News roundup: August-December 2025
Some six months have passed since our last FC news roundup; given the rate at which FC/RPM/S2C feel-good stories keep reappearing in the news, including in supposedly responsible news outlets like the New York Times and public radio, it’s time for another one. Here, in more or less chronological order, the news since August, 2025.
August
Washington DC:
In an article in the online, DC-Based Christian Post entitled Ex-psychic warns Christians of ‘spiritual dangers,' demonic influence of 'The Telepathy Tapes', Assistant Editor Leah MarieAnn Klett reports on the concerns about the Telepathy Tapes Podcast raised by “biblical counselor” Mark Baker and “author and speaker” Doreen Virtue. Baker and Virtue’s concerns include that the Telapathy Tapes wrongly characterizes “mind reading” as a spiritual gift from God when it’s actually “information supplied by demonic spirits”; and that it exploits parents of special needs children who long to communicate more deeply with their children. Their concerns do not extend to the methods used to generate the telepathy (Spelling to Communicate and Rapid Prompting Method) and how all the available evidence shows that these methods hijack the communication rights and authentic identities of those subjected to them.
Northern Texas:
In an article in the Rockwell County Herald Banner entitled Heath twins break through silence with Rapid Prompting Method, journalist Kent Miller reports on two non-speaking autistic twins who were unlocked by Rapid Prompting Method (RPM). We learn that RPM also helps non-speaking individuals with Down Syndrome, and that the parents first came across in the documentary “A Mother’s Courage: Talking Back to Autism.”
Miller cites no autism experts, no autism research, and none of the many opposition statements; only the mother, who says:
Because of RPM, our sons have the ability to express who they are, what they believe in, what their dreams and aspirations are and their likes and dislikes.
The likelihood that RPM is actually having the exact opposite of this effect is not even considered.
This story was later picked up by the Houston area CBS affiliate and by Scoop Upworthy.
Calgary
In a segment on Calvary TV News entitled University of Calgary professor giving a voice to people with non-verbal autism, journalist Kevin Fleming showcases Diwakar Krishnamurthy, one of Vikram Jawal’s collaborators on the Holo-Board projects I reviewed earlier (starting here).
Fleming quotes Krishnamurthy as explaining:
When you have the headset on, you see the therapist and they offer encouragement, and they actually give you motor coaching, like, ‘Here’s how you reach an ‘A’ -- you’re trying to spell Apple, so let’s focus. Now, what comes next?’
Fleming cites no autism experts, no autism research, or anything to back up the claim that what non-speakers with autism require, in order to communicate, is this kind of “motor coaching.”
Staten Island, New York
In an article on the State Island news website, silive.com, journalist Carol Ann Benanti reports on the Staten Island-based pro-Spelling to Communicate (S2C) organization Crimson Rise: specifically, on its participation at the International Association for Spelling as Communication conference (run by S2C “inventor” Elizabeth Vosseller).
Crimson Rise’s participation included a vendor booth, with books published by the Crimson Rise Collective, as well as presentations by Lakshmi Rao Sankar, its executive director, and her son, “who has autism and is non-speaking.” The son’s presentation, according to Benananti, “shed[] light on the emotional and sensory toll experienced by many in the nonspeaking community.”
Benananti cites no autism experts or autism research to back up the extraordinary notion that non-speakers with autism can author sophisticated messages that far exceed the verbal abilities of many speakers with milder forms of autism.
Boston, Massachusetts
On Boston Public Radio’s Here and Now (aired by around 500 public radio stations), in a segment entitled Non-speaking teen with autism — once thought to be intellectually disabled — accepted at MIT, host Robyn Young reports on a father whose non-speaking autistic son was considered intellectually disabled until after a babysitter suggested, when he was 10 years old, that he use an augmentative and alternative communication device with buttons labeled ‘yes’ and ‘no.’
The son used this device to request his favorite TV shows, and several years later, while watching one of the shows he requested (a show in which animated characters spell out words), he was able to speak out some of the letters of the word “waterfall.” At that point, he was re-diagnosed as gifted and apraxic and started using a letterboard. After matriculating at an online high school, he was accepted to MIT, where he plans to major in math.
