Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Hi, I'm Kim Neely and this is the Trauma Informed slp.
[00:00:06] This is a podcast where we learn how to promote safety and empowerment to build resiliency in everyone we know, including ourselves.
[00:00:20] Hey, so this is my response to the telepathy tapes. Hey. Oh, let me start this off with a little disclaimer, though. Let me tell you what I'm not going to do in this particular episode. Am not going to yuck anyone's yum when it comes to believing in supernatural things, paranormal things. I myself have my own curiosities about those things. I think if this were another, like, listen, there are a lot of supernatural type podcasts out there and if this were another one of them that was just exploring, like, potential telepathic connections between family members or close friends, I would be fine with that. Honestly. No question. With like, that's fine. Be curious about that. That's great. Like, you know, we've all had those weird moments of like, I haven't seen or heard about this person in forever, but I have this little sense that this one close friend of mine, something's going on, so I want to check in with them. Right? We all have those little moments and it's like, it's like a. It is kind of a mysterious thing that happens, right? And so, like, I would be fine with it if that's what this was exploring. This is not what this podcast is exploring, however. This podcast is exploring telepathic powers in a very spec specific subset of humanity that is highly vulnerable and highly stigmatized already, and that is non speaking autistics. They're not talking about potential signs of telepathy throughout humanity. If they were, I would not be making this episode okay. But because they are talking about non speaking autistics specifically, that put off a big red flag in my head from a trauma informed perspective that I feel has to be addressed.
[00:02:01] If you are someone who listened to the telepathy tapes and is super into it and super believes in it and thinks it's the greatest thing since sliced bread, this is probably not the podcast for you.
[00:02:17] This is more for people who have a little bit of a skeptical inkling toward it, maybe has a little feeling that perhaps there's some red flags here that they can't quite put their finger on, or people who just outright are like, oh my gosh, what is this about? But I don't really want to listen to it. I'm not really the type of person who comes off very well when I'm presenting critiques to very entrenched beliefs. For some people, I come off as very blunt and rather abrasive to those people. So I really do encourage you. If you're one of those people who like are super all about this, this is probably not the podcast for you.
[00:03:00] If you are someone who's a little skeptical, but you know someone who's really into it, give this a listen because maybe you would be able to bridge that divide.
[00:03:08] I likely will not be the bridger for that person.
[00:03:14] So when I heard about the telepathy tapes, I had to go check it out. I saw it on the SLP subreddit, but I've seen it pop up in news articles and things and on other subreddits now. So. So I felt I needed to say something because there are some very significant red flags from a trauma informed perspective going on here that I don't see mentioned very often in the speech pathology spaces. Because as speech pathologists we tend to hook onto the communication that is being talked about. And in my YouTube video on this topic, I did go fairly hard on the communication methodologies that they are promoting in this, but that was more because it's YouTube and not a lot of people know about augmentative alternative communication devices and methods and methods of teaching it and things like that. So I wanted to go a little bit into that. I felt like it would be a remiss not to do some level of education on that. I'm going to be lighter on that on this particular episode because this episode is intended to be more for professionals who work with disabled people or family members of disabled people, or disabled people themselves. Friends of disabled people. If you're a caregiver, if you're a guardian, there is a really big red flag here that we're going to have to unpack.
[00:04:30] So the outline for this video or for this video, haha, I've been recording videos way too often. Okay, the outline for this episode is we're going to go over who the people are who are kind of behind this podcast, just in general and the concepts presented.
[00:04:50] That is going to bleed into this issue with a certain flavor of dehumanization, a certain flavor of objectification of disabled people.
[00:05:01] I'm going to provide counter explanations for what people are seeing for the certain behaviors and stuff they happen to talk about in this podcast. There are other possibilities that they don't tend to present. So I want to present those other possibilities.
[00:05:18] I will go into a little bit of the issues with the community communication methodologies they present and some of my issues with that are actually not going to come from my SLP brain and my training. Some of it's actually going to come from my neurodivergent thoughts. So I might end up doing a little bit of an info dump on that.
[00:05:36] And at the end, I'm also going to conclude it with thinking about playing devil's advocate. And what does it actually functionally change if their claims are true? What does it actually change in the world? Because I want to make some counterpoints to the claims. They think like they have certain ideas of how this is going to change the world. And I have some counterpoints to that as well. So that will be the end there. And then I'll end it with a few actions, actionable items just for people to help increase their own cultural awareness of things and to be a little more vigilant against certain levels of dehumanization.
