Safeguarding Communication Rights: Sounding the Alarm on Facilitated Communication / Spelling to Communicate

In this episode of “What’s Got Us Talking …” we explore the dangers of facilitated communication and variants Spelling to Communicate and Spellers Method. We outline the importance of recognising an individual’s communication rights and their need to access a method of communication that reflects their own thoughts, and not those of the facilitator. 

Facilitated Communication and variants (Supported Typing, Letterboarding, Spelling to Communicate / Spellers Method) are increasingly being used due to:

(a) growing numbers of speech-language pathologists and clinics delivering FC/S2C services; and 

(b) promotion in The Telepathy Tapes (Seasons 1 and 2), which dangerously and incorrectly interpret failed message passing tests as pseudoscientific telepathy rather than being evidence of facilitator control over the messages produced. 

This episode features some of the authors of a new paper outlining the communication rights of individuals exposed to the dangers of facilitated communication and variants (Spelling to Communicate, S2C, Spellers Method), listed below. 

Outline of Communication Rights and Authorship Assessment in FC/RPM/Spellers (Open Access) https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23297018.2025.2544116

Hemsley, B., Beals, K., Lang, R., Schlosser, R. W., Shane,  H. Simmons, W., Skinner, S., & Todd, J. (2025). Safeguarding the communication rights of minimally- or non-speaking people who are vulnerable to Facilitated Communication, Rapid Prompting (Spellers method) and variants. Research and Practice in Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, 1-21.

Systematic Review of Facilitated Communication (Open Access) https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2396941518821570

Hemsley, B., Bryant, L., Schlosser, R. W., Shane, H. C., Lang, R., Paul, D., Banajee, M., & Ireland, M. (2019). Systematic review of facilitated communication 2014–2018 finds no new evidence that messages delivered using facilitated communication are authored by the person with disability. Autism & Developmental Language Impairments, 3. https://doi.org/10.1177/2396941518821570 (Original work published 2018)

United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

Article 16 Freedom from Exploitation, Violence and Abuse: https://social.desa.un.org/issues/disability/crpd/article-16-freedom-from-exploitation-violence-and-abuse

Article 21 Freedom of Expression and Opinion and Access to Information: https://social.desa.un.org/issues/disability/crpd/article-21-freedom-of-expression-and-opinion-and-access-to-information

Website and YouTube resources: Blog posts, videos, critiques of studies, and lists of organisations with position statements opposing FC/RPM

https://www.facilitatedcommunication.org/

https://www.youtube.com/@fcisnotscience

 

POSITION STATEMENTS on FC/RPM/S2C/Spellers

American Association of Speech Language Hearing:

ASHA Position Statements on Facilitated Communication https://www.asha.org/policy/ps2018-00352/

ASHA Position Statement on Rapid Prompting Method (Spelling to Communicate, S2C, Spellers Method) https://www.asha.org/policy/ps2018-00351/?srsltid=AfmBOopseOn5HhRP7E0er6QJYNt97hjImlHsPcb9S2MUc9Qud8X4Mwdp

ASHA Evidence Map on Systematic Review of Facilitated Communication https://apps.asha.org/EvidenceMaps/Articles/ArticleSummary/75d47271-e474-ee11-814b-005056834e2b

Australasian Society for Intellectual Disability - ASID Position Statement on Facilitated Communication and Rapid Prompting Method .css-j9qmi7{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:row;-ms-flex-direction:row;flex-direction:row;font-weight:700;margin-bottom:1rem;margin-top:2.8rem;width:100%;-webkit-box-pack:start;-ms-flex-pack:start;-webkit-justify-content:start;justify-content:start;padding-left:5rem;}@media only screen and (max-width: 599px){.css-j9qmi7{padding-left:0;-webkit-box-pack:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;justify-content:center;}}.css-j9qmi7 svg{fill:#27292D;}.css-j9qmi7 .eagfbvw0{-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;color:#27292D;}