Talk Tracks Ep 3: Q&A with Parents, Scientists & Educators from Season One

Talk Tracks Ep 3: Q&A with Parents, Scientists & Educators from Season One

February 16, 2025 53m S1E13
In this special Q&A episode of The Talk Tracks, we bring together a panel from Season One to tackle YOUR most pressing questions. Featuring Dr. Diane Powell, speech therapists, and parents of non-speaking individuals, this conversation dives into the ethics of testing, the urgent need for more trained communication partners, and the profound insights non-speakers offer about time, consciousness, and the unseen forces shaping our world. As we prepare for groundbreaking research and the launch of The Telepathy Tapes film, this episode is a call to action for belief, inclusion, and true scientific inquiry. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Full Transcript

When I put out the telepathy tapes in 2024, I didn't put any ads on it. But since then, this endeavor has evolved into a full-time job.
We're producing a season two, and we just rolled out the talk tracks. And I've been excited to finally hire a staff in order to help me make those things happen.
And we've just had to grow in a way that I was never anticipating. And so, in order to pay for this, we are turning on ads.
But that is a critical piece in being able to continue this work, so that those of us doing the research and working to bring these episodes to you are getting paid for our time. So thank you so much for understanding as we move into this new phase of the telepathy tapes and the talk tracks.
Hi everyone, I'm Kai Dickens and I'm thrilled to welcome you to the talk tracks. In this series, we dive deeper into the revelations, challenges, and unexpected truths from the telepathy tapes.
The goal is to explore all the threads that weave together our understanding of reality, science, spirituality, and yes, even unexplained things like psi abilities. If you haven't yet listened to season one of the telepathy tapes, I encourage you to start there.
It lays the foundation for everything we'll be exploring in this journey. This episode is brought to you by Indeed.
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Find trending spring beauty and all you need to look and feel gorgeous at Walmart on app and online. We'll feature conversations with groundbreaking researchers, thinkers, non-speakers, and experiencers who illuminate the extraordinary connections that may defy explanation today, but won't for long.
Today, we're hosting a Q&A to answer your questions with some of the teachers, parents, and scientists who were featured in the telepathy tapes. Some of you posted your questions on social media or emailed them to us directly.
Our production coordinator, Catherine, pulled together many of your questions, and those will be asked in this episode. But first, here's who's joining us.
I'm Katie Asher. I'm Houston's mom.
I'm Libby Ingram. I'm John Paul's mother, And I'm also a speech language pathologist.
My name is Casey. And I was in episode five.
In 2021, I discovered that the young man I was working with at the school that I was employed, that he could read my mind. And things really snowballed very quickly after making that discovery.
And within about a week, we had formed a telepathic connection with each other. So we communicate mind to mind.
And it's not just him. There's a small group of kids that were going to that school that I've also connected with.
I'm Susie Miller, pediatric speech language pathologist turned telepathic communicator. All I do is work with families around the world who are finding these things out about their kids, and I connect and see what's going on and just share that information.
I'm Dr. Powell, and I first became interested in autism back in 1986.
Because I was aware of autism, I was also aware of savant syndrome, and it was exceedingly rare. I went to India to evaluate these savants.
When I met them, their parents said to me that they were all telepathic, and so I switched from studying savant syndrome per se and started studying telepathy. And we also have Manisha Ladd, mother of Akhil, who you met in episode two.
Akhil is now 23 years old. And when around he was 11 years old, he broke his silence through facilitated communication.
And last but not least, Maria Welch. Hello, I am a speech therapist here in the Chicago area.
And I predominantly see students that are non-speakers on the spectrum. So, okay.
So a lot of these questions, as you know, have been curated from the internet and from listeners. And one of the things I think this should probably be answered by a few parents who've been involved in the telepathy testing, as well as Dr.
Powell. So the question is, I think testing kids in PSY, even comparing results across age groups,