[00:06:18] So for the first section, when we look into who is really behind this podcast, I'm going to be pulling pretty heavily from an article by, I believe you pronounce it Saeed Jelani. Apologies if I did not pronounce that correctly. Called the Telepathy Tapes, has close ties to vaccine skeptic movement. This is was published in the American Saga in December, and I will have links to all the citations that I mentioned, of course, in this show Notes. But this is one of those things when you feel sort of skeptical about things, it is usually good to look into who is who are these people who are promoting this particular viewpoint. Now this particular author opens up this article by mentioning they did produce a previous article, which I might go ahead and link below, because that article really goes into facilitated communication and these newer flavors of it that are starting to crop up that you know is highly discredited, or at least the original one was highly discredited, not due to poor training, but mainly due to court cases that resulted in courts requiring evidence that the messages put out by the non speakers were actually their independent communication and it was never proven to be true. So to be clear, facilitated communication, the the original one back in the 90s, was discredited because courts required solid evidence. And that solid evidence was never found. And that is also why people in my field and other people out there, we are very cautious about thinking it's okay to provide physical supports either by holding the non speaker's hand or as the new flavors kind of are, by holding their devices. Basically, if you're providing any level of physical cueing or physical support, or you feel like you have to have physical contact with someone for them to be able to communicate. It brings things into question because there can be idiomotor effects and all of that sort of stuff that goes into it. I'm going to provide a link below to facilitated communication.org that is a great site that unpacks a lot of this history. And I kind of want to save myself from going too far into that history, but that is something to be aware of, that the communication methodology of having to have a facilitator present to either hold a letterboard or support their arms or even just like touch their back or whatever it is. If there's physical support involved, there can be subconscious cueing by the person providing the physical support, which leads into potentially incredibly dangerous territory of maybe the messages aren't actually the non speakers, which means you're stealing their voice, which means they're already vulnerable and you're opening them up to a lot other dangers. So I personally think in the effort of danger mitigation, I think it's completely fair to say, like in our field in speech language pathology, better to do an assessment with a entire AAC team that allows for independent access to the AAC device. But on this particular article, the title pretty much gives it away right there, right? The telepathy tapes has close ties to the vaccine skeptic movement. And you might wonder, why would that be?
[00:09:45] So it's not the host of the podcast, which is Kai Dickens, I believe is how you would say her name. She is a documentary filmmaker. Okay, so like the. The host. Host of the podcast is the documentary filmmaker. And then the other person who is the main driving force behind it I think is a psychiatrist. They sell her as like a neuroscientist or like sort of a neuro. Neuro like specialist researcher person, but she's a psychiatrist. Diane Hennessy Powell. And Dr. Powell is the one who has to the anti vaccine movement. So in this article, the author quotes Dr. Powell at a 2017 rally in Washington D.C. against vaccinations and the vaccine schedules, where she said, quote, we live in a schizophrenic society with lots of cognitive dissonance. When you have doctors doing things and they are doing harm, they cannot face it. So I go to these medical meetings and these are medical meetings where I'm getting continuing education. And there are doctors saying that vaccines are oftentimes the final straw that tips a kid over the edge. And yet they all say this, you know, quietly.
[00:10:59] So Jelani also interviewed Powell about the telepathy tapes and said that, you know, she came across as seeming very humble and mentioned that there are flaws in the, you know, in the experiments they did and things like that for their first article.
[00:11:16] So then they wanted to follow up with her about this whole vaccines thing when they found this. And apparently, Dr. Powell, this is her current stance on vaccines. She said the majority of people diagnosed as autistic do not have vaccines as the cause. All right, that's cool. That's progress, I guess. But she goes on to say the problem is that several of the children being diagnosed as autistic actually have sensory motor issues that are related to toxic overload and brain inflammation that was often triggered by a vaccine. Vaccine.
[00:11:45] And apparently she also sent an article talking about a doctor who suspected vaccines can cause autism in some cases. So apparently she's still a little on that fence there. And this author goes on to say that Dickens, Kay Dickens, never tells us that Katie Asher, who is featured in the telepathy tapes, she is strongly anti vaccine, and she blames vaccines for her son's autism.
[00:12:12] So that's automatically a little bit of a red flag. And I do like, you know, kind of the questions proposes near the end of this article, which is that, like, I guess if. If vaccines can cause autism and autism leads to telepathy, then, like, I guess this is a win for vaccines, right? I guess. You know, vaccines for everybody. Because we could all be telepathic, I guess, but I guess only if you're already autistic. I don't know. I'm confused. I'm not exactly sure what that means. Like, is it if they have sensory motor issues and brain inflammation, is it that they're not autistic? Is that's what she's trying to say? And so maybe they're the ones who aren't telepathic because the vaccines cause what looks like autism. But is that what she's. I don't know. I'm confused. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense. So that is something to consider, though, when you're thinking about who is behind this podcast. We have a documentary filmmaker, and we have the per. The preeminent scientist that they present as the person who knows stuff. Dr. Powell, she is a psychiatrist. That. That. That author in that article actually mentions her as a lapsed doctor. So I don't know if that means she doesn't even have her license anymore. She might not be a practicing psychiatrist anymore. So she has a medical doctorate. That's not a. That's not a. That's not a research degree. Okay. A psychiatrist is a medical doctor in the United States. That is not a PhD.
[00:13:36] So already some dubious claims to her being a research scientist. Okay. And what I thought of when I saw this, that she has these ties to the anti vaxx movement is, okay, maybe, I don't know, maybe this is, this is her journey toward trying to become a little less ableist, maybe, who knows, right? It's a little ableist to say you would rather have kids die from polio than be autistic. Okay, that's pretty dehumanizing. That's a pretty horrible thing. And you know, there are plenty of adult autistics out there, autistic advocates who are like, please stop thinking it's better for kids to die in pandemics than to have vaccines. Okay? Which I'm on board with. I mean, this is the thing with anti vax movement people. I don't think these people have walked through historical graveyards very much because if you go through historical cemeteries and graveyards, you see children's like tombstones, all that died in the same year because the pandemic ran through. And that's what we don't experience as often now that we have vaccines and antibiotics. So, like, yay, medicine. But then we're also so many generations removed from people who saw that happen that I think we have this sort of collective amnesia around how devastating pandemics were, you know, prior to having vaccines and antibiotics and things like this. So. So, you know, it's. It's not very nice to tell someone better for people to die than to be like you. Like, do you see how that doesn't feel good? So that's why autistic advocates, you know, it's not really nice, the anti vax thing, not so nice. Okay? So I don't know if maybe she's learned since 2017 to be a little less like, kind of ableist about it. A little less like the eugenics type idea of like, let's eradicate autistics by eradicating vaccines kind of vibe. And maybe she's just swung a little too far over into this area of let's give them superpowers instead.