No autism experts are consulted on how common these abilities are in non-speaking autism (non-speaking autism is strongly associated with low comprehension), how likely apraxia is as the explanation for the son’s limited speech (it’s a rare condition that cannot be diagnosed in those with minimal speech), how plausible it is that a minimal speaker would only have been introduced to an evidence-based communication device at the age of 10 by his babysitter, or whether the son’s current method of communication is evidence-based and authentic.
(This story was reported on earlier by CBS News and the Boston Globe, but somehow we missed it then).
September, 2024
Australia
An op-ed in the health section of MSN entitled I’m autistic and non-speaking. Here’s what I want you to know is attributed to Tim Chan, who has long been subjected to FC, or what the article calls “supported typing.” The article was originally published in The Conversation, and Chan is described as “a PhD Candidate in Sociology in the Faculty of Education and Arts at Australian Catholic University.” Among the things Chan allegedly wants us to know is why individuals like him require “supported typing” in order to communicate. There is no indication that any of these claims have been subjected to fact-checking or run past any autism experts.
This article was later picked up by The Independent.
October
New York
The New York Times published a letter attributed to Jason Jacoby Lee and objecting to the category “profound autism.” There appears to have been no fact-checking of Lee’s suggestion that autistic non-speakers can have their language unlocked by typing, or examination of what it looks like when Lee communicates (it looks like this).
Psychology Today
In a blog post entitled Nonspeaking Autism, "The Telepathy Tapes," and Who Gets to Be Heard, neuroscientist Marina Weiler begins by trotting out the usual pro-FC topes (claims that non-speakers with autism have been underestimated; exhortations to presume competence; claims of that those who still need facilitators within cueing range when they type are typing independently). Weiler goes on to propose that the message-passing failures that showed facilitator control were instead picking up telepathic abilities on the part of the non-speakers.
November
Philadelphia
A profile on CNN of Dr. Wendy Ross, one of the expert witnesses supporting the parents in the Lower Merion Spelling to Communicate Lawsuit, includes a short clip of Ross joyfully observing some S2C-generated typing (by one of the very people involved in that lawsuit).
Kamloops, British Columbia
A segment on CFJC-TV entitled Kamloops’ Verhoeff using national TV spotlight to advocate for non-speaking autistic individuals reports on a non-speaker’s appearance on The Assembly, a Canadian series in which “autistic and neurodivergent interviewers” ask questions of celebrities. Journalist Mary Hastings explains that “Diagnosed with mild-to-moderate autism and global developmental delay at three years old, it was not until age 19 that Luke Verhoeff found his voice, able to express himself with the help of Spelling to Communicate methods.” Hastings makes no mention of the evidence against S2C or of the numerous organizations that have warned against its use. CFJC previously reported on the same non-speaker on two other occasions, most recently in 2024 (see one of our previous news roundups for discussion).
For more facilitated non-speakers on The Assembly, see this clip, posted by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, also in November.
Cincinnati
In a segment on Local 12 news entitled I love you, mom': Keyboard lets son share words local mother never thought she'd hear, journalist Chelsea Sick gives us yet another report on Jakob Jordan (see here for the last one we discussed). As in other articles, this one blames Jakob’s communication difficulties on apraxia without checking in with any actual experts in non-speaking autism.
Ireland
An online article in the Carlow Nationalist, a community newspaper, uncritically showcases a non-verbal artist who has been subjected to the Rapid Prompting Method.
December
New Rochelle
An article in Talk of the Sound entitled Non-Speaking Students Find Their Voice Through Controversial Spelling Method in High School Classroom
This article distinguishes itself from the rest by noting one of the major organizations that advises against S2C. However, it immediately follows this with an uncritical return to the perspective of the special education teacher, Cynthia Milite, who introduced S2C to the students:
The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association advises against using S2C on the grounds that there is a lack of scientific evidence to prove its validity and concerns about message authorship. Milite makes the method available to students whose families want it.
Milite said some students prefer S2C over other augmentative and alternative (AAC) methods such as iPads, which they find clunkier and slower to use.
Reporter Robert Cox does not explain how it is that these students, whose communications are likely being authored by their S2C-invested facilitators, expressed their preference for S2C over evidence-based AAC methods.
Upstate New York
An article in the New York Times about a “timeout box” quotes the parent of a “mostly nonverbal” third-grade child as communicating that he “felt bad for one of his friends that had to go in there.” No communication method is mentioned, but we have to wonder how the contradiction between being “mostly nonverbal” and being able to communicate a message of this complexity escaped reporter Troy Closson.