could yield fascinating insights, but ethical concerns have been a major obstacle. How do you approach presenting such a research project to parents of children being tested? So I think this is important to talk about, you know, in terms of consent from parents, but also Diane, if there are any things that you need to navigate in that regard.
Well, let me just say this, that actually, how I've met the parents is that the parents have reached out to me. It's not that I've presented to the parents this information.
It's that all over the world, they have been witnessing something in their home that they didn't understand. And then they go on the internet and they find my name.
That's how, I mean, I met Manisha and that's how I met Katie. And now we're getting deluged with people who are saying, yes, I have a child who's just like this and I've been afraid afraid to say anything.
And so I don't see that we're having to present anything to them. It's more that they're presenting to us.
Thank you for that. And then for Libby, Manisha, Katie, as far as testing your children at the time when we did these tests, were there any concerns around the ethical treatment of them or whether or not they wanted to be tested? For me, it wasn't.
John Paul wanted to do it. I presented it to him and John Paul said, spelled, it had to be done because he wants to see change for, at the time, he wanted his friends to have a better life of course and and he too wanted a

better life and to be educated and to be taken seriously and presumed competent so it wasn't even it was more like mom we're doing this so jump on board so I didn't really have a choice but I would have done it anyway love that all right Manisha go ahead yeah so in our case you know it was of course akhil wanted to be a part of this but there was no other solution there was no other option if we wouldn't have believed akhil then we were believing the society and the system which is constantly i've been feeling akhil so we had no choice but to believe akhil and i'm glad we we did that because there was no other solution that was a reality actually happening so my argument with anybody would come for as even like a skepticism or looking for data I would tell them thank you so much and if you want to collect the data then via the data if we want to do the research we need minimum 100 to $ 000 to do the research i don't need the data i don't need the research it's not my problem okay this is there happening in this is a reality happening it's like going to a doctor with a research paper as per the research paper two advils makes a difference but in my case if i go to the doctor and tell those two Advils are not helping me, but I have to take a third Advil, then where is this research paper standing? It's of no use because doctor is going to tell me, oh, if you need three Advil and if you need to take it, then go ahead and take it. Because that helps me.
And even if doctor tells me, no, no, no, it's only two Advil. I'm still going to go and take three Advuvel because it's not helping me so what's the use of this research data so my adamancy was akhil is the data i am the data are you ready to take it because believing akhil is still believing myself if not then i'm lying with my child so that was my stance and i still say the same story and that's why i I approached Dr.
Diane Powell and I saw her video with Dr. Deepak Chopra.
And I told her I want Dr. Deepak to come and see Akhil and explain us what is exactly this happening and why this phenomenon is happening.
So that's why we jumped into it. I actually found the questions that Kai had sent us at the very beginning to determine whether or not we wanted to be in this project and what our thoughts were about the project.

And Houston answered every single one of these questions with just this incredible heartfelt desire to be a voice for other non-speakers and to get the truth out there.

And he not only wanted to be tested, he wanted to tell the truth. He wanted to show the world that non-speakers have been underestimated from the entire time.
Okay, this one's for Dr. Powell.
Is it your intention to work with leading skeptical cognitive neuroscientists in academia to devise laboratory-style tests

as to lead to unequivocal findings, which are critic-proof, assuming that's even possible. I'm coordinating with scientists who are at universities, and they are skeptical in the true sense of skepticism.
I mean, there are people out there who call themselves skeptics, and they really are diehard materialists who would never even consider this as possible. And so those aren't the scientists I'm talking about.
I'm talking about scientists who are open-minded enough that they feel that these things are possible and think that it's an important research. But at the same time, they're going to want to see as much separation as possible between the telepathic pair, ideally, in separate rooms.
If that's not possible, then we have to have as much in the way of barriers to any kind of visual or auditory cueing. But I'm optimistic that we should be able to get some experiments done with those kind of conditions.
It's just that it takes time. You can't just come in and just say, okay, this is how we're doing the experiment today.
It really requires a certain sensitivity to the fact that that could be very intrusive. And the last thing that I want to do is anything that's intrusive.
The last thing I want to do is anything that makes people feel like they're being challenged in a way that is not honoring the children. So I really believe that we can walk that walk where we honor the children, we believe in the children, but at the same time we realize that the world at large is not going to believe it unless we do the controlled trials properly.
Thank you for that, Dr. Powell.
This is the same thing that I've been saying in any interviews as well is, you know, the whole point of getting this podcast out there was to get these formal research tests done and filmed so we can present them to the world so everyone can see these tests in as airtight as possible settings.

