This is the way. When they come at us, we come back at them twofold. Raise that Pride flag every time they take it down. If they prevent that, surround the park with Pride flags. Ruin their petty little lives until they shit rainbows. Never stop. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/12/n...

“There is another, less understood public health risk of the shift away from vaccine mandates: Fewer children will end up getting routine medical checkups of any kind.” #VaccinesWork and save lives, including autistic lives. They otherwise have nothing to do with autism.

"Sensory sensitivities were also cited as a major factor contributing to anxiety, as well as impacting various facets of the participants lives, including their ability to interact with others." #autism #anxiety #neurodiversity

"Being in crisis is not the same as being a failure. Nor is it a personal failure to admit you and your child need help. So we need to work past fear and misinformation, and get educated about what our support options are." At TPGA: thinkingautismguide.com/2019/05/pare... #autism #parenting

I've avoided writing about The Telepathy Tapes. But with the recent appointment of 3 non-speakers to the IACC, it's time to take on facts & fallacies about autistic AAC users—and the nasty habit journalists have of questioning their communication, instead of the agendas ensnaring & tokenizing them.

Friends from Minneapolis reporting to me that things are at the point where folks are being hidden in other people's houses and we are in the "again" part of "never again" which the "never" was supposed to preclude

Autistic people deserve reality-rooted resources for improving their lives, not The Telepathy Tapes’s false smoke and feel-good mirrors. #TheTelepathyTapes #autism #AAC 21/21

Read books like the novel Happiness Falls, about finding AAC, with its audiobook narration by real-life AAC user Thomas Pruyn. Watch movies like Wretches and Jabberers, The Reason I Jump, or This Is Not About Me, which document the lives of autistic non-speakers on their own terms. #AAC 20/

If you are sincerely interested in understanding the needs and experiences of being autistic & non-speaking, avoid The Telepathy Tapes. Instead, follow organizations like @communicationfirst.bsky.social First that advocate for people who “cannot rely on speech alone to be heard and understood.” 19/

Finally, don’t be fooled by The Telepathy Tapes using advocacy buzzwords like acceptance, neurodiversity, and ableism. When used for such a questionable agenda, these terms are hollow. #AAC #autism #neurodiversity 18/

We need to do better by autistic people who need AAC. We also have to have some empathy for the AAC users and families who appear in #TheTelepathyTapes. Most of them have little-to-no support, and lack connections to other autistic people or non-speakers. #autism #AAC 17/

Yet #TheTelepathyTapes ignores autistics who aren’t communicating in ways that captivate a non-autistic audience. People shouldn’t have to perform to matter, or to get the supports they deserve for communication and well-being. #Autism #AAC 16/

But we also have to acknowledge that some autistic people, as Julia Bascom @juststimming.bsky.social points out,” really do have intellectual disabilities and really do need exceptional support,” and that this wouldn’t change even they had access to appropriate communication. #TheTelepathyTapes 15/

It is undeniable that many current AAC users were formerly in inappropriate special educational settings (sedentary and unenriching placements that are inappropriate for any student, not for just non-speakers who use AAC). #TheTelepathyTapes #autism #AAC 14/

It is, frankly, offensive that #TheTelepathyTapes portrays all non- or partially speaking autistics as capable of telepathy; a stance worryingly similar to the claims of former anti-vaccine Speller parents who insist that all autistic kids with communication disabilities are “locked inside.” 13/

In the podcast, Dickens calls autistics' abilities “telepathy.” She is not the first person to suggest that AAC users (namely people who use supported communication methods) are telepathic, by the way; people have been making such claims since the 1990s. #TheTelepathyTapes #AAC #neurodiversity 12/

Since many non-autistics believe stereotypes about autistics, they assume that autistic people are disengaged and unobservant. So they think it’s a miracle when autistic people notice, absorb, anticipate, and recall what the people around them do and say. #TheTelepathyTapes #autism #AAC 11/

Autistic people can be wildly sensitive to and adept at pattern matching, not to mention their tendency towards phenomenal hearing, excellent observation, elephantine memory, and keen emotional perception—whether the person is able to speak, or not. #TheTelepathyTapes #Autism #AAC 10/

If non-speaking autistic people aren’t telepathic, then what is behind the “mind reading” feats in #TheTelepathyTapes? As one autistic commenter explained, “I’m very good at reading nonverbal cues. I’m not telepathic.” This is the most plausible scenario. 9/

Successful AAC users who currently use, or started out using, supported communication exist. I have met many. They are not unicorns. They do not have supernatural talents. -SR #TheTelepathyTapes #autism #neurodiversity 8/

We cannot use the questionable agenda of The Telepathy Tapes to question whether or not its autistics are “really communicating,” despite outlets like Vice & The Cut & even The Guardian using outdated communication positions and non-autistic advocates to dismiss its autistic subjects’ autonomy. 7/

We must also reject The Telepathy Tapes's message that if autistic AAC users can read minds and communicate telepathically, maybe they don’t need access to the robust language-based communication that is a human right. #autism #autistic #TheTelepathyTapes 6/

The Telepathy Tapes’s patronizing woo is not about understanding or accepting autistic people. But it is why the podcast is a success, because it gives non-autistics a fairy tale about connecting with autistics, instead of doing the hard work of exploring autistics' often challenging realities. 5/

Treating the autistic people in The Telepathy Tapes as special spiritual messengers is absurd. If you have ever encountered later-emerged AAC (augmentative &alternative communication) users, they tend to be traumatized about how they were treated before they had useful communication. #AAC #autism 4/

…that non-speaking autistics are not only underestimated (this is true), but telepathic (this is questionable at best). Also, The Telepathy Tapes is endorsed by conspiracy theorist Glenn Beck, who claims in his own podcast that autism “may be a blessing that we just don’t understand yet." [barf] 3/

If you’re unfamiliar with The Telepathy Tapes, its host Ky Dickens describes it as “a groundbreaking podcast exploring the voices of nonspeakers and the science of consciousness, connection, and communication.” The “nonspeakers” part is important, because Dickens aims to show the world... 2/

For months, people have asked me about the popular Telepathy Tapes podcast, and its premise of non-speaking autistics reading minds. And I’m here to tell you: The Telepathy Tapes is a hot, complicated mess—but not for the reasons you may think. At TPGA: thinkingautismguide.com/2026/02/the-...