Entertainment Weekly
There are now so many S2C practitioners that it’s hardly surprising that one of them has made it onto a reality TV show—specifically, Fear Factor. This article is one of many that mentions, matter-of-factly and without any elaboration, the occupation of Chelsea Montgomery—as if we all know by now what a “Spelling to Communicate Practitioner” is.
Ashville, North Carolina
An article in the Christian publication The World entitled Open communication: People with nonspeaking autism are learning to spell out their thoughts. Critics say the words they produce aren’t really theirs has, as its title suggests, the distinction of being the most balanced article of all of these. Not only does it mention the ASHA position statement warning against FC and its variants; it also describes:
The ideomotor effect (as causing facilitators to “unknowingly guide letter selections with subconscious muscle movements or inadvertent cueing or expectations”)
The dozens of controlled studies involving message-passing tests that showed facilitator control
The termination by the Maine Department of Education of a grant to the S2C-based organization I-ASC (see Janyce’s post)
The failure of a New Hampshire bill that attempted to establish an S2C pilot program under the state Department of Education
The paper some of us published on upholding the communication rights of non-speakers by safeguarding them against FC and its variants
The paper some of us presented at the most recent American Speech-Language Hearing Association Conference on the latest systematic review of RPM/S2C.
Reporter Mary Jackson even reached out to one of the review’s leading authors, Bronwyn Hemsley, quoting her as saying, re the systematic review:
No studies met the inclusion criteria as the designs of studies to date do not control for facilitator influence over the message prior to analysing the message generated using [Spelling to Communicate or its variants].
Jackson also mentions the Telepathy Tapes and how it has embarrassed some of those in the “spellerverse” who aim for a more “scientific” look, quoting Spellers Method co-founder and board president of the Spellers Freedom Foundation, Dawnmarie Gaivin, as saying that “It’s created this sensationalism around it that’s not good for the forward momentum,” and that The Telepathy Tapes “almost made [spellers] like the freak show at the circus.”
Curiously, right around the time of this article, Gaivin’s San Diego-based Spellers Center announced its permanent closure.
On the other hand, Jackson:
assumes the apraxia diagnosis of the non-speaking, S2Ced boy with whom she opens her article is valid
claims that J.B. Handley’s son is typing independently in Spellers (where there’s no evidence of spontaneous, unrehearsed communication with no facilitator within auditory or visual cueing range)
cites Jaswal et al.’s eye tracking study as evidence that nonspeakers can learn to communicate independently, but doesn’t cite its critical rebuttals (here and here)
cites Dawnmarie Gaivin as claiming that “Somebody wants to make money, and finding out these kids are not intellectually disabled is going to shut down an entire industry or it’s going to cause school districts to have to provide communication partners.”
And she returns, in closing, to the S2Ced boy with whom she opened her article, portraying his communications and authentically his, despite all the evidence she presented to the contrary:
Cody seems to understand it’s a leap for outsiders to embrace spelling. But he says the opposition is not coming from clinicians and researchers. During both spelling sessions I observed, he brought up a spiritual battle.
“I see the spiritual world,” he typed. “I see angels and demons. … They are both here now.” Cody described an angel outside guarding the doorway and demons, one by me and another behind a family friend who joined us. Cody typed that Marissa’s angel was “watching her closely and waiting for a fight when God says to.”
I asked Cody if he sees them all the time. He spelled, “Y-E-S.” He added that he couldn’t imagine what it would be like to not see them.
Then, with his eyes fixed on the board, Cody tapped: “Do you believe me?”
Jackson doesn’t tell us how she answered that question, but we can make an educated guess.
Greater Minneapolis, Minnesota
The woes of the Holland Autism Center have reached the British newspaper the Daily Mail. While Senior Investigative Reporter Dana Kennedy expresses shock that the S2C-providing Holland Center is on the “brink of collapse” because of a freezing of Medicaid payments after reports of widespread Medicaid fraud, she leaves unmentioned what is truly shocking. Namely, that non-evidence-based, communication-rights hijacking interventions were being funded by Medicaid. As we learn from the article, “Medicaid makes up roughly 80 percent of the center's funding.”
In all the FC-related news items of the year, this one is perhaps the most shocking of all.
