Katharine Beals
@katharinebeals.bsky.social
Author of "Students with Autism" and "Cutting-Edge Language and Literacy Tools for Students on the Autism Spectrum."
Designer of the SentenceWeaver: interactive grammar instruction for students with autism.
Adjunct at Temple, Drexel, and Penn.
Designer of the SentenceWeaver: interactive grammar instruction for students with autism.
Adjunct at Temple, Drexel, and Penn.
The only time the HoloBoard typing was definitively unprompted was when it occurred in solo mode. Only 5 kids could do that & all they did was spell short answers when asked to do so (name, home city, parents’ names, favorite movie, age).
www.facilitatedcommunication.org/blog/can-jas...
www.facilitatedcommunication.org/blog/can-jas...
Can Jaswal’s “HoloBoards” substitute for letterboards? Part II — Facilitated Communication
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 ...
www.facilitatedcommunication.org
November 13, 2025 at 1:09 PM
The only time the HoloBoard typing was definitively unprompted was when it occurred in solo mode. Only 5 kids could do that & all they did was spell short answers when asked to do so (name, home city, parents’ names, favorite movie, age).
www.facilitatedcommunication.org/blog/can-jas...
www.facilitatedcommunication.org/blog/can-jas...
Good article but she might have credited the website from which she took her image.
asteriskmag.com/issues/12-bo...
www.facilitatedcommunication.org
asteriskmag.com/issues/12-bo...
www.facilitatedcommunication.org
November 12, 2025 at 1:08 PM
Good article but she might have credited the website from which she took her image.
asteriskmag.com/issues/12-bo...
www.facilitatedcommunication.org
asteriskmag.com/issues/12-bo...
www.facilitatedcommunication.org
"instead of steering those people in the direction of reliably controlled methods and techniques to address the complex communication needs of their clients and loved ones, she sends them on a wild goose chase with the promise of a magical solution to real world problems."
Review of Diane Hennacy Powell's Interview with Scott Barry Kaufman: FC, Telepathy, and Subvocalization (Part 3)
www.facilitatedcommunication.org/blog/review-...
www.facilitatedcommunication.org/blog/review-...
Review of Diane Hennacy Powell’s Interview with Scott Barry Kaufman: FC, Telepathy, and Subvocalization (Part 3) — Facilitated Communication
This blog post is the third and final in a series featuring an interview Scott Barry Kaufman of “The Psychology Podcast” did with Telepathy Tapes promoter Diane Hennacy Powell. (Links to previous blog...
www.facilitatedcommunication.org
November 6, 2025 at 1:00 AM
"instead of steering those people in the direction of reliably controlled methods and techniques to address the complex communication needs of their clients and loved ones, she sends them on a wild goose chase with the promise of a magical solution to real world problems."
Reposted by Katharine Beals
Autism does not involve a "deranged relationship with one's body."
My moderately autistic son, who can express all his thoughts thru writing, will never be published by the NYTimes. His level of writing is consistent with his diagnosis, and w/ the tremendous language interventions he received.
My moderately autistic son, who can express all his thoughts thru writing, will never be published by the NYTimes. His level of writing is consistent with his diagnosis, and w/ the tremendous language interventions he received.
October 20, 2025 at 3:25 PM
Autism does not involve a "deranged relationship with one's body."
My moderately autistic son, who can express all his thoughts thru writing, will never be published by the NYTimes. His level of writing is consistent with his diagnosis, and w/ the tremendous language interventions he received.
My moderately autistic son, who can express all his thoughts thru writing, will never be published by the NYTimes. His level of writing is consistent with his diagnosis, and w/ the tremendous language interventions he received.
This is what it looks like when J. types:
www.tiktok.com/@daily_writi...
www.tiktok.com/@daily_writi...
October 20, 2025 at 3:20 PM
This is what it looks like when J. types:
www.tiktok.com/@daily_writi...
www.tiktok.com/@daily_writi...
It's out!
Despite all the pressure from self-styled #autism #neurodiversity advocates!
And open access, no less! You can access the whole article on this link
This stuff should NOT be controversial!!
