Find me on Substack and at FacilitatedCommunication.org
Science of Human Writing Facilitated Communication And occasional, as other topics arise, back here at OILF.
Out In Left Field
Latest posts
FC Past and Present: A Now-Normalized Routine that Solves Nothing
A few weeks ago, I encountered something that surprised me: a full-length documentary about profound autism. Even though it came out in 2023, I’d somehow never heard of it—and neither had any of my autism cronies. Furthermore, from its initial scenes all the way to its ending, it lived up to its promise as a realistic portrayal of the trials of life with profound autism. It was, in other words, a…
Can HoloLens lessons liberate S2Ced individuals from their facilitators?—plus a recap of Jaswal et al.’s 2023-2025 virtual reality oeuvre
Over the past couple of years, S2C proponent Vikram Jaswal, Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia and the father of an S2C user , and Diwakar Krishnamurthy, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Calgary and the father of an RPM user have co-authored several papers on the development of virtual tools that enable S2C users to virtually select virtual…
Can the HoloGaze liberate S2Ced individuals from their facilitators?
Over the past couple of years, S2C proponent Vikram Jaswal, Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia and the father of an S2C user , and Diwakar Krishnamurthy, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Calgary and the father of an RPM user have co-authored several papers on the development of virtual tools that enable S2C users to virtually select virtual…
Can Jaswal’s “LetterBoxes” substitute for letterboards?
Can Jaswal’s “LetterBoxes” substitute for letterboards? Over the past couple of years, S2C proponent Vikram Jaswal, Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia and the father of an S2C user , and Diwakar Krishnamurthy, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Calgary and the father of an RPM user have co-authored several papers on the development of virtual…
Can Jaswal’s “HoloBoards” substitute for letterboards? Part II
This post picks up where I left off in my discussion of a recent paper co-authored by Vikram Jaswal, Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia and the father of an S2C user , and Diwakar Krishnamurthy, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Calgary and the father of an RPM user . This paper, Alabood et al. 2024 (Jaswal and Krishnamurthy are listed,…
Can Jaswal’s “HoloBoards” substitute for letterboards? Part I
Over the past couple of years, S2C proponent Vikram Jaswal, Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia and the father of an S2C user , and Diwakar Krishnamurthy, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Calgary and the father of an RPM user have co-authored several papers on the development of virtual tools that enable S2C users to virtually select virtual…
University of Minnesota Center for Genomics Engineering on “Celebrating Emelia: Science for All”
Continuing my closer look at some of the news items from our recent news roundup , I now turn to a June 26th article on the University of Minnesota Center for Genomics Engineering website entitled Celebrating Emelia: Science for All . Emelia, 11 years old, is described as “bright, bold, and brilliant,” and as having “a rare genetic mutation known as DDX3X.” Steph Kennelly, the author of this…
Our communication rights paper is out!
Despite all the pressure from self-styled neurodiversity and disability rights advocates who support facilitated communication, Rapid Prompting Method, and Spelling to Communicate, a reputable journal dared to publish it You can access the entire article here .
Jefferson Public Radio on “Medford psychiatrist’s research into autism and telepathy sparks debate over communication”
Continuing my closer look at some of the news items from our recent news roundup , I now turn to a May 2nd piece on Jefferson Public Radio entitled Medford psychiatrist’s research into autism and telepathy sparks debate over communication . This new item showcases Johns Hopkins-trained psychiatrist Dr. Diane Powell, whose name should be familiar to anyone familiar with the Telepathy Tapes as the…
Cincinnati local news and NPR Weekend Edition on Jakob Jordan
Continuing my closer look at some of the news items from our recent news roundup , I now turn to three items that focus on the son of Cincinnati radio personality Jenn Jordan. The first is an April 10th interview on WLWT News 5 Today (a news station out of Cincinnati) entitled Son of Cincinnati radio personality defying the odds during Autism Acceptance Month . The focus of this interview is Jenn…
Twitter suspensions and their aftermath
Every so often my Twitter suspension comes up on social media, with various detractors of mine voicing different theories about why I was suspended from Twitter. FC/RPM/S2C proponents seem to think I was suspended for “bullying” remarks and/or “violent threats” against autistic individuals and/or autistic advocates. Crazy as this sounds, I have s creenshots that show FC/RPM/S2C proponents actually…
University of Toronto Magazine on “When Words Won’t Cooperate”
In this post, I’ll focus on a second news item from my recent news roundup : a January 23 rd article in the University of Toronto Magazine entitled When Words Won’t Cooperate . In this article, journalist Alison Motluk focuses how a neuroscientist in the University of Toronto psychology department, Morgan Barense, “aims to crack the mystery of non-speaking autism.” The mystery, apparently, has to…
