End of the Year Review (2025)

Facilitated CommunicationSpelling to CommunicateFC in the Media

Dec 24

As 2025 winds down, I can’t help but scratch my head at FC’s resurgence that’s happened under the guise of Spelling To Communicate (S2C) and Rapid Prompting Method (RPM)—with a bizarre telepathic twist. Those of us who’ve followed FC for the past 30+ years are witnessing history repeating itself as, just like in the early 1990s, parents, educators, and others latch onto the idea that facilitator-dependent techniques can miraculously lead to independent communication for non-speaking individuals with complex communication needs. At some point, I believe that, just like they did with the first wave of FC in the mid-1990s, people will look back at this period of time and shake their heads at the lack of scientific curiosity proponents have exhibited—especially given the large amount of evidence against FC (and against the existence of telepathy) that already exists and is easily available. Educating people about the dangers of FC/S2C/RPM and any of their variants is one of the major reasons we maintain this website.

My co-hosts and I started this website because we’d accumulated a bunch of newspaper and journal articles, books, and other resources relating to the evolution of FC that were sitting on our private or work computers and we thought it was a shame that the parents, researchers, educators, and reporters who were reaching out to us with questions all seemed to be starting at zero (or close to zero). We wanted to give people access to the vast array of information that’s been gathered about FC/S2C/RPM over the past 30 years and help dispel the misinformation that surrounds this topic. There’s absolutely no reason why people have to start from scratch each time they want to investigate the topic on their own. Unlike most pro-FC/S2C/RPM sites, we include information on this website that proponents claim proves “the concept” of FC. It doesn’t. For more information about this, see the Critiques of Pro-FC Articles and Misleading Articles sections of our website. But, unlike pro-FC websites, we also include the research that repeatedly and consistently over time demonstrates facilitator authorship of FC-generated messages (see Systematic Reviews, Controlled Studies, and Opposition Statements).

And, though we are grateful to every person who has reached out to us over the past year and given us tips about FC/S2C/RPM-related news, we understand the limits of the influence we may have on any given individual looking through the resources we’ve made available on this website. We can lead people to critical information about FC, but we can’t make them engage with it. Believers have a particularly difficult time with information that runs counter to the information (or disinformation) fed to them in pro-FC workshops.

I have, for example, had proponents tell me that after skimming the titles of the articles on the Ideomotor Response page that they stopped looking any of the articles because the titles were too negative. According to them, FC works on faith and “negative energy” or doubt stops individuals from being able to communicate effectively. Other proponents point out that the Critiques of FC page includes blog posts and newspaper articles that aren’t peer reviewed (which is true) while disregarding or downplaying the Controlled Studies and Systematic Reviews pages which are more scientifically rigorous. We separated the articles into multiple sections for this very reason. Not all sources of information carry the same weight when it comes to scientific inquiry. Clearly, in the upcoming year, we need to talk more about the differences between anecdotes, testimonials, vetted articles, uncontrolled (or poorly controlled) studies, and controlled studies.

Proponents, too, have told us that the organizations who have public statements opposing the use of FC/S2C/RPM and other facilitator-dependent techniques are biased and against people with disabilities. They reject the opposition statements, it seems, without a clear understanding of the primary reason these organizations don’t support FC/S2C/RPM: that these techniques are not evidence-based. Instead of complaining about the organizations who are standing up for science and the communication rights of non-speaking individuals, perhaps, in 2026, proponents will buckle down and conduct the reliably controlled authorship testing that should have been done 30+ years ago (e.g., before they released FC/S2C/RPM on the unsuspecting public). The onus is on them to provide evidence for their extraordinary claims. So far, they’ve failed to do so.

We’ve even had proponents tell us that false allegations of abuse cases can’t happen with S2C/RPM because the parents are the facilitators. Sadly, that just isn’t true. We recommend people check out the FC and the Legal System, False Allegations of Abuse Cases, and Facilitator Crimes sections where we’ve documented just some of the cases that have reached the level of public exposure. And, though these pages are less complete than we’d like, we hope the cases we have documented will give prospective users of FC/S2C/RPM pause before they buy into the programs—literally and figuratively. RPM and S2C are expensive! (See my blog post RPM and DIRFloortime at What Cost?)

Over the years of maintaining this website, we’ve learned that, despite critics’ best efforts to warn people about FC’s harms and to educate people about why facilitator-dependent techniques can’t lead to independent communication, belief in pseudoscience—and the illusion of FC—persists. If, on the rare occasion, current-day proponents admit that facilitator cueing can happen, they deny that it happens with them. Each facilitator seems to believe that they are the exception to the rule when it comes to facilitator influence and control over letter selection—a claim, however, that, as we learned in Katharine’s series “Spelling to Communicate Goes on Trial” (see links below) does not hold up under close scrutiny.

Occasionally, we meet people who are new to FC (and still questioning its efficacy) but are unsure of what questions to ask about it. We’ve got a list of questions in the “Voice Questions and Concerns About FC section” to help those people out. We hope going forward that reporters will also visit the “voice questions” section and hold proponents accountable for the answers. Many of the news reports about FC/S2C/RPM this year fell into the category of “feel-good, miracle stories” that failed to inform readers of FC’s lack of scientific rigor. The exception to this is the reporting about the Telepathy Tapes podcast, which contained a fair amount of skepticism. (See those articles in the Podcast section of our website).

In closing, we’d like to thank each and every one of you who have, over the year, reached out to us to express support and/or to help us continue to develop this website. We look forward to hearing from and working with you in the New Year.

As a review, here are the topics and links to the blog posts we covered this year:

Autism and FC

Scrambling the spectrum, flattening the curve, and making FC seem more plausible

Facilitator Mindset

”Groundhog Day” FC Style: A perspective from a former facilitator

When nothing else works: Blaming the scientific method instead of the pseudoscience

FC in the Courts

Spelling to Communicate Goes on Trial: Part 1

Spelling to Communicate Goes on Trial: Part II

Spelling to Communicate Goes on Trial: Part III

Spelling to Communicate Goes on Trial: Part IV

Spelling to Communicate Goes on Trial: Part V

Spelling to Communicate Goes on Trial: Part VI

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

What Happens when FC-Generated Allegations of Abuse Get to Court?

FC in the Schools

Are Maine Public Schools Violating IDEA? And Other Questions About Maine’s S2C Pilot Program

Are Maine Schools Falling For FC Pseudoscience Again? (We already went through this in the 1990s)

Maine Chooses Science Over Pseudoscience and Terminates the S2C Pilot Program

FC/S2C/RPM in the Media (e.g., news, movies, books)

Cincinnati local news and NPR Weekend Edition of Jakob Jordan

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

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

Jefferson Public Radio on “Medford psychiatrist’s research into autism and telepathy sparks debate over communication”

News Roundup, April, 2024 to December 2024 Uncritical reports of S2C and RPM breakthroughs

University of Minnesota Center for Genomics Engineering on “Celebrating Emelia: Science for All”

University of Toronto Magazine on “When Words Won’t Cooperate”

Whose Voice? A review of Makayla’s Voice

FC/S2C/RPM and Telepathy