Remember if you watch this show or buy this merch, no trans person will like or trust you ever again. Sorry but those are the rules.

I've avoided writing about The Telepathy Tapes. But with the recent appointment of 3 non-speakers to the IACC, it's time to take on facts & fallacies about autistic AAC users—and the nasty habit journalists have of questioning their communication, instead of the agendas ensnaring & tokenizing them.

“The correct response to Dachau was not better training for the guards.” ~Heather Cox Richardson

@drstevenkapp.bsky.social, "senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Portsmouth, added: 'Autistic women and girls have often been missed because of subtler behaviours from trends towards more imitation and masking, including more eye contact than male counterparts.'"

"The views of the new [IACC] members largely do not reflect the views of most autistic people, their families, advocates, or researchers. There are several new public members who have said they believe vaccines do or could cause autism."

“Play-based ABA” is often more insidious than old-school discrete trial training because it’s harder to recognize as control. A table full of flashcards makes power visible. But when the same conditioning is wrapped in toys and smiles, the coercion hides behind warmth. #autism #neurodiversity

“Play-based ABA” is often more insidious than old-school discrete trial training because it’s harder to recognize as control. A table full of flashcards makes power visible. But when the same conditioning is wrapped in toys and smiles, the coercion hides behind warmth. #autism #neurodiversity

ICYMI: Most new IACC appointees are autism pseudoscience has-beens who were NEVER taken seriously by the autism research community—& were shunned by the media after the 2015 Disneyland measles outbreak showed the public health consequences of anti-vax disinfo. And now RFK Jr. has resurrected them.

I can't think of anything less patriotic than allowing a corrupt pedophile to suspend the constitution so he can murder citizens, enrich himself, and imprison journalists.

Kimchi jjigae with a side of “murder is bad”, since apparently the left will cry if we don’t add that addendum to every post, as if kimchi jjigae is worse than a fascist government.

ICYMI: Most new IACC appointees are autism pseudoscience has-beens who were never taken seriously by the autism research community, & were shunned by the media after the Disneyland measles outbreak showed the public health consequences of anti-vaccine disinfo. And now RFK Jr. has resurrected them.

Welp, we have a new IACC (Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee), the US government’s advisory panel for autism issues. It is entirely planted with worst case pseudosciencers who will “Fight Against Autism”—and ignore autistic rights and needs. Just awful news. www.hhs.gov/press-room/h...

@ejwillingham.bsky.social ends with "Labels that 'resonate socially' for them but not for thee, I guess. This useless divisiveness is a profound shame." Our full newsletter: buttondown.com/TPGA/archive... Explaining Grievance Parents: thinkingautismguide.com/2022/11/grie... #neurodiversity 23/23

Grievance parents also used the "social resonance" study to determine that self-diagnosed autistic people are actually narcissists. Seems that it’s OK for them to throw labels pejoratively at other people, but not for other people to have realizations about their own neurobiology & seek support. 22/

The Grievance Parents used the "social resonance" study to claim that self-diagnosed autistic people push back against causation studies and splitting labels not because such studies are eugenicist but because an identified cause could exclude an autism diagnosis for them. Um, OK? 21/

This latter condescending interpretation served as ammunition for Grievance Parents* who are thrilled about the “ #profoundAutism” label (is it to resonate socially?). *Parents who prefer to gripe about autism instead of learning how understand how to support their autistic kids. 20/

And yet according to researchers who medicalize being autistic, self-diagnosed people seeking services should be eyed with suspicion because they are probably just seeking attention & “seeking…a specific ‘desired diagnosis’…to frame vague feelings of inadequacy in terms that resonate socially.”’ 19/

According to research conducted by autistic people & ally researchers, self-identified autistic people struggle to access services they need, and would (obvs) have better outcomes if they could, per @avanicole23.bsky.social, @drstevenkapp.bsky.social et al: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... 18/

Also not helpful: Some #ProfoundAutism -pushing parents of autistic people with complex support needs who seem to want to foreground their grievances more than anything else, also tend to dismiss autistic people who speak for themselves—especially if those autistics are self-diagnosed. 17/

And yes, autistic people with intellectual disability and language impairment were included in the "four subtypes" autism analysis. In fact, the list of features that have been shoved under the “ #profoundAutism” umbrella were split into two separate subtypes in that genetics study. #autism 16/

@ejwillingham.bsky.social also notes "that in the much-hyped genetics study characterizing 'four subtypes' of autism—which had important limitations and a troubling fuzziness—a subtype that did not emerge in that analysis was one that even hinted at the contours claimed for #profoundAutism.” 15/

"Nor is it clear why the presence of co-occurring disabilities like intellectual disability or speech apraxia should result in a different label [like #ProfoundAutism ], when co-occurring disabilities are common in autistic people and already accounted for by the DSM." 14/

"We also know that IQ tests are notoriously unreliable for autistic people, particularly nonspeaking autistics." 13/