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Despite all the pressure from self-styled #autism #neurodiversity advocates!
And open access, no less! You can access the whole article on this link
This stuff should NOT be controversial!!
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
October 5, 2025 at 12:16 PM
It's out!
Despite all the pressure from self-styled #autism #neurodiversity advocates!
And open access, no less! You can access the whole article on this link
This stuff should NOT be controversial!!
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Despite all the pressure from self-styled #autism #neurodiversity advocates!
And open access, no less! You can access the whole article on this link
This stuff should NOT be controversial!!
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
A journalist strives for "balance", and makes yet another reference to those "100 studies" that supposedly find evidence for FC/RPM/S2C.
www.facilitatedcommunication.org/blog/jeffers...
www.facilitatedcommunication.org/blog/jeffers...
Jefferson Public Radio on “Medford psychiatrist’s research into autism and telepathy sparks debate over communication” — Facilitated 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 an...
www.facilitatedcommunication.org
October 1, 2025 at 8:21 PM
A journalist strives for "balance", and makes yet another reference to those "100 studies" that supposedly find evidence for FC/RPM/S2C.
www.facilitatedcommunication.org/blog/jeffers...
www.facilitatedcommunication.org/blog/jeffers...
"Since these are experiments on humans, has UVA’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) approved the testing? And does the testing include authorship testing for FC/S2C/RPM, since we already know that these are facilitator-dependent techniques?"
Review of Joe Rogan's interview with Telepathy Tapes host Ky Dickens: the stuff of conspiracy theories, fantasy, and urban legends (Part 4)
www.facilitatedcommunication.org/blog/review-...
www.facilitatedcommunication.org/blog/review-...
Review of Joe Rogan’s Interview with Telepathy Tapes Host Ky Dickens: The Stuff of Conspiracy Theories, Fantasy, and Urban Legends (Part 4) — Facilitated Communication
Today’s blog post is a continuation of a review of Joe Rogan’s interview with Telepathy Tapes host Ky Dickens (links to prior blog posts below). Normally, I don’t spend multiple blog posts on one inte...
www.facilitatedcommunication.org
September 24, 2025 at 6:50 PM
"Since these are experiments on humans, has UVA’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) approved the testing? And does the testing include authorship testing for FC/S2C/RPM, since we already know that these are facilitator-dependent techniques?"
Reposted by Katharine Beals
Review of Joe Rogan's interview with Telepathy Tapes host Ky Dickens: the stuff of conspiracy theories, fantasy, and urban legends (Part 4)
www.facilitatedcommunication.org/blog/review-...
www.facilitatedcommunication.org/blog/review-...
Review of Joe Rogan’s Interview with Telepathy Tapes Host Ky Dickens: The Stuff of Conspiracy Theories, Fantasy, and Urban Legends (Part 4) — Facilitated Communication
Today’s blog post is a continuation of a review of Joe Rogan’s interview with Telepathy Tapes host Ky Dickens (links to prior blog posts below). Normally, I don’t spend multiple blog posts on one inte...
www.facilitatedcommunication.org
September 24, 2025 at 12:28 PM
Review of Joe Rogan's interview with Telepathy Tapes host Ky Dickens: the stuff of conspiracy theories, fantasy, and urban legends (Part 4)
www.facilitatedcommunication.org/blog/review-...
www.facilitatedcommunication.org/blog/review-...
Barense “believes that many autistic ppl who don’t speak may be hindered not by problems of intellect but motor control... She doesn’t seem to be aware of the Chen et al. study and what it says about how problems of with motor control in non-speakers correlate with comprehension deficits."
University of Toronto Magazine on "When words won't cooperate"
www.facilitatedcommunication.org/blog/univers...
www.facilitatedcommunication.org/blog/univers...
University of Toronto Magazine on “When Words Won’t Cooperate” — Facilitated Communication
In this post, I’ll focus on a second news item from our recent news roundup : a January 23rd article in the University of Toronto Magazine entitled When Words Won’t Cooperate . In this article, j...
www.facilitatedcommunication.org
September 3, 2025 at 7:08 PM
Barense “believes that many autistic ppl who don’t speak may be hindered not by problems of intellect but motor control... She doesn’t seem to be aware of the Chen et al. study and what it says about how problems of with motor control in non-speakers correlate with comprehension deficits."