[00:15:34] But what she might not be aware of is that providing superpowers to vulnerable disabled communities is also not very good. That is still objectification and it is still dehumanizing.
[00:15:49] So I'm going to get into that in this next little section.
[00:15:56] Okay, what do I mean by this dehumanization piece? It's the fact that they're talking about autistic non speakers. It's the fact that they pinpointed one Little subpopulation of the human experience.
[00:16:10] And that particular population is highly marginalized, faces a absolute butt ton of societal adversity, and are very, very vulnerable, right? To other people's whims. And the non speakers they're often talking about also are non speakers from very, very young. And they are not talking about autistics with selective mutism where they're sometimes non speakers. They don't really talk about those guys. And so they're not even talking about non speakers in general. They're not talking about non speakers who are non speaking because of their cerebral palsy, Right? They're not talking about non speakers who are non speaking because of a genetic syndrome. They're talking about autistic non speakers. So they have not just identified the subset of humans that are non speakers, they have identified a subset of non speakers that are specifically autistic. And they don't really acknowledge other possible non speakers for other medical reasons. So that threw up my little trauma informed red flags when it came to systemic dehumanization of particularly disabled people or people with disabilities, depending on who you're talking to and what they prefer. But the disabled community in particular talk a lot about this idea of being given some sort of, you know, superpower or being inspirational, okay? It's essentially kind of a form of inspiration porn. All right, now I'll send some links below for what that means. But that essentially means if you're viewing a disabled person and you view all their accomplishments through the lens of that's so inspirational that somebody in a wheelchair managed to do the things you do or whatever, right? It comes from this moral model of disability, okay? Which is not one we often talk about. We talk about the social model a lot. But the moral model of disability is one where it can be that people see it as the disability is because of the sins of the parent or it's like a moral lap somehow, or that, like, that disabled person is somehow evil, right? And you see that especially in, like, old Hollywood and sometimes even in, like in comic books, of course, too. But you know, and sometimes in other countries, they still have a lot of examples of villains have disabilities, right? But there's also a flip side to that, which is seeing people with disabilities as, you know, being exceptional or having an exceptional ability to persevere or highly courageous or, you know, just somehow being essentially kind of magical, okay? And you can give them a superpower too, and that can fall into that as well. But you're still reducing that person down to one little thing, right? And you're and you're trying to like kind of justify their disability as being something unique and special, basically. Okay, the issue with this is that really hinders people's advocacy toward reducing the social model of disability, right? People are pushing to allow people to access things and have insurance, pay for the things that need to be paid for and for the medical model if they do need medical devices, right? And it's like. And to not see disabled people as things, right? To see them as fully functional people, to not see them as objects for other people's narratives, right. And so the moral model really hinders that kind of work. Okay.
[00:19:42] Other places where you see this kind of superpower type flavor of stigma and bias is in magical minority tropes. You might hear as like the magical black friend, essentially the magical gay friend, possibly. You might hear these in fictional stories and movies and TV shows and stuff. You see that, you know, Driving Miss Daisy is probably one of the biggest examples of that, right? Where the Morgan Freeman character was sort of the magical black man who showed up to just help, you know, Miss Daisy, like learn how to live a better life. Like he was the super wise guy, right? And a lot of times, a lot of marginalized groups, they. They initially are presented as villains in, in a lot of fiction, right? They're presented as like really aggressive or whatever or they're the villains. And then a lot of times in order to try to sort of overcome that, there's this like over compensation or swinging toward making that the people, the characters from that group, magical and inspirational and being the support toward the main character, right?
[00:20:46] So that's why I'm like, is that what this is? Is this, is this Dr. Powell's like swing toward trying to overcompensate from being like strongly anti vaxx to like maybe these people do have value. And it's like, okay, character growth, I suppose. But there is an argument to be made there. It is still very harmful to objectify a specific group of people and say, no, see, we shouldn't, we shouldn't want to eradicate them because they're special. They're here for us somehow. You know, it's. It's very. It's giving main character energy, you know, it's definitely giving abled people and a listics. Non autistic speakers, particularly speaking autistics maybe or just speaking neurotypical, you know, people are the main characters and that they exist to support the main characters. Right.
[00:21:40] And what this really comes down to is when you start thinking about people in those sort of categories.
[00:21:47] Well, now you have these non speakers who feel like if they can never really be separated from their caregiver, right. If they're, if they're always beholden to that caregiver who sees them as inspirational or as superpowered or somehow magical, now they're not really allowed to be fully human in that person's eyes, right. Like they're not able to like throw a huge fit. Right. Or be like a snarky teenager who's like, I don't want to go to the store, you know? Right.
[00:22:17] They're, they're not able to do like kind of the, the Schitt's Creek ew, David. You know, kind of vibe. Right. Like they always have to be this like inspirational character rather than being a full human being with the whole wide range of emotional experiences and needs and things like that. Right. So with that said, let's go into this next little section where I give you some other possibilities for what people are seeing.
