Disability Scoop on “Communication Method Finally Gives Nonverbal Woman A Voice”

In the next few posts, I’ll be looking at some of the news items from our recent news roundup in greater depth. Proceeding in chronological order, I’ll begin with the January 10th article in Disability Scoop (Communication Method Finally Gives Nonverbal Woman A Voice.)

This article presents the usual miracle cure story of someone opened up by S2C. Less usual is the person it showcases, Talia Zimmerman. Many S2Ced individuals are characterized as having gone through some sort of regression. Usually this happens around the age of 1 ½ or 2, right around the time that children typically receive their first MMR vaccine (which is why, confusing timing with causality, so many people have claimed that the MMR vaccine causes autism). But Talia regressed at a later age (age 3) after having developed more language than is typical in regressive autism: she regressed after being able to form simple sentences. This sounds like what the DSM-IV called Childhood Disintegrative Disorder—a condition that generally has a much worse cognitive and social prognosis than other forms of autism. (Childhood Disintegrative Disorder is now subsumed, for better or for worse, under the DSM-5’s Autism Spectrum Disorder).

Post regression, Talia Zimmerman was still able to communicate, though almost exclusively “in single words, usually to describe basic needs —‘water,’ for example, and ‘ice cream.’” And so things continued for the next twenty years, until her parents stumbled into S2C.

Sara Glaser, the article’s author, 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).

Citing proponents’ claims, Glaser covers the usual talking points:

• The alleged mind-body disconnect in non-speaking autism. “[M]ost nonspeakers have the cognitive ability to communicate. But their bodies don’t let them.”

The best that S2C proponents have been able to come up with as evidence for a mind-body disconnect are articles showing that some fine and gross motor difficulties occur at higher rates in autism (see our critique of such articles here). As for why so many of these individuals are able to speak words to express basic needs, but not to communicate more complex sentences: that’s something that no S2C proponent has ever been able to explain, try as they might.

• Pointing to letters as involving “gross motor skills, powered by large muscles, and not fine motor skills, which are typically significantly impaired by autism.”

Pointing to letters is actually a fine motor skill; only the more complex fine motor skills, like manipulating objects or writing by hand, are (sometimes) significantly impaired in autism. Indeed, there’s no evidence that pointing per se, as a motor skill, is impaired in autism. Rather, consistent with the eight-decades-long clinically-based criteria for autism as a social communication disorder, only pointing as a communicative act is impaired in autism. Individuals with profound autism are able to stick their index fingers out and point them towards things; what trips them up, rather, is understanding that pointing is a useful communicative act that can be used to call other people’s attention to things.

• The alleged virtues of “presumed competence,” specifically in the non-speaking individual’s ability to communicate.

Whether it’s communication skills, literacy skills, or math skills, and whether the person you’re trying to help does or doesn’t have a disability, assuming that they already have an ability is a poor starting point for actual success. Would you want your Spanish teacher to skip over the basics and start speaking to you in fluent Spanish? Or your flight instructor, also presuming competence, to throw you into the pilot’s seat on day one?

• How “presume competence” is assumed from the very first S2C “lesson,” which often seems to focus on astronomy or earth science: in this case, the facilitator “reading a passage about the International Space Station.” (See also here.)

I’m guessing that part of what’s going on here is customer development. Surely that first lesson, though purportedly aimed only at the student, is largely for the parents as well. One of the key objectives is to get parents coming back for more, and one of the best ways to do that is to dazzle them by “unlocking” sophisticated knowledge or ideas that they had no idea their children’s brains contained: from sophisticated vocabulary like “amber” and “fossilization” to songs they’ve composed in their heads. Or by eliciting heartwarming messages and reassurances like “I love you mum” and “Great life is ahead.” What we don’t seem to get at these first sessions are more mundane messages like “I’d prefer it if you didn’t keep whisking the board away,” and “Why are you blocking me off in the corner of the room?”

• The notion that the practitioners are “absolutely not prompting their clients.”

This is a common fallacy, not just among the people observing facilitators (see, e.g., here), but among the facilitators themselves: many facilitator prompts, cues, and board movements are subconscious yet powerful enough to completely control messages.

• The notion that the “biggest proof” of this is “when [their clients] tell us something we don’t know.”