In a separate interview, Ky Dickens "mentions she is (or was at the time of the interview) training to become an S2C facilitator. I find it curious that, in the first 10 episodes of the Telepathy Tapes podcast, Dickens fails to mention this fact."
Joe Rogan's interview with Telepathy Tapes Host Ky Dickens: the stuff of conspiracy theories, fantasy, and urban legends (Part 3)
www.facilitatedcommunication.org/blog/review-...
www.facilitatedcommunication.org/blog/review-...
Review of Joe Rogan’s Interview with Telepathy Tapes Host Ky Dickens: The Stuff of Conspiracy Theories, Fantasy, and Urban Legends (Part 3) — Facilitated Communication
Today’s blog post is the third installment of my review of Joe Rogan’s interview with Telepathy Tapes host Ky Dickens. I’d intended for this to be the last blog post in the series but based on the fee...
www.facilitatedcommunication.org
August 27, 2025 at 4:52 PM
In a separate interview, Ky Dickens "mentions she is (or was at the time of the interview) training to become an S2C facilitator. I find it curious that, in the first 10 episodes of the Telepathy Tapes podcast, Dickens fails to mention this fact."
From unlocked genius to telepathy to time travel--gullible reporters fall for facilitated communication (#FC/#RPM/#S2C)--and a handful of reporters report responsibly.
www.facilitatedcommunication.org/blog/fcrpms2...
www.facilitatedcommunication.org/blog/fcrpms2...
FC/RPM/S2C News Roundup: January to July, 2025 — Facilitated Communication
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 ho
www.facilitatedcommunication.org
August 6, 2025 at 6:21 PM
From unlocked genius to telepathy to time travel--gullible reporters fall for facilitated communication (#FC/#RPM/#S2C)--and a handful of reporters report responsibly.
www.facilitatedcommunication.org/blog/fcrpms2...
www.facilitatedcommunication.org/blog/fcrpms2...
Standing outside in the snow in the middle of the cemetery, I asked myself the same question I’d asked myself in Courtroom 15B on December 2nd after A.L. typed out his first response about was happening in a picture. Why didn’t I see this coming?
www.facilitatedcommunication.org/blog/spellin...
www.facilitatedcommunication.org/blog/spellin...
Spelling to Communicate Goes on Trial: Part VII, The Conclusion — Facilitated Communication
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, th...
www.facilitatedcommunication.org
July 23, 2025 at 3:15 PM
Standing outside in the snow in the middle of the cemetery, I asked myself the same question I’d asked myself in Courtroom 15B on December 2nd after A.L. typed out his first response about was happening in a picture. Why didn’t I see this coming?
www.facilitatedcommunication.org/blog/spellin...
www.facilitatedcommunication.org/blog/spellin...
Reposted by Katharine Beals
Spelling to Communicate Goes on Trial: Part VII (The Conclusion)
www.facilitatedcommunication.org/blog/spellin...
www.facilitatedcommunication.org/blog/spellin...
Spelling to Communicate Goes on Trial: Part VII, The Conclusion — Facilitated Communication
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, th...
www.facilitatedcommunication.org
July 23, 2025 at 8:05 AM
Spelling to Communicate Goes on Trial: Part VII (The Conclusion)
www.facilitatedcommunication.org/blog/spellin...
www.facilitatedcommunication.org/blog/spellin...
Favorite nugget: "Nonspeaking individuals have evolved so much that they no longer need “spelling” to communicate. They only use FC because their (neurotypical) facilitators have not yet evolved enough to keep up with their abilities."
What We're Told to Believe About FC, Telepathic Abilities, and Individuals with Profound Autism: Thoughts about the Telepathy Tapes (Episode 10)
www.facilitatedcommunication.org/blog/what-we...
www.facilitatedcommunication.org/blog/what-we...