[00:22:42] So one of those things is definitely 100 the idiomotor effect. The maybe this isn't actually them doing it. And maybe some of these communication messages they put out are not theirs. It's very possible, but they also do examples. There was one example I read in the transcripts where they talked about a kid who's like the moment thought about where she hid the Halloween candy and the kid like got up and went straight to that Halloween candy just right as the mom had thought about it. And it's like, oh, see, clearly he read his mom's mind that she thought about where she hid the candy and then he knew exactly where it was. What could possibly explain that? Well, here's the thing, here's a counter explanation that I was thinking off the top of my head. What if when that mom thought about that, she might have thought, oh, I put the Halloween kindy in that one closet over there. Maybe she looked toward that closet. Perhaps, maybe she was thinking of where she hid it because maybe he was already asking about it, you know, maybe it was a topic that already came up. Or maybe the spouse or somebody else in the house brought up where's the Halloween candy?
[00:23:47] And she glanced toward where she hid it.
[00:23:51] And the kid was really good at first off observing their mother and second off, the pattern recognition of what her. Her what? The mother's non verbal gestures, body language, eye gaze. He knew what that meant. What if that was what it was, is that she just glanced ever so briefly thinking this no way would he ever know right about that. Maybe she even subconsciously glanced. She didn't even realize that her eyes like flitted toward that just the tiniest bit. But then the kid saw it and was like, boom, now I know where it is, I can go get it. Right? Because, you know, when we learn to give assessments, for example, to children, you know that kids are really good at picking up when there's a right or wrong answer. Right. We're taught to try to mitigate that, to try to like kind of control kids predicting whether it's right or wrong. Right. We have to be really conscious of what we're doing with our own body and how we're marking down the right and wrong and whether the kids can see the score sheet or not. You know, we have to be careful with that because we know from previous studies and psychological, cognitive stuff that man, kids are good at pattern recognition. They are good at observing, they're good at picking up on tiny little cues that can really give them the answer. Right?
[00:25:10] And this pattern recognition also goes even further if you're talking about children who face adversity. Okay?
[00:25:19] Now I'm not saying these kids face adversity in their home per se, it doesn't even have to be a home thing. But if they face adversity when they go to the park and they want to play on the playground and they hear people talking about them or they see parents not wanting their speaking children to interact with that, you know, oh, don't look, don't know, don't talk to that kid. They're, they're, I don't know, something's wrong with them. No, don't talk to them. Right. These are non speaking autistics who likely are very apparent, they are apparently disabled to the world. So going through their life from a young age, they are going to hear, especially if they have intact auditory processing and cognition for understanding, which honestly most of them understand a whole lot more than we assume they do. If they are understanding that they're going to notice the stairs, they're going to notice the, the little. Yeah, don't sit next to them. No, don't play with them. They're going to notice that also other little kids will notice it. And kids who are inclined to bully kids will find them very easy targets for bullying. Right. Or for teasing or for whatever, you know. And so these kids are very likely to be exposed to some level of systemic, you know, discrimination, bias, stigma, you know, verbal microaggressions and bullying and, you know, things like that. Right?
[00:26:44] So if you take a kid who is used to experiencing the world through that lens. And they have really good pattern recognition, which quite frankly, we know a fair number of autistics in general have pretty good pattern recognition. They're going to become very observant because we know, and this is from literature, more about children who are in homes of addicts, particularly adult children of addicted parents. Okay.
[00:27:13] Studies around that has shown that adults, when they grow into adults, those children, if they grow up in some sort of unpredictable and yet very adverse home environment, they develop an uncanny ability to read the body language of others, to notice really subtle shifts in mood or facial expression before other people would notice this. Okay? They're highly sensitive to, like, little micro expression stuff, okay? And the potential explanation for this or the. The sort of general theories around this is that when we're kids, we're dependent on our caregivers for our sense of safety, right? And if we have a caregiver who is unpredictable, like people who are addicted to substances tend to be, then that sense of safety is highly disrupted, right? But in order to try to gain a sense of safety, our brain tries to predict the situation. They try to predict how to please that person. We try to develop a fawn response, essentially. We try to make sure we're pleasing that person to keep ourselves safe. If that person gets angry, I pay for that anger. I need to keep them happy, right? That's like what children, particularly in abusive homes, tend to end up in that sort of dynamic where they really try to please their parents as much as they can or their guardians, their caregivers as much as they can so that they can hopefully stay safe from abuse, from future abuse, to prevent future abusive situations, okay? So they develop this heightened fawn response. That's all dependent around really good pattern recognition of subtle changes in mood and expression and things like that, okay?
[00:28:55] And so like I said, I'm not saying these non speakers might have experienced. Experienced adversity in the home per se, but you cannot tell me that somebody with an apparent disability, meaning it's overt, meaning it's obvious, it's visible, if you will. Although I don't like visible because there are auditory tells that people have disabilities and other ways of noticing. So, you know, if somebody grows up like that, they're likely going to experience other situations where they might feel unsafe, they might feel others, they might hear mic. Verbal microaggressions, kids bullying, kids picking on them, they might feel unsafe just in general.
[00:29:34] So those kids are very likely to develop pretty darn good pattern recognition, I would say, and perhaps, perhaps a fairly strong fawn response. In the effort to keep other people happy with them so that they're not in danger of potential aggression, microaggressions, perhaps physical, as we would, as they call it in school, sometimes physical, very strong physical redirection, for example, where a staff member just, you know, takes their hand and like just kind of drags them across the room, which I don't, I don't think that's a very nice thing, but that happens a lot to these kids. So I would argue that, yeah, they probably, their brains probably do try to start to figure out how to prevent those sort of situations from happening as much as they possibly can. Right?
