Inside the Minds of Facilitators: Thoughts About the Telepathy Tapes (Episode 5)

FC in the MediaTelepathy Tapes ReviewTelepathy
Written By Janyce Boynton

Today’s blog post is a continuation of a series I’m writing in response to a podcast called the Telepathy Tapes. I’ve provided links to the previous blog posts below, but as a quick review, the Telepathy Tapes is a podcast hosted by Ky Dickens that features the stories of parents who believe their nonspeaking or minimally speaking autistic children have telepathic abilities. Dickens frequently references the work of Diane Hennacy Powell, a self-described neuropsychiatrist who believes telepathic abilities are a savant skill. Powell, apparently, got this idea from a few sentences in a book chapter that researcher Bernard Rimland wrote in 1978. The chapter was an accounting of the responses Rimland and his staff got from a questionnaire filled out by 119 parents asking, in part, if their children had any special abilities or “savant” skills. Four of the 119 parents reported ESP was one of the skills they believe their autistic child had. Rimland neither confirmed nor denied the existence of these skills. He merely reported what parents told him, but Powell ran with the idea nonetheless. (See What Did Bernard Rimland Actually Say About ESP and Savant Skills)

Image by Mark de Jong

Throughout the series thus far, Dickens has described the tests she and Powell have conducted to “prove” telepathic abilities in these children. However, Dickens and Powell both downplay the fact that all the children included in their tests have been subjected to various forms of Facilitated Communication (FC), a technique that was discredited in the mid-1990s. To date, reliably controlled tests of FC designed to rule in or rule out facilitator control over letter selection have only ruled facilitator control in. In other words, despite facilitators’ sincere desire to help and their sincere belief that they are not influencing letter selection (e.g., through visual, auditory, or physical cues), the reliably controlled tests repeatedly show that facilitators are, indeed, influencing letter selection. As we’ve seen in the “telepathy tests” so far, when facilitators are shown the answers to test stimuli (e.g., pictures, numbers, words) and the participants are blinded to test stimuli, the FC-generated answers are based on the information the facilitators have access to and do not reflect the independent thoughts of those being subjected to FC use.

In Episodes 1-4, listeners to the Telepathy Tapes podcast have heard from Dickens, her camera crew, Powell, and several parents or family members who believe in the telepathic abilities of their children. In Episode 5, we are introduced to some teachers who, listeners are told, are risking the loss of their licenses, their jobs, and/or their reputations to speak publicly about their experiences with supernatural powers. This, in and of itself, should be a red flag that something is wrong (secrecy is almost never a good thing), but like in the previous episodes, Dickens takes an anti-science stance in her storytelling. To Dickens, the educators’ anecdotal stories of telepathic abilities “added another layer of credibility to these claims,” but as followers of this blog know, anecdotes, though interesting, are not evidence. In fact, anecdotes should mark the beginning of the questioning process, not represent the answers to the questions at hand.

Image by Anna Sullivan

As listeners to the podcast, we’re told several stories from the perspective of educators who believe their students exhibit psychic or telepathic abilities, which include but are not limited to:

  • A student who drew a circle and triangle on a piece of paper, which the teacher/facilitator interpreted as the student “knowing” she (the facilitator) had donuts and fish candy in her car.

  • A student who “typed” (via FC) that he could read other people’s thoughts (but this could not be verified without facilitation)

  • A student who “typed” (via FC) information that he did not have access to (e.g., information from his facilitator’s private text message)

  • A student who “typed” (via FC) that he was sad because his favorite teacher was leaving him (information that, purportedly, had not been disclosed to him but that his facilitator knew)

  • A child who “typed” (via FC) what his mother/facilitator was thinking.

Perhaps in the moment, these instances seemed magical and mysterious, but what Dickens—and the educators—downplay or ignore is the fact that, in every single case, the children were being subjected to FC and the facilitators either knew the answers to the disclosed information and/or the facilitated information could not be confirmed as being the independent thoughts of the child (as in the case of the claim that the child could “read other people’s thoughts”) because FC was used to generate the messages.

The first facilitator, for example, knew that she’d brought donuts and fish candy (among other goodies) to the school to share with her students’ class. The fact that she forgot to bring the food into the school with her doesn’t mean that she had no knowledge that the food was in the car. It's quite possible that she retrofit her student’s drawings (e.g. a circle and a triangle shape) to match information she already knew to be true (e.g. that there was fish candy and donuts in the car) and projected them onto her student during an FC session. Just like in Dickens’ telepathy tests, the facilitators in the examples included in Episode 5, knew the information being divulged using FC, even if their students did not. And, while I understand that, to facilitators, the “communications” feel like they are originating from their students, it is highly likely (100% according to reliably controlled tests) that the FC-generated messages were, in fact, the thoughts and words of the facilitators and not the nonspeaking autistic individuals with whom they were working.   

From ASHA (2018) systematic review of Facilitated Communication and Rapid Prompting Method

I find it quite troubling that an ASHA-certified Speech/Language Pathologist (SLP-CCC) was among those featured in Episode 5. She, apparently, practices FC and believes in the telepathic abilities of nonspeaking individuals with autism. ASHA has opposed the use of traditional touch-based FC since 1995. The organization renewed its opposition to original touch-based FC in 2018 after a systematic review revealed no new evidence to support proponent claims of communication independence. Also in 2018, ASHA published a second opposition statement to include a variant form of FC known as Rapid Prompting Method (RPM). RPM is a form of FC in which the facilitator holds the letter board in the air while the client extends a finger toward it. RPM, as ASHA pointed out in their statement, is also known as Spelling to Communicate, Informative Pointing and Letter boarding.

