In this first part of a two-episode interview, trauma-informed speech-language pathologist Kim Neely speaks with Janice Bon—artist, educator, and former speech clinician—about her firsthand experience using facilitated communication (FC) in the 1990s and her later decision to publicly speak out against it.

Janice shares how she became involved in FC during a period of rapid change in special education, inclusion, and communication practices, and how the training, messaging, and psychology surrounding facilitated communication shaped her beliefs at the time. Together, Kim and Janice explore how FC was introduced in schools, why it initially felt compelling to helping professionals, and how concerns about authorship, cueing, and ethics emerged through research and real-world consequences.

This episode examines facilitated communication through a trauma-informed lens—focusing not on blame, but on understanding how well-intentioned clinicians, educators, and caregivers can be drawn to approaches that promise access, competence, and connection. Topics include the history of FC, the evolution into newer facilitator-influenced techniques (such as spelling to communicate and rapid prompting methods), the role of “don’t test, presume competence” messaging, and the ethical implications for SLPs and other helping professionals.

This conversation is especially relevant for speech-language pathologists, educators, AAC professionals, therapists, and students navigating evidence-based practice, neurodiversity-affirming care, and clinical decision-making in emotionally complex systems.

Part two will continue the discussion with a deeper focus on ethical implications, current resurgences of facilitator-influenced methods, and how professionals can critically evaluate communication practices while maintaining compassion and humility.

FIND AND CONTACT JANYCE HERE: https://www.facilitatedcommunication.org/

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Janyce's References:

• Four in the Bedroom: https://www.facilitatedcommunication.org/blog/four-in-the-bedroom-lamentations-or-exploitation-of-non-speaking-individuals
• Abdication Patterns in Individuals Being Facilitated:: https://www.facilitatedcommunication.org/blog/abdication-patterns-in-fced-individuals-a-review-of-bebko-perry-and-bryson-1996
• James Randi (Magician/Skeptic): https://www.facilitatedcommunication.org/blog/a-magician-cannot-dispute-fc-or-can-he
• Types of Facilitator Behaviors (Across FC/S2C/RPM): https://www.facilitatedcommunication.org/blog...

• (00:00:00) - A Safe Place for Trauma Informed SLPs
• (00:05:14) - Janyce Boynton on Confronting Facilitated Communication
• (00:11:10) - Exploring Facilitated Communication
• (00:19:53) - Facilitated Communication: Should We Include FC in our Training?
• (00:25:54) - No double-checks for communication
• (00:31:27) - facilitators and facilitated communication
• (00:44:45) - Participants in Facilitated Communication (FC)

Here's my truama-informed critique of the Telepathy Tapes podcast. In this episode, I unpack how telepathy claims about non-speaking autistic people intersect with facilitated communication, dehumanization, and inspiration-porn narratives. It highlights ethical and practical concerns around FC-style communication modalities, ideomotor effects, and the need for independent AAC access and communication safety. Listeners gain alternative, evidence-aligned explanations for “mind-reading” stories and are invited to examine internalized ableism and magical-disability tropes so they can advocate for more humanizing, autonomy-supporting AAC practices.

For any helping professional out there (but especially my fellow SLPs):

*** ACCESS FREE THREE MONTHS OF MY PATREON HERE: https://www.patreon.com/ttislp/redeem/B9E36 ***

YouTube channel episode of my response: https://youtu.be/tgNmIDtzJpw (like and subscribe if you like it!)

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• (00:00:00) - Re-Release: The Telepathy Tapes
• (00:03:15) - A Place for Burnout and Support
• (00:08:10) - The Telepathy tapes: Red Flags
• (00:14:27) - The Telepathy Tapes Has Close Ties to the Vaccine
• (00:21:15) - The Anti-Vaxx Movement's Dehumanization of Aut
• (00:27:51) - Stigma bias in magical minority tropes
• (00:30:43) - Ideomotor Effect on Bullying
• (00:40:09) - "It's Offensive To Say Autistics Are Smart"
• (00:40:49) - Augumentative Communication
• (00:42:21) - Communication with Non-Speakers
• (00:44:24) - Alternatives to The Liar Theory
• (00:50:38) - Autistic Neurodivergence: Info dumps
• (00:54:08) - Non-Speakers and Their Telepathy
• (00:59:02) - Non-Speakers and Their Communication Rights
• (01:06:19) - A message for those suffering from Burnout

What does trauma-informed care actually mean in practice—and how can you tell when something isn’t trauma informed, even if it’s widely accepted?

In this episode, we're going through common green flags and red flags of trauma-informed care, including bodily autonomy, presumed competence, neurodivergent-affirming approaches, compliance-based models, masking, and how neuroplasticity is often inaccurately used to market not-so-trauma-informed approaches.

****WANNA TAKE PART IN THE FREE PATREON TRIAL in January? Email us here and put "Patreon trial" somewhere in the subject line to get a link.****

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The Trauma-Informed SLP website (Also includes my Work Cited page.)

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YouTube Playlist for Late-Diagnosed Neurodivergents

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• (00:01:08) - A few announcements
• (00:14:22) - What is trauma-informed care? (Overview)
• (00:24:01) - Definition of trauma (review)
• (00:25:02) - Green flags: Decolonization, DEI, etc...
• (00:29:56) - Why you should use preferred terminology
• (00:32:50) - Limitations of neuroplasticity (a little rant)
• (00:35:09) - Red flags: Compliance based approaches, teaching masking only, etc...
• (00:45:53) - Red flags: Ignoring your own needs!!
• (00:49:05) - Thought exercises
• (00:53:13) - Conclusion and wrap-up

*Seinfeld voice* What's the deal with safety and empowerment???