And I think that every parent and educator and therapist on this phone call is in agreement

that everyone wants answers.

We all want answers.

That's why we're all participating in this is to figure out why this is possible, what

is happening and what it means.

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BK.com slash terms. Okay, and then the next question, what has been the response from people in your network or from strangers contacting you? I know it's not just my inbox that's blowing up.
I think it's all of yours. Has the response been positive? What are some of the common themes or questions that you're getting? Okay, let's go to Susie first.
Well, since the telepathy tapes came out, number one, overwhelmingly positive. Absolutely.
It's like it gave a voice to every single person that would have a tendency to come to see somebody like me in the first place. And so it was just it was so validating for everybody.
And the questions that I get across the board are, you know, how can I become more telepathic? Or I have these skill sets. How can I expand those? So there's a lot of conversation around that going on.
And there's also conversation about, well, if we have telepathy, if telepathy is there, then what about this? What about that? And that's the part where I really get excited because now we're getting into all of those kind of psi abilities and it's pretty fun. It's really amazing.
Okay, and to Casey, who's formed a two-way telepathic link with one of her students. The number one question is how do you do this? How did you get here? Parents are really eager to make that connection with their child and caregivers are eager to make that connection with the people they serve.
What I usually just tell them is when it started for me was when I really started working on my own self-awareness, self-improvement, and then I started listening to my intuition. But I was never intending for this to happen.
So when people ask me, how do I do it? I don't know. I do also believe that I had quite a bit of help from the kids I was working with energetically and spiritually.
Awesome. And Katie? The most common question that we get is really this desperation of parents who want to know their kids and they want to know either how they can hear their kids' thoughts or how can they get their kids to the hill or will someone take them? Will someone meet them? Will someone find them? And it's just this intense desperation to have access to their child's heart and thoughts and to know their child.
And that's truly what all of us, every single human being wants at the end of the day is to be known and to be loved.

Libby, go ahead.

I've gotten texts and emails from parents about, one, if they have lost a child, wanting to find out how they can find out if they're okay, if their child's there, do they hear them? and it's been great to be able to comfort parents that have been through this situation. Also, parents who want to know how do we find the spelling because it's not in my community.
I don't have anyone close. And that is a huge problem.
There needs to be more teachers, caregivers, parents that are able to have access to spelling. And there are some limitations.
One, it's expensive. And that needs to change because that's another way of gatekeeping parents from being able to communicate with their child is the expense of it.
So that needs to change. So whether it's ASHA saying speech therapists are allowed to learn this method so they can do it more in the public school or more special ed teachers having access to the training, but that needs to happen.
Yeah. No, I think this is so important because it's within the midst of all the telepathy, which I know I've said this to many of you before, it's really a Trojan horse in a lot of ways to get people to care about the spellers and what they're going through and how much support they need and we need to give them.

And if this is causing people to notice, that's great.

But we can't lose sight of the overall goal here, which is this should be about them and enabling them and supporting them.

So thank you for everything you said to that degree.

And actually to that, on the other side of it, we have a lot of questions in this space,

which are about the Speller's gifts. One is about what are some of the Speller's thoughts on time

and precognition? I know we talked about this a little bit in the season. I'm sure Casey and Susie

