The Facebook Group Claiming Autistic Kids Are Telepathic

My journey into Autistic rights advocacy started with an article into the quack "cure" known as Miracle Mineral Solution (MMS), the bleach solution that people were feeding to their Autistic children. This spurred a lifelong interest in protecting other Autistic people. So when it was brought to my attention that a podcast called The Telepathy Tapes is asserting that non-speaking Autistic people are telepathic, it caught my interest. It has now come to light that there is a Facebook group asserting support for this, and the screenshots I have received from the group have raised some serious concerns for me. All screenshots that follow are redacted, but taken directly from the Facebook group.

A Story of Autism, Telepathy, and Safeguarding Issues

Let me be clear. I am not writing this to comment on the veracity of claims of telepathy. My concern here is how such claims could be used to exploit families and vulnerable people for predatory reasons.

Parents of Autistic children, particularly those who are non-speaking and/or have complex support needs, are often driven to desperation by medical professionals and neuronormative attitudes within society.

They are told that their children will have awful lives and made to feel that they should grieve their living child. To me, it is unsurprising that many turn to desperate measures even if those measures are things I find ethically unacceptable. The problem is that desperation makes us less able to make wise decisions.

Chances are the people who respond to the desperation genuinely think they can help, but this doesn't mean they can. These people may do or say things that make things worse. They may cross boundaries that cause trauma. They also might be more dangerous than that.

Research indicates Autistic people are significantly more likely to be victims of abuse and exploitation:

"This found the pooled prevalence rates for bullying to be 47%, 16% for child abuse, 40% for sexual victimisation, 13% for cyberbullying, and 84% for multiple forms of victimisation in autistic individuals"

Trundle et al, 2022

The internet is a dangerous place, and there is no guarantee that the person reaching out is not a predator. This is made even more concerning when you consider that the children in question here are non-speaking, meaning they are less able to communicate any abuse and exploitation they experience.

It's not just the children at risk. Desperate parents are a magnet for financially exploitative people and groups. What may seem like a miracle solution could in fact be a harmful choice that leaves you in financial crisis. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

Criticism of The Telepathy Tapes

The podcast itself seems to be essentially feeding off of the "Autistic superpower" fantasy that many people fall into. In a world that dehumanises and devalues Autistic people, why wouldn't we want to assert something that emphatically counters such attitudes?

The problem (other than the safeguarding one already discussed) is that not only does it still serve to provide a means of othering and still dehumanising us (seriously, read the X-Men comics for thoughts on how people with "superpowers" could be treated); it is an extraordinary claim with a pack of extraordinary evidence. It seems Reddit has noticed this.

Redditors are lining up to poke holes in the basis of the show, chiefly, the evidence (or lack thereof) of the telepathic abilities.

Perhaps most concerning is that they claim that access to the evidence supporting the podcasts claims is paywalled. Meaning that before you can even view the evidence for yourself, you have to pay for it.

Those who have paid for access assert that the evidence on the footage does not match the claims being made. They highlight that children are being guided towards particular results and highlight the distinct lack of scientific rigor.

Is it real?

I cannot sit here and tell you directly if Autistic children are telepathic or not. I cannot do that for anyone. What I can say is that peer-reviewed evidence does not support the existence of telepathy, and the spread of this idea presents a significant risk of abuse and exploitation to an incredibly vulnerable group. This to me highlights how easily potentially dangerous ideas can spread on the internet and is yet another example of how social media often does not do enough to protect marginalised groups.

No matter what your opinion on telepathy is, please remember that the internet is full of predators. As a father myself, I would rather my child be safe than to risk that safety on a perceived miracle.