My view on The Telepathy Tapes as the mother of an autistic non-speaker

A lot of people have asked me what I thought about The Telepathy Tapes and honestly? The entire podcast felt like 100 steps back for actual advocacy for non-speaking autistics.

I understand why parents buy into this. Mainstream medicine offers us almost nothing. Doctors shrug, therapies are underfunded, research feels vague and stalled. The cause of autism is still largely unknown. And when you’re raising a child with 24/7 support needs, you get desperate for answers.

I know how easy it is to start slipping into alternative ideas and mystical explanations. I’ve been there myself. So when I hear these parents, I believe them. I believe they truly think their child is telepathic. They’re not lying, they’re not faking. They’re desperate. I empathize with that deeply.

But here’s the thing: even if it were real, even if my son could read my mind, he’d still be disabled. He’d still need support, accommodations, and care. Framing autism as a superpower doesn’t erase the fact that life for non-speakers is filled with challenges society refuses to address.

And here’s the danger: when people believe non-speakers are mystical beings, policy makers and systems feel even less pressure to provide practical support. Why fund therapies, why cover medical needs, why fight for accessibility if autism is framed as a supernatural gift, not a disability? This narrative actively harms our kids.

Society keeps boxing non-speakers into two categories: either subhuman, incapable of thought… or mystical savants with superpowers. Neither simply accepts them as human beings who deserve love, education, and engagement.

And this isn’t just the podcast, it’s mainstream representation of autism as a whole. Pop culture almost always gives us one type of autistic character: the savant, the genius, the gifted mind. And that’s the only kind of autism people want to see or learn about. But most autistic people aren’t savants. They aren’t all super-natural geniuses with exceptional gifts in a specific area. They’re human beings, with different strengths and struggles, who deserve respect even if they never fit that mold.

The Telepathy Tapes leaned hard into this savant stereotype, dressed it up with telepathy, and sold it as advocacy. But it isn’t advocacy…it’s entertainment. And it pushes real autistic people further into invisibility.

What our kids actually need is boring to the outside world. Funded therapies. Trained professionals. Accessible communication devices. Respect. Dignity. A chance to live their lives without being treated as subhuman or as magical creatures.

I love magic. I love the mystical, the woo-woo, all of it. And sure, if my son turned out to be telepathic, that’d be cool. But it wouldn’t change the fact that he’s a little boy who needs round-the-clock support, and potentially always will. And that’s okay. He doesn’t need a superpower to matter. He doesn’t need to entertain people to deserve care.

So yes, I empathize with the parents who believe. I understand how easy it is to fall into magical explanations when the system offers us nothing but dismissals. But The Telepathy Tapes didn’t move us forward. It set us back.

Because people don’t want to hear about the reality of non-speakers unless it’s sensational. And until that changes, families like mine will keep being ignored. My son doesn’t need to be a telepath—or a savant—to be worth fighting for. He already is.