and Maria, you probably have some very interesting thoughts on this, both being, you know, kind of teachers and therapists in this world. Okay, so my student has always told me from the very beginning, like one of the first things he ever said to me is that timing is his thing.
And I'm still trying to grasp exactly what that means. But he tries to explain the best he can that he has access to multiple timelines.
And he can see future and past on those multiple timelines. And that's just a part of his job here to monitor certain events, help certain events come to fruition.
And this is all energetically, but the way that they have explained it to me is that the physical, where we are in this realm, is almost a reflection of the spiritual realm. So things happen there before they happen here.
And the things that he does have a lot to do with time, but at the same time, he doesn't experience it the way that we do. What he's explained to me is that time is not exactly what we think it is.
it's not like this fixed thing. It's like our consciousness affects time.
And I don't know, I'm trying to explain this, but it's really hard. Casey, that's amazing.
I kept hearing something from all the kids around the timeless nature of our being. I kept hearing that particular phrase from like one kid after another.
And I was like, okay, what is that? And then one child came forward and gave me the experience of this timeless nature of being. I have another kid who has written books about time travel and precognition and things like that.
And so in many ways, I think we have to go directly to them and say, okay, we need more information about this. We need to be able to explain this to other people.
So, and I have zero doubt whatsoever that these kids play beyond time and space the way we know time and space. I mean, the very fact that they're not fully engaged in the physical body creates the opportunity for them to be everywhere, nowhere, you know.
Go ahead, Katie. Precognition in its simplest forms is knowing of something before it happens.
Houston, I found out that he had this great understanding of time. It was actually because of cuckoo clocks.
So he was always obsessed with cuckoo clocks, right? The old mechanical clocks and everything. And whenever he started being able to communicate and he started telling me what he had seen in heaven, he started talking about time and how there are these giant gears.
And he said there are gears too wonderful to explain. Now what's really interesting about that is and is that Einstein actually got his theory of relativity from these big giant medieval clocks.
So there's something to this, right? There's something about the clocks that's really, really important to understanding time. And when you understand that the way that these mechanical clocks operate is gravity okay kind of wind them up and then it uses gravity to actually and then the pendulum is the measure of the time right so this is kind of how that it functions and he can actually see time moving on people and he was actually studying by setting these he was learning time and gravity.
Thank you for that, Katie. That's beautiful.
This is this comes up a lot. And this is the next question.
Do any of the children report communication or other experiences that could be classified as interactions with non human intelligence? Well, John Paul, he also saw angels, and he saw the good and the bad, and he was so adamant that we love each other, and he talked about love all the time. That was sort of his message, was that I just don't think he had a lot of fear because he knew there was something so much better and that love is what's important.
So, you know, if someone was ugly or unkind, he would spell they don't understand, just love them. And he could see that in them.
And I thought, what a gift that he just is so comfortable with who he is. I think his teacher, Miss Susan, I think I made a post about this because it was hysterical.
She said, John Paul, what do you like best about yourself? And he spelled everything, which I thought was fabulous because he had so many limitations, but he was just happy. I think when you see the things he saw, why would you be unhappy? There was just something so much better.
And that's a gift. And I try to remember that all the time with him not being here anymore.
Just remember what he taught me when he was here. That's beautiful.
Go ahead, Susie. I think that the kids say over and over

again, it's like when we get beyond materialism, there are all kinds of worlds and realities.

And we're not focused just on the physical world and reality. Definitely kids who see angelic realms,

definitely kids who remember being kind of present on other in other planets and other places and spaces having other kinds of bodies have had kids who have definitely kids who talk about energies and entities and things like that and when we have deeper conversations around that, I think that the light that these kids really are, the consciousness that they're bringing in, we're usually pretty bright. So it's usually going to attract some detractors, you might say.
So anyway, yeah, all kinds of different connection points. Go ahead, Manisha.
I have to add that when Akhil started typing, he would come home and he would have a conversation with some of the diseased family members, especially he would see my mom. He would try to give me messages of some random people and say, and that time his perception was that his purpose is to give messages to the people on the earth he would actually come home and tell that my teachers are not of the same mind capacity of what i think so who are your teachers and he would say the stars moon and the stars are his teachers also many times i still experienced that me and akil we both are watching the same one video and office college class and in that during that time if i have some thoughts going on in my mind akil would tell me like why are you thinking about this and why are you thinking about that when we are watching the video together at the same time but my mind is drifting somewhere and he pauses me and tells me oh no you're talking you're thinking about that boy you're thinking about that girl and why are you thinking so i don't know what is this phenomena but i do experience that okay so next question here have any of you done a test to see if the hill is real by maybe passing a message to another person there who repeats it back to really see if it gets to the receiver? We haven't really tested, but we've talked about.
And a few of my students will talk about being at the Hill and say, oh, well, I teach history at the Hill. And another student will say, well, I'm teaching people how to be telepathic at the Hill.
But that's been corroborated by other students who say, oh, this student teaches me history. When I want to know

history, I go to him. So I know that's not exactly a test, but it is when they're spelling to me,

there's a lot of things that overlap and that are kind of, to me, proof that, of course,

they've been there and they've been communicating. But I did want to say that.
It's not like we