[00:30:17] And so that means that for situations like that mom thought of the Halloween candy and the kid magically knew where it was. Maybe the mom had a very subtle expressive tell that perhaps no one else would have even noticed, but that kid noticed because maybe they're very good at observing their mother and they're very connected to her non verbal communication. Okay? So that is an alternative explanation for what people are seeing in terms of them just somehow knowing when people are upset or just somehow knowing when someone's thinking of something. We all do these sort of, these, these tells basically, right? We all have like, if we, if we were, if we were, if we were playing poker, we all have a tell, right? So these kids might just be good at that. And I mean, I personally think it's a more plausible explanation, but also a more human explanation, right? This is something we see that happens in humans who are in adverse conditions. We see across the globe, across all types of humans. This is an ability humans can develop when they're under adverse conditions. This ability to kind of really recognize and to develop a really strong fawn response to keep themselves more safe. We know about that, right? So it makes sense to me that non speaking autistics, being humans, like the rest of us, they have that same ability. It also makes sense to me that when you look at speaking autistics who have really great pattern recognition, it makes sense to me that non speaking autistics can also have really great pattern recognition, right? So my counterpoint is basically saying maybe they're not telepathic, maybe they're just really smart. Maybe they're just really observant and really smart. And I feel like if people take issue with that as a possible second explanation, like why, why is that an issue? What, what is wrong with me saying these non speaking autistics might just be really smart?
[00:32:15] You know, I don't think that should be offensive. You know what I mean? But based off of some of the comments I got on that YouTube video, apparently it is kind of offensive to some. And it's like, why I. I really, truly want to know. And I feel like the answer is likely maybe a little bit of their own stigma and bias that they haven't really unpacked very well, you know what I mean? You know what I'm saying?
[00:32:39] So this also also brings me to potential motivations around the type of communication we see now in, in the world of alternative. Wait, augmentative alternative. I think I got them flipped minute of alternative communication stuff. Communication requires a modality, right? We need, especially if you're going to access expressive language, which is to be clear, communication is an umbrella term for any messages sent in and out and like understood between different beings. Even like my dog and myself, we communicate, right? But language is a formalized version of communication. So language is a very specific type of communication that's under the umbrella of communication, okay? So to access expressive language, if you are a non speaker, you're going to have to use some sort of either like sign language type thing. But if you don't have the fine motor, that's not going to work very well, right? Or some sort of device like a letter board or pictures or you know, maybe typing, writing or high tech AAC where we have what is called speech generating devices. Okay?
[00:33:48] So that's a modality, all right? The way we teach that, the methodology around teaching it, the best practices, maybe offer a little bit of physical support up front just to learn the motor planning, but you gotta withdraw that as fast as possible. And you want independent, you want the board to stand independent. Because we don't want that idiom order effect or that subconscious effect of like we're actually putting words in their mouth basically. But the other piece of communication that has to be accessed is the motivation to communicate.
[00:34:19] And this is where I think a lot of things get sticky with AAC in general. Because in my experience, a lot of people don't talk to non speakers. A lot of people talk about non speakers as if they're not in the room. Especially when they're kids, they go to school and they have staff members having entire conversations, adult conversations about adult topics, as if they can't understand a darn thing. They don't get interacted with very often and talked to very often. But the motivation is important, okay? We get motivated to communicate with people who we feel safe with, who we feel are addressing our needs, who are respecting our boundaries and our needs, right? We're not Very motivated to communicate with people when we don't like them. Okay, so sometimes in, like in this podcast, there are kids who try out certain AAC devices and don't make a lot of progress. And sometimes I really wonder, has anyone considered the motivation?
[00:35:19] Right. What are they motivated to communicate? And are they. Is that what is being addressed first? Not just what the adult thinks they should be able to communicate? Are we helping them to communicate something? They're motivated to communicate. Right. Wants and needs are usually one of the big things to be able to request certain needs, especially like if you're thirsty and you need some water or something. Like you want to be able to request certain things. You want to be able to protest, say no to certain things. Like please do not grab my hand without telling me to move me. You know? Right. Things like that is usually a great thing. You know that usually people are pretty motivated. I mean, little babies are pretty motivated to tell you when they're uncomfortable because they just cry. Right. But there's also motivation to please people, like I said with the fawn response stuff. So when we're thinking beyond babies, when we're thinking people get older, there is a motivation for some to please people.
[00:36:15] Now, talking about this motivation and pleasing people is the first thing I want to bring up as a possible explanation for the type of messages that are purported to come from these non speakers. Okay, so this is kind of getting at that section where now I'm kind of getting into playing devil's advocate a little bit and offering alternative explanations, presuming that what they tell me is true. Okay, so I am going to assume that these statements that they present, particularly in episode 10, are actually from the non speakers that were independently produced by communication modalities that have been vetted and they've been. Let's just say that it's 100% independent and that the adult is not producing this at all. It's. There's no way this is idiomotor effect. This is 100% from the non speaker. Okay, so one of these quotes I'm going to read off from the. One of the episode 10 transcripts is.
