s own voice...

In other words, the plaintiff wants the question of whether A.L. is communicating authentically by S2C to be decided by the jury... at the same time that it wants to prevent the opposing side from cross-examining A.L. in a manner that would present evidence to that jury that A.L. isn’t communicating authentically through S2C.

Kristofco adds that it was long known to the plaintiffs that the Lower Merion side wanted to do a message-passing test, as Howard Shane had proposed in his expert report, and that they had only objected to it after the “sweets with kids” episode.

The fact that Alex completely failed the test on December 2 is no doubt what is motivating the current objection. However, the fact that cross-examination will be very effective is not a proper basis to preclude it.

Of all of Kristofco’s lines, this is one of my favorites.

The night before the trial, all of us—the Lower Merion lawyers, Howard Shane, and myself—met one last time. The plaintiffs were hoping for jury selection to conclude in time for their first expert witness... who was none other than Barry Prizant. Perhaps, since Prizant was the only one allowed to testify that A.L.’s S2C-generated communications were authentic, the plaintiffs had decided it was a good idea to get that notion planted in the jurors’ heads at the very beginning of the trial, before A.L. took the stand and started pointing to letters. Kristofco’s cross-examination of Prizant was therefore crucial, and he had requested our feedback on a list of questions to include in that cross-examination. I was asked to arrive in court in time to observe both the examination and cross-examination of this longtime S2C supporter and promoter, something I was very much looking forward to. Amy Brooks, one of the other Lower Merion lawyers, would call me the next morning to confirm where and when to show up.

So, the night before the trial, here’s how things stood:

• A case that had been in the works for going on seven years was about to get the jury trial the parents had long been seeking. 
• The parents, apparently eager to set a precedent for the large number of S2C families waiting in the wings for a favorable decision, had turned down settlement offer(s) from the Lower Merion school district at point(s) in time after the case was scheduled to go to trial. 
• Jurors would be told that part of what they were deciding was whether S2C represented A.L.’s authentic voice. 
• A.L.’s facilitator would be required to read every letter out loud and a video camera would be set up to record the process (see my last post), which would perhaps make apparent to the jurors what was apparent to me during the hearing: not just the facilitator’s letterboard movements, but also the facilitator’s retroactive revisions, when calling out the letters, of which letters were purportedly selected. 
• Of all the plaintiff’s expert witnesses, only one would be allowed to testify that S2C was effective for A.L. 
• That one witness would then have to undergo one of those cross-examinations by Mike Kristofco. 
• Later on, Kristofco would be asking A.L. to describe pictures that his communication partner couldn’t see. The last time this happened, a picture of a tornado approaching a house was described as “Sweets with kids.”

If you were A.L.’s parents, what would you do at this point?

But I wasn’t thinking along those lines that night. I was instead thinking that, for all the people who’ve fallen for S2C over the years after watching carefully edited, carefully curated videos that disproportionately showcase the most convincing moments of the most convincing S2C sessions from the most convincing camera angles, and for all the people who’ve been so easily convinced, from mere words spoken on an audio-only podcast, that non-speaking autistic individuals are also telepathic, we were finally about to have the first-ever fair trial of S2C: with the clear-cut empirical testing that proponents have so successfully avoided everywhere else, and with a jury that would be able to see S2C for what it really is. All of which would make this nearly seven-year-long case a huge precedent-setter for every next S2C case going forward.

I still remember where I was when I got the call the next morning from Amy Brooks, which I should have realized was a bit earlier in the morning than she’d said she’d call. I assumed, nonetheless, that I was about to hear details about when and where I should show up for Barry Prizant’s examination. It took me a moment to process what I heard her say instead. And to realize that the actual game changer in this case was not the one I’d been expecting.

“They just settled.”

Standing outside in the snow in the middle of the neighborhood cemetery, I asked myself the same question I’d asked myself in Courtroom 15B on December 2^nd after A.L. typed out his first response to Mike Kristofco’s question about was happening in a picture (“What is happening is you don't want me to testify”). Why didn’t I see this coming?

The settlement, of course, was confidential. Which side conceded is something we can only guess.

And as for what precedent had just been set for future S2C cases—only time will tell.