And I'll see you next time. a lap and that are kind or to me proof that of course they've been there and they've been communicating but that I did want to say that it's not like we tested that part but it just it keeps coming up where that things are consistent between what they're saying about each other.
So this next question is simply what can us muggles do to help? Should we be learning about telepathy or just try to be supportive, involved in another way? Can we reach out to non-speakers locally somehow to offer friendship or assistance? Go ahead, Libby. The first thing I think anyone can do is to have positive thoughts, positive loving thoughts in their head because they feel it, they hear it.
And I think you can improve,

even if it's your child or your student,

their quality of life right away by keeping loving thoughts and not,

I mean, there were times, of course,

John Paul frustrated me to no end.

I mean, he did some very bizarre things.

And in my head, I would say to him,

I still love you.

I said, I'm just going to have to clean this up. A little annoyed because I'm human, but I still love you.
It's okay. I think that is such an easy thing to do.
It doesn't cost a cent to make them feel good about themselves or bet. I mean, because they're already caring so much.
That's a burden to take off of them. I think that's right away something that can be done.
That's such a great point, Libby. Thank you for that.
Yeah. Other times I also feel that mothers and the caregivers who are doing the communication need a lot of support and we don't have that support.
So I felt so isolated and I just stopped going to any anybody and say i cannot talk i cannot even discuss these things with you because you're not going to understand me i cannot even take all these thoughts and this comment or even my emotional status to a doctor because i'm worried the doctor might prescribe something to me and say that oh you are too deeply involved or i'm tired of hearing from the parents oh you are too dedicated and you are different and you are too positive you are too positive for me so giving up is a very easy option so hey i get i've been compared with those parents and with those moms and with those family members who are given up so i've been forced and directly i'm enforced because i am not stopping i am going going going going and not stopping So I've been forced, indirectly I've been forced because I am not stopping.

I am going, going, going, going and not stopping.

So I've been forced to tell that

and directly given a message to me that

you are not giving up.

You are not giving up.

You want this to be go, go, go, go, go, go.

And I feel that if I don't do this,

then nobody else will do it.

Because the more I listen to Akhil and more I try to find those puzzle pieces, it's not only helping him, but helping others. But I, as a mother, I feel that I get so much of drained out because of not only about my child, but also from the other families, other moms who have those expectations.
Oh, I want to do this i want my daughter to but they don't want to put in that effort and they've given up i really feel we should have those resources at least for these we telepathy tapes on the mothers mothers who have come ahead and are giving up so we should have that kind of support system and yes as katie i agree like we we not only have a kids are failed but we mothers have been failed because we are going there and showing results and they in spite come tell us oh he's doing only for you i had to tell the entire stuff it's not my problem if he's not going for you it's not my problem if he's not going for for his dad it's not my problem it's his and his problem so i had to put my step down but not every mother is going to fight back like this and again constantly i'm tired of hearing you are different you are different you are different so there has to be some support system that's great thank you manisha hey fidelity how can i remember to invest every month with the fidelity, you can choose a schedule and set up recurring investments in stocks and ETFs.

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Do you get the sense that these skills can be learned by neurotypical speaking people? If so, how can average people begin developing their own telepathic abilities? Go ahead, Casey. Can we learn? Yes, we can.
Was it intentional for me?

No, it was not.

I didn't go into this. I didn't even know about it until a week before I became telepathic.

But I will say that I think the reason that this happened for me is because I was already

on this spiritual journey.