[00:37:07] It's one of a few quotes that have similar vibes, I'll put it that way. And I want to talk about it from that trauma informed perspective of motivation behind it. If we presume this is an independently produced statement, let's presume that and let's talk about other possibilities as to why this is what's being said. Once again, I'm reading this off from a transcript I will link below where I got this transcript from. I believe it was an AI generated transcript, but so it might not be 100% accurate, but this is purportedly how a non speaker named Anthony introduced himself with his former teacher. Marianne is reading the words off, off. Okay, so Marianne is reading Anthony's words. That's what's happening right here. Okay? And here's the quote. I am a futuristic human being. I came into this world with my eyes wide open. I'm a pure transparent soul here to help humanity evolve. I remember what most people have forgotten, and I'm in tune with vibrational frequencies that can match specific frequencies to access and to transfer thought forms into words.
[00:38:12] This ability also allows me to communicate interdimensionally. Aspects of my personality actually travel through space to dimensions most can only visit in their minds. They are as natural to me as your typical human stay is to you. I help people know who they are and prepare them for shifting their desires from the material to the ethereal world where all creative ideas are birthed.
[00:38:36] And in the transcript, it goes on to say basically what he meant by futuristic human was that he has abilities that humanity will evolve into. So apparently humanity is moving into this new form of telepathic communication. And it's a necessary evolutionary step, which. Listen, as a fan of X Men, this is sounding very X Men comic to me. A little bit, this whole, like the whole evolutionary thing, you know, next step in evolution, X Men.
[00:39:06] So let's just say Anthony produced this. Okay? I mean, let's just. Let's just go with the assumption. All right? Okay. There's obviously some red flags in this. I don't know Anthony's age. I'm gonna be honest, I'm not sure how old he is, but these are some pretty big words. So I'm assuming adult. I would assume this sounds like a very adult type of statement. But I guess, you know, if he's a higher being, I guess it makes sense that his language would be advanced. I guess that's what we would. That would be an assumption there. Right. But what's another possibility as to why he is agreeing that he's telepathic and saying that he's this future human next step in human evolution and all this stuff. I would argue some of that is motivation. Right. This is his teacher reading off this quote. This is a person in his life who he sees all the time, who, you know, maybe he wants to please her. Right. Maybe there's a fawn response here. Maybe it's a. I said this once and Honestly, maybe. Honestly, maybe some of them are joking. Very possible. Autistic people do have sense of humors, you know, but then people took it as. As fact and were like, oh my gosh, this is so amazing. Like, maybe it pleases their caregivers, maybe it pleases their teachers. It pleases the people that are around them all the time. And they like that, they like that they get treated well, they get attention, they get positive attention from these adults who are pleased by this type of stuff. Right? And that can't really be discredited. You can't necessarily discount the possibility of there being a motivational piece here because I honestly think a lot of times when I see kids who do not use their devices very much, it's with certain people and it's usually because those people don't actually treat them very well. So it's like, that makes sense. They don't want to talk to you, you're kind of mean to them. They don't want to talk to you. I get that. That makes total sense. Heyo. Right? I don't always want to talk to people who are kind of mean to me. You know what I mean? But if you have someone who's really kind to you and really sweet and really lovely and you find a way of talking to them that really pleases them, that's so validating, isn't it? It feels so good, right, to like really be pleasing someone who you really care about and by default to then be getting a lot of attention from that person. You know what I mean? That's sort of the devil's advocate of if these are independent. It doesn't necessarily still make these statements 100% true.
[00:41:34] If you're not talking to these people outside of having these very common caregivers, common facilitators, common communication partners around. Right? And the other part of my brain, the little nerd aversion, the little au. DHD part of my brain is very confused, honestly, by these statements because I mean, I guess they're only presenting the communication that is like pertinent to their, their argument here in this episode. But I don't know where the info dumps are, you know what I mean? Like I'm on Tumblr. Listen, I've been on Tumblr for like 13 some odd years and I'm pretty deep in fandoms and stuff. And there are some non speaking blood blogs, there's some non speakers on Tumblr and I 100 buy that. That's a non speaker communicating independently. And you know why because they info dump, okay? They go deep into the fandom lore, right? They know all the stuff about that fandom and they info dump about other interests, right? They connect the like fandom interest with other hyper fixations and like, that's a very natural part of autistic and just neurodivergent in general probably, but especially autistic ADHD type communication is info dumps, okay? This is a very big part of how we talk to each other, all right? And even like there have even been studies that have shown we talk to each other differently than neurotypical talk, okay? You match up the neurotypes and we understand each other pretty dang well. And so, you know, my argument with that is if you're really truly humanizing these, these non speakers, they probably operate fairly similar to other neurodivergence in the sense of how they communicate. And like, where are the info dumps? That statement was a long statement, but that was not an info dump, okay? That was not an info dump about being a higher order human being, okay? Like there should have been way more detail. It should have given more of the vibe of like, if anyone out there ever actually read A Song of Ice and Fire, the book series that a Game of Thrones is based off of. If you read George R.R. martin's, you know, work, the dude goes so far into detail on like the clothing people wear and the type of food that's on the table. And we're not talking Charles Dickens. He's paid by the word. So like he clearly is into those details and he just in like he info dumps on them, okay? Like, like there's pages and pages of it and that should have been the vibe. There should have been more info dumpy details about being multi dimensional and, and interdimensionally wired and like, you know, like there should have been more info dumps on what thoughts look like and like people who think in, in concepts versus pictures and people who think with words versus pictures or concepts and like, like there should have just been way more, you know, honestly. And I mean, maybe the teacher paraphrased it or something, but like, where's the info dump? You know, and also, total side note, I'm not saying George R.R. martin is like autistic, but you know, I'm also not, not saying that because like, yeah, I don't, I don't have a better explanation for why he puts in like 10 pages at a time on like the food that, that was at a particular feast or the, the doublets people were wearing, he gives way more detail than is probably necessary. So. Yeah, but that's what info dumps be like. They be like, let me give you a lot more specifics than are necessary. You know what I mean? So like either the teacher paraphrased this or I'm not 100% sold that an autistic actually was telling me about their supernatural abilities. Because I would expect a lot more info dumping about this. You know what I mean? Just saying, neurodivergent perspective there. Oh, also relative to that info dump idea. Also, you have to realize info dumps don't take the organization of like a five point essay, you know, it's not like we organize them really well. Well, it's like that also makes me think of this and then that makes me think of that and then that connects to that because of this. And then. Oh, and actually, you know what I was just thinking about? This is another thing. Like, it's more like that. It's more like a. Just like a listicle, but also with diverging connections and like kind of funneling around to the original thought, you know, like, that's how it goes. The organization should not have been so I would say neurotypical with like a very clear beginning and end. It should have been a little more funnelly.
