To think this is a bit fishy

[geminicancerean]

I’m an autistic mum to an autistic child, their autism presents very differently to mine. I’ve had my struggles over the years but largely function in society and manage my household well. My child has severe communication differences and challenging behaviours, they’ll need support their whole life.

Recently I’ve had content about Spelling 2 Communicate creeping into my algorithm. It claims that my child is imprisoned in their body and requires a ‘communication partner’ to give life to their inner feelings. I shouldn’t assume that they don’t have the same level of understanding as anyone else, just because they can’t speak. I don’t know how that works with road safety because my 11yo tried to bolt across a car park the other day, but presumably that was their body betraying them.

Literacy interests me so done a little digging, which led me to Woody’s story (below). I am agog that people are falling for this. This young man is clearly not spelling out anything legible, and yet he’s written a novel! A little more digging reveals his ‘communication partner’ mother is in the story writing business, hm…

https://www.theatlantic.com/books/2026/04/who-really-wrote-autistic-author-woody-brown-novel/686814/?utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_content=edit-promo&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwY2xjawRUb4JleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEevO_W_xquN-RMK39CIWbl8rvWzoWAKQ-GbzMyG39tp0muO4g5u3TGNxYVX6o_aem_BExwVWi9dX_BQwpjJW438w

This is catching on over here now and I’m concerned. I don’t like the idea of anybody putting words in my child’s mouth. It isn’t that I don’t think autistic people can communicate in non standard ways - I know that they can. My child types words out on their iPad if they can’t say them aloud. AAC devices can open up universes to non verbal kids. And some autistic people can absolutely create the most beautiful poetry, music and art. I’m not suggesting they can’t. I’m just saying that this ⬆️ doesn’t look miraculous to me. It looks sinister.

It is sinister and not good for autistic people. It remains hard to argue against because no one wants to be the nasty person who tells this mum “you are deluding yourself and missing what your child is really communicating”. But facilitated communication etc remains very dodgy.

Spot on. Also sometimes it's not even bad actors being dodgy, it 'works' like ouija type things subconsciously.

I know a couple of mums who have bought fully into it, it seems to involve going to a lot of conventions and writing about ‘PRESUMING COMPETENCE’. I find it weird that the majority of messages generated seem to be about spelling and how wonderful it is and how they want to bring it to the whole world. Feels a bit… culty…

I might ask @mnhq to move this to the SEN boards

Yes, as the mum of an adult autistic son with very limited speech, I find facilitated communication quite sinister 😳 there was a documentary I saw a while back that really freaked me out - it was called Tell Them You Love Me. It was about a female university professor who started doing facilitated communication with a young man with cerebral palsy and ended up saying they were in love and a couple. His family did not believe that the writings he was producing (with her 'help') were actually his words at all. It highlights how vulnerable people can be compromised by 'facilitators'.

Thanks for starting the thread. I heard about this book on Instagram, and vaguely thought it might be interesting to read. I hadn't really considered the more problematic elements of it, and wasn't aware that his mother was a writer.

This video shows it so clearly. Especially around 3:48