I'd had a spiritual awakening and I was already becoming very self aware and and working on my self-awareness which expands your consciousness as you do that you're you're expanding yourself so i was already doing that on my own and then i discovered this in the in the kids and because i was already working towards going where they were already at they're already on a certain frequency and i was already wanting to get there it's almost like they threw me a lifeline and like pulled me up and whatever happened they opened up some energetic channels within me that allowed this gift to to blossom i guess and it started also with following my own intuition so the more we listen to ourselves and follow our intuition and we're working on our in our inner, that's going to propel you on the path of opening up the telepathic gifts or whatever gifts within you. That's my experience.
That's great. Thank you, Casey.
Go ahead, Susie. Got open to my telepathic ability.
I was not on a spiritual journey. If anything, I was avoiding one at all cost, you know.
So, I think the other side of this is that these kids can see aspects of ourselves that we don't even know exist. So, when Riley came up to me in 99 and said, Master, I didn't know what the heck he was talking about what mastery are you talking about you must be the master here and he was you know so i'm of the opinion that a lot of these souls that end up with this diagnosis have come here in support of collective human evolution and they will find people in their environments in their homes anywhere and they will invite them to higher states of consciousness whether they like it or not and i think that for the parents who and professionals who do take that ride with them, there's this opportunity to evolve exponentially and to know yourself beyond what you might have even considered possible.
So, yeah, they definitely can open us up in amazing ways. That's great.
Okay, next question here. What are your thoughts on the U.S.
government's own research and seemingly acceptance of the historical reliance on telepathy and telepathic methods, specifically within the CIA and remote viewing? Go ahead, Susie. I do know that that piece is real and that telepathy for the goodness of humanity, for the well-being of humanity, is something the kids have always said that they are about.
So when they get put in those programs, it's never pretty. So that's all I wanted to add about that.
Diane, do you want to talk about the CIA investigating this type of research? And do you have any fears around not speaking individuals getting exploited or sucked up into this research in any way? I definitely have concerns about that. I'm very protective of the children and very protective of the mission that we all have here to really uplift humanity.
And one of my concerns is that people who are supported by the CIA or even members of the CIA don't walk around wearing badges saying they're a member of the CIA. And so the parapsychological community at large has a lot of people who fall into that category, who've gotten their funding from those sources.
And as I said, it's not something that they're going to share. Yet at the same time, the world is demanding that we involve other scientists to come into our space and to actually see what these children can do, because otherwise they're going to say, well, what are you hiding and why won't you let us observe some of these experiments, etc.
So what I've thought about as a way to address that is to obtain the data and then de-identify the data before it gets handed over to somebody to look at who's a scientist. In other words, protect the names and locations and whatnot of the children, but allow the data to be seen.
That's great. To that point, Dr.
Powell, there's another question here. How will the tests done at University of Virginia or University of Arizona or wherever you end up doing them stand up to rigorous, independent scientific verification methods? Well, they will stand up to those methods because I'm going to do them in a manner that is highly scientific.
I mean, you know, one of the things that you brought out in the podcast, and it's definitely my experience, is that people who have trained as parapsychologists, and I'm a full-blooded parapsychologist. I'm on the board of the Parapsychological Association for the third time.
We're people that are considered true scientists in our approach to this. And the parapsychologists are far more rigorous in terms of what they would ask for as proof than a lot of other classically trained scientists.
And the reason for that is, is that we know what kind of evidence already exists out there, and we know what the criticism has been around it. And so we want to try to be proactive in terms of trying to, if we can avoid that criticism, then setting up the experiment so that we don't have that as a side issue.
Great. This next question, Katie, might be a great one for you, and anyone else, it'll be probably for you as well.
Anyone who's been working in the spelling space fervently. I understand there's never been a study of the spelling phenomenon that's passed a double blind test.
Help me reconcile this. Can you explain what that means, even a double blind test, and how would you answer that? A lot of the people I hear about that have done these tests, first of all, have never had the spelling training.
So they don't even know if they'd had the training, they might understand why it doesn't work. But not only that, what infuriates me when people do this is how soul crushing it is to the child or the young adult or the adult who is being tested.