[00:45:59] So the other like devil's advocate thing I want to play is that throughout a lot of these episodes, from what I saw on the transcripts that I read, a lot of it was talking about how if people could accept the telepathy, then it would really reduce stigma and it would like, change the world and change society.
[00:46:20] Now, as a little bit of a comic book geek, a little bit like, I'm not as hardcore as some, but as someone who followed a lot of the X Men, especially being like preteen teenage years prior to the movies happening, I was in the X Men lore, okay? And I'm just sitting here thinking, I don't think these people know about the X Men lore. I don't think they understand.
[00:46:46] Like, that is an entire comic series based in the fact that you could literally have superheroes in the world with these superpowers. And the only thing that really comes out of that is it's going to scare the crap out of other humans. That's pretty much what it is, right? There's the whole like. And there's a lot, of course there's a lot of metaphors toward other like, marginalized groups and how they're treated and like registering people. And that's seriously a whole comic book about that.
[00:47:15] And that's what I have to say. Like listen with the telepathy aspects here. If, if these non speakers are telepathic, even if they can only read the minds of people they feel loved towards, there's still issues here with like privacy concerns, right? Like, what if one day one staff member is somehow thinking about like wanting to maybe have an affair with somebody and it's like, oh snap, did that non speaker just hear me thinking about that? Oh no, what if he tells everybody? Then I'm over here thirsting for this person who's not my spouse. You know what I mean? Like potential issues there. And that's the kind of stuff that freaks people out. That's the kind of stuff, like I don't think it's going to reduce stigma. I think it's going to make people a little more freaked out. Let's, let's be true about this, okay? Let's, let's face the facts. Knowing someone could read your mind, does that idea freak you out or not?
[00:48:11] Because to me sometimes I'm thinking, oh, that'd be kind of cool. And there are other times I'm thinking, I am so glad people cannot hear my thoughts right now. This is good. I'm glad that those thoughts are my thoughts and I just can keep my mouth shut about em, you know what I mean? So privacy concerns also, total side note that also brings in privacy concerns across the board for non speakers. By the way, I was reading this one great plug post on Tumblr actually from a non speaker about how even with high tech devices it's like they don't always feel they have a right to privacy because their devices record what they're saying. You know, kind of like as if you were texting every single word you say. There's always like a written record of what you're saying. And that's also kind of an issue with like these, this kind of facilitated esque communication type of modalities where you always have to have someone with physical support. There's no right to privacy. They're never able to communicate in private. You know, they're not able to just log on online and like connect to a community that's like outside of that caregiver, you know what I mean? So that's also another like kind of ethical thing about this that doesn't often get considered because we don't often consider non speakers need to privacy the way the rest of us need it because we tend to dehumanize them a bit and not think about that. You Know what I mean? And then that also brings me to my last point of the kind of, you know what if this is true, my other question is like, what does it actually functionally change like in the day to day life of these non speakers? Like I guess if they are telepathic, maybe there's increased communication between them and their caregivers with the whole love connection or whatever, but it still doesn't really change their need for an independent communication modality that allows them a right to privacy, that allows them to open up more close connected to relationships to adults who are not trained in the communication facilitation stuff that they use, right? Like they still need independent access like that and they still need to be able to communicate with just like strangers if they're going to get around the city or if they're going to run to and run into a restaurant and like grab some food or something. And like they need a way to do that because humans don't communicate telepathically just in general throughout our day. Right. So it doesn't really change the need for independent access to communication. Maybe it improves day to day life in the home, which cannot be underestimated. I mean that's wonderful and great, but it would not really improve quality of life in my view outside of the presence of the caregiver that they, you know, purportedly reading the minds of.
[00:50:46] It just doesn't really change the quality of life overall. Right.
[00:50:52] So in conclusion, I have some very big unanswered questions in my mind that are essentially concerns of mine that I really would like to see the supporters of this address, which is the skepticism around if this communication actually is independent of the physical support they're receiving from their communication partner or facilitator.