Disability Scoop on “Communication Method Finally Gives Nonverbal Woman A Voice”
In the next few posts, I’ll be looking at some of the news items from our recent news roundup in greater depth. Proceeding in chronological order, I’ll begin with the January 10th article in Disability Scoop ( Communication Method Finally Gives Nonverbal Woman A Voice .) This article presents the usual miracle cure story of someone opened up by S2C. Less usual is the person it showcases, Talia…
FC/RPM/S2C News Roundup: January to July, 2025
It’s been about 6 months since our last news roundup of FC/S2C/RPM, and we just finished our seven-part series on the Lower Merion trial, so we thought it appropriate to roundup and post the FC/S2C/RPM. news items that have come out since the turn of the year. One striking thing, overall, is how few of these articles are about the Telepathy Tapes, briefly the number 1 podcast on Spotify, and…
Spelling to Communicate Goes on Trial: Part VII, The Conclusion
This is the seventh and final installment in a series on a Spelling to Communicate (S2C) lawsuit against a school district. You can read more about the background in my first post , but, in brief, the lawsuit arose because the school district, the Lower Merion School District of Lower Merion PA, refused to hire an S2C “communication partner” for the parents’ non-speaking autistic son (A.L.). This…
Spelling to Communicate Goes on Trial: Part VI
This is the sixth installment in a series on a Spelling to Communicate (S2C) lawsuit against a school district. You can read more about the background in my first post , but, in brief, the lawsuit arose because the school district, the Lower Merion School District of Lower Merion PA, refused to hire an S2C “communication partner” for the parents’ non-speaking autistic son (A.L.). This series…
Spelling to Communicate Goes on Trial, Part V
This is the sixth installment in a series on a Spelling to Communicate (S2C) lawsuit against a school district. You can read more about the background in my first post , but, in brief, the lawsuit arose because the school district, the Lower Merion School District of Lower Merion PA, refused to hire an S2C “communication partner” for the parents’ non-speaking autistic son (A.L.). This series…
A linguist's take on linguists' takes
If you want to critique a linguist's paper, you don't need a PhD in linguistics. You don't even need an undergraduate degree in linguistics. But you do need to read beyond the paper's abstract. If you do that, you might find, say, that the well-known existence of unanalyzed phrases in early language acquisition--e.g., "lemme" (for "let me"); "wanna" (for "want to")--qualify neither as examples of…
Spelling to Communicate Goes on Trial: Part IV
This is the fourth part in a series on a Spelling to Communicate (S2C) lawsuit against a school district. You can read more about the background in my first post, but, in brief, the lawsuit arose because the school district, the Lower Merion School District of Lower Merion PA, refused to hire an S2C “communication partner” for the parents’ non-speaking autistic son (A.L.). This series focuses,…
Spelling to Communicate Goes on Trial: Part III
This is the third part in a series on a Spelling to Communicate (S2C) lawsuit against a school district. You can read more about the background in my first post , but, in brief, the lawsuit arose because the school district, the Lower Merion School District of Lower Merion PA, refused to hire an S2C “communication partner” for the parents’ non-speaking autistic son (A.L.). This series focuses,…
Spelling to Communicate Goes on Trial: Part II
Spelling to Communicate Goes on Trial: Part II This is the second part in a series on a Spelling to Communicate (S2C) lawsuit against a school district. You can read more about the background in my first post , but, in brief, the lawsuit arose because the school district, the Lower Merion School District of Lower Merion PA, refused to hire an S2C “communication partner” for the parents’…
Spelling to Communicate goes to trial
After three months of talking about telepathy, I’m changing the subject to courtroom drama. For the last few years I served as an expert witness in a lawsuit again a school district in suburban Philadelphia. The case, which dates back to 2019, came to an end in January. While not nearly as extraordinary as telepathy, some of the drama was as odd as Oz. As in the Land of Oz. First, some background…
Just out--a review of Richard Phelps' The Malfunction of U.S. Education Policy: Elite Misinformation, Disinformation, and Selfishness
This is an important book making key points others haven't thought of--or dared to say. Our current testing regime is much worse than most people realize. Good educational tests, like well-controlled message-passing tests, are what separate the science from the pseudoscience; the evidence-based from the quackery. My review is here:…
When nothing else works: Blaming the scientific method instead of the pseudoscience
The world of facilitated communication and variants (RPM, S2C, Spellers Method) is heavily fortified against researchers and skeptics. Those fortifications are one reason why, despite all the evidence against it, and besides all the support it provides to desperate parents in impossible situations, FC/RPM/S2C has persisted for so many decades. Some fortifications derive from social pressure. Using…