It is, it's so cruel because this person is, I've just heard some terrible things, graduate students trying to test this to disprove spelling possibly for their professor or whatever. I just, it makes me so angry because it's so unloving and not supportive that I just don't even understand why it's even done.
But don't do it if even, and if you've never been trained, then you don't even know what you're doing. And if you have been trained, you probably wouldn't do it because you know that it's not going to work.

But I have had people that I know where the autistic went into a severe depression afterwards

because it just, it was soul crushing.

So I just, I wish that if any young therapist or professional hears this, they will just refuse to do it. Don't do it because you don't have the training to do it.
So that's my two cents. It makes me crazy, Kai.
I find it infuriating. I know me too.
It really is one of the hardest questions to even receive but this is a autism is a new epidemic as the doctors do not understand and they have lack of education the entire academia entire special education is working on the outdated and the ot which they provide if they understand the ot if they understand the senses if they understand the brain and their ot is really not hitting the brain their ot if the school's ot is not hitting the brain so the schools are absolutely outdated completely outdated the fresh new otis who are coming from the schools they have no knowledge and we have to train them we have to train the parents we have to train the parents. We have to train the schools.
We have to train the OTs. And biggest thing is all the parents maximum, they go to the doctors.
Doctors don't give a hope. Then the hope is only the school system.
And the school system is constantly feeling them, feeling them, feeling them. So the parents are surrounded by all the certified clinical professionals who feel they have the right to fail our kids, are fooling themselves, are fooling us.
And then the parents like us have to step up and say, you don't understand because you have that lack of education. So I think there's a huge lack of education.
And that's what I see. There's so much effort I have to take, not only for a panel, but the professionals and new OTs who are passing out, who don't have any experience right now are asking for exorbitant salaries because the school OTs, schools are paying them at that level.
And it's hard to compete and find those ot's because they say hey i go to the school but if you go to the schools you're stuck there is no growth and no development there from a professional perspective so that's my so thing that i feel that our new jersey governor murphy who is signing all those grants to the families you know there's a whole big revolution should happen that why you're giving it to the schools hello we families need it you know there are different states who get it and who does they decide whom we have to pay and whom we don't have to pay so i think it is the school's outdated yeah i mean it's a whole episode on this but it's it's like supporting spelling getting funding for it easy making it immersive and getting every family the opportunity to like get a grant who wants to do it so yeah it's like a big big i think the most important issue really for all of you because they they drive the moms crazy when i go to the iep every time when i return back, I have tears in my eyes. I'm so sorry.
And these are private special schools who are charging $100,000 or $65,000 per year. Plus $20,000 is the transportation fees.
Where these transportation aides are not, not, not educated. Anybody can go and pick up a driver and they don't even understand English.
and then they say it's not school says it's not my responsibility to train the train the drivers to what responsibility it is to train those drivers who cannot even take your child to the school and they don't know what to do deal with it because my child is sitting there and my child is is comprehending all the bad words which you are using in the bus i mean i mean if you if you get me libby katie and all these families on the stage i can bet you we will have a lot people like if you agree clap if you agree bang on the you know that's the whole noise it has to go out and everybody's going to be encouraged that i have to stand up for my child like it is not crazy libby is not crazy all these moms are not crazy we are experiencing it and you are telling us to lie to the education system i like now a kid is 23 years old he's finished 58 plus 62 hours of college education and it is proctored it is proctored and if you don't want to believe i don't want to give him to any testing because my child is beyond your capacity when my child is not disabled you all are disabled to understand my child i put myself into as disability because i am disabled to understand my child i don't have the capacity because my senses are so grounded and i am so connected to my body that to go into the other dimension i I need to work on myself and I need to transform myself. And that's what my child is telling me and I'm not doing it.
I need to go on to that journey. I just love what you said there, Manisha, that your child is not disabled, that it's the system that's disabled in a way.
It is stigmatizing apraxia, which for listeners out there is the inability for your mind and body to work together efficiently. It's about motor control and it's not about intelligence.
So thank you for that. And I keep thinking when it comes to any of this testing, any spelling, any research, any telepathy testing, the most important thing someone can do, if you're a researcher or scientist, go learn to spell, go work with a non-speaker, you will see for yourself.