Since they resist formal message passing tests, “something we don’t know” might not be an objective fact like what’s in a picture that the facilitator didn’t see, but rather something sort of unverifiable thought, memory, feeling  that the facilitator unwittingly attributes to the person they’re facilitating, like “I prefer classical music to gospel,” “I remember Big Ben and the soldiers with enormous hats,” or “We who have autism are semi-detached from the flow of time.”

• The notion that the worst thing a parent can hear about their child is that they have an intellectual disability: “Every assessment, they would use the phrase, ‘severe intellectual disability.’ That’s what they kept saying,” said Lisa Zimmerman [Talia’s mother]. “But there was part of me that always thought she could do more.”

I can’t think of a single parent testimony about the virtues of S2C that doesn’t include the tremendous relief the parent(s) felt when they learned that, or were confirmed in their faith that, their child wasn’t intellectually disabled, despite all the medical reports to the contrary.

Glaser does acknowledge that S2C is controversial:

A related program, called facilitated communication, has been largely discredited due to evidence that the facilitators were prompting their nonspeaking clients, in part by holding or guiding their hands.

Spelling to Communicate, too, has detractors. The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) recommends against its use, arguing that it “strips people of their human right to independent communication because the technique relies on an aide for prompting,” according to the organization’s website...

And she does include a few telling details:

• On reported rates of use: Glaser reports that the S2C advocacy organization, the International Association for Spelling as Communication, estimates that approximately 10,000 non-speakers are using the method.
• On cost: Glaser notes that, since “Most accredited schools don’t use it. Insurance won’t cover it, she said, people are typically paying out of pocket—to the tune of $85 an hour.”

$85 an hour—for many hours a day, presumably, especially if the parents aren’t able to do it themselves (see below). That’s why the aforementioned customer development is so important.

• On alleged success rates: “DiTomaso  [co-owner of the Access S2C clinic, on our growing list of S2C peddlers] said the program has worked with all of their clients thus far” but adds that “some are quicker to adapt to the letter board, can answer more sophisticated questions and are able to more quickly progress to a keyboard.”

In other words, all their clients are susceptible to cueing, but some are more susceptible to cueing than others.

• On what took for the parents to fall for it, despite knowing that it’s controversial.
• For the mother, it was a combination of the S2C miracle cure memoir Underestimated; viewing a live S2C session; and the failure of all other interventions “from speech therapy and applied behavior analysis to chelation therapy [a quack therapy involving the dangerous removal of heavy metals from the body]” to have the effects she was hoping for. As she puts it, “This is the only thing that has worked. You watch these young adults spelling — I don’t know what else people need.”

From what we’ve seen, the mother’s trajectory is typical. Nothing else works; this seems to work for other people.

·        The father, on the other hand, “admits to being skeptical.” When his daughter started spelling out answers to questions about the International Space Station, his first reaction was “Where’s the trick?” and “This is like a magic show.”

This is a much more accurate characterization what’s actually going on with FC/RPM/S2C than what the proponents claim.

·        Both parents remain unclear on where their daughter “learned how to spell and acquired so much knowledge.”

·        But the father, having moved beyond magic tricks, now hypothesizes that his daughter learned about, say, the Mona Lisa “while watching a TV program with him on Italy;” that “she picks up information in ways that other people don’t;” and that “her brain absorbs information at a greater depth than other people.”

We’ve seen this sort of explanation repeatedly: the unexpected knowledge that S2C unlocks purportedly comes from brains that are unusually good at absorbing oral and visual information in the ambient environment, including from TV and radio.

• That those subjected to S2C, Talia included, “are far more proficient at spelling when they’re working with their professional partners than with parents, siblings and others.”

We’ve seen this repeatedly (e.g., here, here, and here). It’s likely a reflection, in part, of the selection bias in who becomes a facilitator (being a true believer from the get-go) and a reflection, in part, of the reality that people get better at (unwittingly) cueing people over years of practice with many different clients (such that parents, compared to facilitators, are total novices).

Of course, the practitioners have a completely different explanation: doing S2C is purportedly, as Glaser puts it, “more emotional with a parent” and “more stressful.”

• That this girl, like so many of those subjected to S2C, doesn’t read books or other texts: “She’s never picked up a book, never surfed the internet that I’m aware of,” her mother notes.

Spellers but not readers—we’ve seen this repeatedly as well. And it’s one of many red flags that raises serious questions about actual literacy and actual language comprehension in FC/RPM/S2Ced individuals. And that should have raised serious concerns with this article’s author, journalist Susan Glaser.

 

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.