If you've ever wondered why I go on and on about safety and empowerment, and why I don't tend to mention the other five principles of trauma-informed care very much, this episode explains it for ya!

I also explain bit about where the heck I've been with the answer: Learning how to edit videos on YouTube! (It has been...a process. ugh.) But if you feel so inclined to support me (for free!), hop on over to https://www.youtube.com/@TTI-SLP and hit subscribe!! I'm currently going through a series for late-diagnosed neurodivergents using my own model of neurodivergent-affirming care (scroll down to find the Venn diagram on that page.) And I'd love for feedback, suggestions, and/or support just in the form of watching through some of the videos!

Thanks so much, and stay tuned for more content from me, a-Mario! ...I mean, Kim.

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• (00:01:01) - Updates
• (00:08:56) - The Six Core Principles
• (00:13:05) - My practical issue with SIX principles
• (00:17:09) - How I break it down to TWO principles
• (00:20:23) - The critical importance of deconstructing biases
• (00:22:08) - Physical safety
• (00:27:34) - Emotional and psychological safety
• (00:32:13) - Summary and thought-question for the week

I have had meltdowns my whole life. I didn't know that's what they were called, but I definitely had them my whole life. And they SUCK! They're uncomfortable, sometimes scary, exhausting, and disabling. But I've also noticed that many, MANY people have no idea of what it's like from a first-person POV.

Of course, this is only my experience, as any person can only talk about their own experience when doing a POV thing, but I describe it here just in case it helps others to understand meltdowns a little more.

Video version of this found episode here

Chapters:
01:23 Episode overview
03:14 Episode outline
04:14 Definitions of terms
10:40 Physiology of survival modes review
15:10 Meltdown stages and my experiences with them
(content warning for descriptions of self-harm from: 23:18 - 25:41)
34:03 Considerations for caregivers or anyone who works with people who have meltdowns

About Us:

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Recommended resources for meltdown support:

-Managing Meltdowns by Lipsky & Richards

-"Understanding Autism, Aggression, and Self-Injury: Medical Approaches and Best Support Practices" Thinking Person's Guide to Autism article

One consistent aspect of living as a neurodivergent is burnout. Whether it's ADHD, autism, depression, anxiety, OCD, trauma exposure, or literally any other brain difference, we're all burnout from, I suspect, a younger age than most neurotypicals.

But as with workplace/professional burnout, I think there's more than "just burnout" going on; so let's talk about it.

TOPICS COVERED:

1. Defining neurodivergent burnout
2. Parallels to workplace burnout
3. Sources of societal trauma
4. Introduction into deconstructing ableism

Video version of this episode

About Us:

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CITATIONS:

• Cieslak et al., 2014
• Mantzalas et al., 2022
• Maslach & Lieter, 2016
• TIP 57
• Shoji et al., 2015

There are many, MANY redflags in this rhetoric, so let's unpack them.

Episode topics include:

• Who are the creators of the podcast?
• The "superpower" flavor of dehumanization
• Alternative explanations for what people see
• Playing Devil's Advocate: If all their claims are true, what does it really change?

About Us:

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Citations:

Disability tropes in fiction

Eariler Jilani article on the communication methodology

Facilitated Communication information and citations

Inspiration porn

Magical minoritized person trope

Moral model of disability

The Telepathy Tapes: A Dangerous Cornucopia of Pseudoscience

"The Telepathy Tapes" Has Close Ties to Vaccine Skeptic Movement (by Zaid Jilani)

Telepathy Tapes transcripts

So here's something from my Youtube page that, in light of the 2024 election cycle, I thought would be good to post here. Genocide always seems like hyperbole...until it's not.

(The video includes images of referenced articles and quotes, so if you benefit from seeing the text on-screen, please check out the link below.)

Description from Youtube episode released May 29, 2024:

I'm not a political commentator. In fact, I can only consume so much of the news cycle every week before my feelings of helplessness and hopelessness get too overwhelming.

Looking at all the atrocities humans have done and are currently doing to each other is so, so heartbreaking -- and honestly, traumatizing. However, you've got to understand the monstrous side of humanity in order to continuously choose compassion and empathy.

And, I don't know, maybe it's my neurodivergent brain, but having some academic knowledge helps me to understand and avoid (as much as humanly possible) the propaganda pitfalls that permeate social discourse these days.

REFERENCES & RESOURCES:
https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/disaster-distress-helpline

PDF of Ten Stages of Genocide: https://www.scasd.org/cms/lib5/PA01000006/Centricity/Domain/1482/TenStages.pdf

Ten Stages of American Indian Genocide (Chavez Cameron & Phan, 2018) file:///Users/Kimbrulee/Downloads/webmaster,+Edit3+Cameron.pdf

Link to James Baldwin quote: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/11882302-love-has-never-been-a-popular-movement-and-no-one-s

United Nations on how to help ALL victims of the Israel-Gaza Crisis: https://www.un.org/en/situation-in-occupied-palestine-and-israel/donate