So, Dr. Powell, you know, I think they were talking about the spelling double-blind test, but can you talk about this from just a scientific testing perspective? Yeah, well, see, I think what's happened is that the term double-blind has taken on this sort of gravitas.
Like, you know, the double blind is, you know, the standard of science.

And where that comes from is where you have clinical trials that are double blind. And what does that mean? It means that it's usually, for example, pharmaceutical trials.
So what it means is that neither I as the doctor nor the patient know whether or not they're getting an active pill or a placebo until after you've done the experiments and then you crack the code and see oh you know this compare this person's symptoms with this other person's symptoms and you figure out who got what well the thing is is that when it comes to the kind of research that we're doing, there

really isn't, you can't really blind anybody to anything. And so I think that it's, people are, they're throwing the term double blind out there without really being someone who really thinks it through enough to realize what what you're exactly asking of people here and so these trials will be controlled you know we're using randomization as a type of control trying to have the greatest amount of separation ideally in separate rooms that's a.
And so you need the appropriate controls for the type of research that you're trying to engage in. And I can guarantee that we're going to be doing the experiments with that aim.
So hold on, the next question here is, where should we draw the line between providing support and agency for the spellers to share their gifts through collaboration with experts to solve some of our biggest challenges? How do we ensure their contributions are made in a non-exploitive way where they also have a healthy work-life balance and quality of life? The way to prevent exploitation is we need more communication partners. That's just the bottom way.
The only way to make sure that their authentic voice is validated is by having many communication partners that they communicate with so they can communicate the same message to multiple people. Then you can verify that it's their message.
Thank you, Katie. And just for listeners out there who want to explore that, you can look into Spelling to Communicate or S2C for short, or the Rapid Prompting Method or RPM for short, or the spellers method.
And if you just do a Google search, many of them offer training courses or training conferences and all sorts of things like that. So please check it out and get trained.
Okay, so Casey, I see you raising your hand. How do you engage non-speakers with world-altering work that is great for them and not exploitive.
I think that obviously giving them the choice to do these things is the most important thing. But I think that they just have a sense and a knowing of what their purpose is here from a very young age.
So I think they already know. They know what they want want to do and i think the important part is getting them the ability to express themselves so you know all all of them should have access to spelling to letter boards to devices so that they can express uh their interests their purpose in life and what they want to contribute to humanity.
I think one thing that is being echoed a lot here, which is so important, especially in terms of autonomy and exploitation, is asking the non-speakers. They should be included in every conversation about them, which is why if they cannot speak, it's so important to get them spelling so that we can engage with them.
The baseline to all of this is presuming competence. Any closing thoughts? Go ahead, Katie.
There are multiple things that non-speakers need. They need to be believed.
We need to look at them with respect and treat them with respect. They need to be included and they need friendships.
They need opportunities to work out, to work, to learn, to experience the same things that the rest of us experience. Our one friend said, you know, we need the same chance to be known that everyone else gets effortlessly.
So creating the opportunities and creating the method and the training and the people that will actually be those vehicles of communication with them. I want to give a huge thanks to our incredible panel of parents and teachers and Dr.
Powell for sharing their insights and experiences. This conversation is obviously just the beginning.
There's so much to unpack and unpacking it is exactly why we're doing these talk tracks. We will do this again because the questions keep on coming, and the questions keep evolving.
And many more of these questions will be explored and hopefully answered in the Telepathy Tapes film, which we're officially starting production on next month. ...episode of the talk tracks, but new episodes will now be released every other Sunday, so stay tuned as we work to unravel all the threads, even the veiled ones, that knit together our reality.
Please remember to stay kind, stay curious, and that being a true skeptic requires an open mind. Thank you to my amazing collaborators.
Original music was created by Elizabeth P.W., original logo and cover art by Ben Kendore Design,

the audio mix and finishing by Ben Campafrida,

our amazing podcast coordinator,

Jill Pichesnik,

my amazing assistant,

Catherine Ellis,

and I'm Kai Dickens,

your writer, creator, and host.

Thank you again for joining us.