Note: New names for FC and RPM appear in proponent literature quite frequently. We have listed over 20 pseudonyms for FC on the homepage of our website and expect that this list will continue to grow.

ASHA cites several reasons for opposing FC use: lack of scientifically rigorous studies that prove communication independence, prompt dependency, facilitator influence over letter selection, potential harms (e.g. false allegations of abuse), and lost opportunity costs as the individuals are prevented from accessing legitimate, evidence-based communication methods and techniques. Although technically there are no reliably controlled studies exploring authorship in RPM (because facilitators are told in training workshops not to submit to the testing), ASHA found enough similarities between FC and RPM to take a position against its use. And, as Katharine discovered, there are anecdotal published authorship results for S2C and RPM that raise questions about facilitator control over letter selection.

The ASHA position statements regarding FC and RPM make clear that SLPs “have a responsibility to inform clients, family members, caregivers, teachers, administrators, and other professionals of empirically supported treatments for individuals with communication limitations and to advocate for these treatments.” By “empirically supported treatments,” ASHA means the use of legitimate, evidence-based Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) that enhances “the authentic and independent communication and literacy skills of people with disabilities.” And, when I wrote to ask them about the Telepathy Tapes podcast, I was told that if I (or anyone else) had concerns about SLPs violating the ASHA code of conduct, I (or anyone else) could file a “complaint of alleged violations of the code of ethics” by following the instructions here..

The SLP featured in the Telepathy Tapes, by using a pseudonym, is, apparently, aware enough of ASHA’s stance against FC/RPM to keep her identity secret but nonetheless chooses to ignore their cautions against its use. I wonder if she realizes that these actions could put her and her school system at risk should parents discover she’s using a discredited technique on their children and/or if false allegations of abuse occur while she’s facilitating messages for her student(s). Perhaps it’s time to consider anew the cautions Brian Gorman suggested in a 2011 article he titled “Psychology and the Law in the Classroom: How the use of Clinical Fads in the Classroom May Awaken the Educational Malpractice Claim.”

Image by Tim Alex

The inclusion of an ASHA-certified SLP into the Telepathy Tapes is, perhaps, strategic on Dickens’ part, as she, with the introduction of Rupert Sheldrake, weaves an us-against-them-type tale of woe with the scientists being portrayed as closed-minded ableists and the pro-FC, pro-telepathy educators fighting an uphill battle as the saviors of the non-speaking autistic individuals. Individuals who, I might add, are unable to fend for or defend themselves against exploitation even if the facilitators are sincere and well-meaning.

Rupert Sheldrake may be many things (e.g., a Cambridge graduate, which we’re told multiple times every time his name comes up), but, as far as I could tell, he has no education or professional experience with the scientific study of autism, autism treatments, speech/language pathology, test design, etc. that would qualify him as an expert on autism or AAC. And yet, besides Powell and a brief mention of Deepak Choprah (in Episode 2), Sheldrake appears in Episode 5 to, apparently, support Dickens’ assertions that the scientific community doesn’t support individuals with autism.

Listeners are told by Sheldrake that “most scientists are brought up on the paradigm of materialism.” He paints a vivid image of scientists persecuting anyone who doesn’t agree with him. It’s a familiar theme in pro-FC literature where proponents liken themselves to Galileo in their struggle to perpetuate the use of the technique. But, like Dickens, Sheldrake seems to struggle with the concept of rigorously designed scientific testing vs. poorly controlled studies or anecdotal “evidence.” He uses terms from science (e.g., evidence-based, peer reviewed, repeatable testing) without an apparent understanding of what those terms mean within the scientific community. He, like Dickens, seems to take a populist view that “evidence” means anything that one can see or experience with their own eyes. When it comes to the nuances of facilitator cueing (which, at times is not visible to the naked eye), “seeing is believing” is not the recommended approach in determining authorship.

I don’t buy Sheldrake’s apparent attempt to characterize scientists as uninterested in the unknown. Scientists get excited about exploring phenomena that, seemingly, cannot be explained--including consciousness, telepathy, the causes of autism, brain functioning, and other things that relate to the human condition. But the process of scientific inquiry often starts by taking into consideration information scientists already know from previous scientific inquiry and research. There is a substantial body of research, for example, that rules in facilitator influence over letter selection, rather than ruling it out. (See controlled studies)

This facilitator from the Telepathy Tapes cues her son using hand signals and body movements that aid in letter selection and raises questions about authorship in “no touch” forms of FC.

In the case of “spellers” and FC, the most obvious answer to most, if not all, anecdotes provided in Episode 5 of the Telepathy Tapes and others is that the facilitators were (with varying degrees of conscious awareness) fabricating communications internally and projecting those messages onto the nonspeaking individuals with whom they were working. In addition, it is highly likely (better than chance) that they were assisting their clients with letter selection (with varying degrees of consciousness) through visual, physical or auditory cues during the FC sessions.

As I’ve said many times before, until facilitator authorship is ruled out, then researchers can’t even begin to explore the possibility of telepathic abilities. In the meantime, it’s alarming to think that facilitators, and FC-advocates like Ky Dickens, are supporting the idea that serious life-changing decisions regarding medical treatments, education, housing, guardianship, and relationship issues should be made using unsupported, unproven, even discredited techniques.

Janyce Boynton
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How FC myths coincide with edu-myths—and why even those who don’t believe in telepathy are primed to believe in FC