[00:51:19] And also my concerns around like the motivation for the type of communication and you know, do they have right to privacy? Are they able to communicate without the presence of another person around? If they want to, can they just write out or type out something without someone around? Can. Do they have access to like friends without the presence of an adult? Right. Do they have access of like same aged friends without having to have another adult around? You know what I mean? Like do they have access and quality of life that's equal to any other kid, you know, because that is still very much needed. And also like we, you know, people just want some solid converging evidence that it is independent, right. That they are able to access communication independently, which means like multiple different research labs, converging evidence, things like that, right. We want them to be independent of the facilitator with them, not just for quality of life, but also to determine that it actually is them actually doing the communication. Because if it's not, it really is potentially putting them in harm's way in a very big way. Like I said on FacilitatedCommunication.org they have a whole list of court cases that will hopefully demonstrate why damage mitigation in this case is extremely important. And I personally think it's unethical to ignore it. You know, it's a pretty big thing to mitigate the potential damage of having this vulnerable population be opened up to even more harm by people who just can kind of invent their own narrative around what they think this person wants to say. Right.
[00:53:02] My other unanswered question would be the alternate possibility that the non speakers are actually very smart and very observant and just really, really good at pattern recognition. I don't know why that's offensive. Right. And I would argue that if it's easier for people to see them as superhuman rather than being intelligent, that's a potential sign of stigma. That's a sign of some bias that you might have toward non speakers, that I would really encourage people to unpack that bias and to unpack the dehumanization rather than just going along with the superpower narrative, you know, just write off. Does that make sense?
[00:53:40] So in conclusion, if you're curious about telepathy or just supernatural stuff in general, that's great. Go ahead and be curious, totally fine.
[00:53:52] But make sure your curiosity covers all of humanity and doesn't just target marginalized groups, because that's when it becomes pretty problematic. Right. I understand that there's a certain level of hopelessness and powerlessness, especially in the face of societal adversity, discrimination, and. And dehumanization. That can be very scary and also be in the context of systems that grossly under support caregivers and like, just is really not set up very well at all. I get that there are. There's a lot of heaviness and trauma, quite frankly, embedded in that as well. But it is important to not try to alleviate that with some sort of like essentially inspiration porn where you are equally damaging the movement toward social equity and access and rights. You know what I mean? It's equally dehumanizing to say, but they're just so special. It's like, no, they need to just be seen as fully human. Right? They should have the right to basically say, you know, in a ideally somewhat snarky voice like, mom, I don't Want to go to the grocery store today or that you. David. Okay, like that's also humanizing, you know what I mean? I also want to encourage people to realize that non speaking and autistic is not like a synonym. Okay? Not all non speakers are autistic. And I would argue that non speaking autistics likely aren't like super crazy different cognitively from speaking autistics, right? There's probably a large spectrum and a large variety there, just like with speaking autistics. But my point is speaking ability really tells you nothing about a person's cognitive abilities, their abilities to think and to understand the world around them, right? So like we should be comfortable saying if there is an Einstein in the speaking world, we should be comfortable saying there's an Einstein in the non speaking world. Very likely and similar there, you know, if there's, you know, kind of like the Jason Mendoza character for Good Place, kind of that himbo. I don't know if you know the term himbo from online. A himbo is somebody who is pure of heart but dumb of ass. That is the, the given Internet definition of himbo. Usually a guy, usually a male character who is pure of heart but dumb of ass. I think Chris Hemsworth essentially, like in the female Ghostbusters reboot, Chris Hemsworth kind of played a himbo, right? Like if you have those kind of people in existence in the speaking world, they also probably exist in the non speaking world too. You know what I mean? If you have stand up comics in the speaking world, you'd probably would have stand up comics in the non speaking world, you know what I mean? So that's my main actionable item, is to test yourself a bit for that dehumanizing rhetoric. So if you can't imagine a non speaker being a certain type of human or having a certain type of personality, or having a certain type of intellect and ability in that area, that's a red flag. And conversely, if you want to think that they have or are so incredibly enlightened that you can't imagine them saying something like, ugh, mom, I don't want to, right? Then that's also a red flag. You know, fully human means the full context, having access to the full range of human emotion, the frustration, the annoyance, being annoyed with puberty, having crushes, like all of it, right? Having sexual desires also, which is something that most people don't even really think about. The more significant this ability, the less people think of them as actually having like sexual interest with sexual desire. So that's a whole another Thing which there are some advocates out there now coming out about, which is great. But yeah, that's a whole different topic, I think for a different day. But nonetheless, for all caregivers and professionals who work with any autistics, non speaking or otherwise, really keeping an eye out for this kind of magical disability trope thing is important to acknowledge and to look at because it is a potentially very damaging rhetoric that I think we all need to know about so we can increase our cultural awareness and the cultural humility around the disabled community and also make us better allies and better able to help advocate for equity and inclusion in all spaces. Okay, all right, that was fairly heavy. But with all that said, I hope you guys have a great couple of weeks. I am actually working on finishing up my last Burnout series, which is the neurodivergent Burnout episode where I bring up a bit of my own experience with it and also ties into my next series that I'm still working on and that I hope to get going on. But oh, the scripting is taking a while because it is on systemic oppression, which is a pretty heavy topic. So I will be going on that, but that will be the next bit. And this is essentially this episode itself is kind of a bit of a preview toward that idea. But with all of that said, I really do hope you have a a good couple of weeks or so. Hang in there. I know it's tough right now, but you take care of yourself, ground yourself. Don't feel guilty for sometimes just needing to turn off the news and like just chilling and doing a little self care and like, you know, that's okay. It's important to regulate, regulate, regulate, process the emotions so that we hopefully don't burn out too much. And yeah, take care of yourselves and I will catch you guys later next time.