What We’re Told to Believe About FC, Telepathic Abilities, and Individuals with Profound Autism: Thoughts about the Telepathy Tapes (Episode 10) — Facilitated Communication
In Episode 10 of the Telepathy Tapes, we are told by documentarian Ky Dickens that what follows are the words of nonspeaking individuals with autism who have communicated their thoughts telepathically...
www.facilitatedcommunication.org
July 16, 2025 at 8:42 PM
Favorite nugget: "Nonspeaking individuals have evolved so much that they no longer need “spelling” to communicate. They only use FC because their (neurotypical) facilitators have not yet evolved enough to keep up with their abilities."
Reposted by Katharine Beals
🧵🆓🔓🦋 #bskySPEECHIES. #Brava @carorowland.bsky.social et al. See that, @bronwynhemsley.bsky.social @lucyebryant.bsky.social @katharinebeals.bsky.social Not a gestalt language processor in site, no mention of analytic language learners because it's all strictly rooted in empiricism!
Children are incredible language learning machines. But how do they do it? Our latest paper, just published in TICS, synthesizes decades of evidence to propose four components that must be built into any theory of how children learn language. 1/
www.cell.com/trends/cogni... @mpi-nl.bsky.social
www.cell.com/trends/cogni... @mpi-nl.bsky.social
Constructing language: a framework for explaining acquisition
Explaining how children build a language system is a central goal of research in language
acquisition, with broad implications for language evolution, adult language processing,
and artificial intelli...
www.cell.com
June 27, 2025 at 9:08 AM
🧵🆓🔓🦋 #bskySPEECHIES. #Brava @carorowland.bsky.social et al. See that, @bronwynhemsley.bsky.social @lucyebryant.bsky.social @katharinebeals.bsky.social Not a gestalt language processor in site, no mention of analytic language learners because it's all strictly rooted in empiricism!
What will it take for more prominent autism specialists and advocates to speak out more publicly against this? www.fox5dc.com/video/1663794
Spelling to Communicate helping break the silence for millions
Imagine being unable to speak but yet having a full inner world filled with thoughts, ideas, and feelings all trapped inside. For the estimated 30 million nonspeaking individuals around the world, tha...
www.fox5dc.com
June 26, 2025 at 12:28 PM
What will it take for more prominent autism specialists and advocates to speak out more publicly against this? www.fox5dc.com/video/1663794
Message-passing failure:
www.facilitatedcommunication.org/blog/spellin...
www.facilitatedcommunication.org/blog/spellin...
Spelling to Communicate Goes on Trial: Part V — Facilitated Communication
This is the fifth 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 ar...
www.facilitatedcommunication.org
June 25, 2025 at 3:54 PM
Message-passing failure:
www.facilitatedcommunication.org/blog/spellin...
www.facilitatedcommunication.org/blog/spellin...
oilf.blogspot.com/2025/06/a-li...
@carolinebowen.bsky.social @bronwynhemsley.bsky.social @lucyebryant.bsky.social
@carolinebowen.bsky.social @bronwynhemsley.bsky.social @lucyebryant.bsky.social
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....
oilf.blogspot.com
June 24, 2025 at 4:08 PM
Reposted by Katharine Beals
Mixing Misinformation with Magical Thinking: Thoughts about the Telepathy Tapes (Episode 8)
www.facilitatedcommunication.org/blog/mixing-...
www.facilitatedcommunication.org/blog/mixing-...
Mixing Misinformation with Magical Thinking: Thoughts about the Telepathy Tapes (Episode 8) — Facilitated Communication
Today’s blog post is a review of Episode 8 of the Telepathy Tapes. I’ve put links of the reviews I’ve done of Episodes 1-7 in the References and Recommended Reading list below.
www.facilitatedcommunication.org
June 4, 2025 at 12:05 PM
Mixing Misinformation with Magical Thinking: Thoughts about the Telepathy Tapes (Episode 8)
www.facilitatedcommunication.org/blog/mixing-...
www.facilitatedcommunication.org/blog/mixing-...
Reposted by Katharine Beals