As I write this, summer still has a month to go here in southern New England, but we are well into August, the month most people think of as the last month of summer. I cannot speak for you, but it seems to me the time has zipped by too quickly.

I will be going on a long-anticipated vacation in England in a couple of weeks, and although I will be touristing most of the time, I will also be giving a couple of talks: both in pubs. On Tuesday, September 10, I will be hosted by the Cambridge Skeptics at The Maypole in Cambridge. See below.

Then, the following night, I will be hosted by the Greenwich Skeptics in the Pub at the Star of Greenwich. These are in-person talks, and as far as I know, they will not be recorded or live-streamed. But if any friends within the sound of my voice plan to be in the area of Cambridge or London on those nights, I would love to see you. Both events are free.

Since I last communicated with you, I have written two online columns for Skeptical Inquirer magazine on related themes. In several previous columns, I have written about the discredited communication method facilitated communication, which is often used with nonspeaking people with severe autism. The technique involves a “facilitator” “steadying” the hand of the nonspeaking person as they type on a keyboard, but research shows that the facilitator is unconsciously controlling the typing, not the nonspeaking person. To explain how this works, I have frequently described it as similar to a Ouija board. After giving this somewhat unsatisfying explanation a few times, I decided to devote a column to the question “How does the Ouija board work?” I managed to include mention of a local hero in my town, the poet James Merrill, a Pulitzer Prize winner and Ouija board devotee.

Pamunkey Regional Jail in Hanover County, Virginia where Kevin Plantan spent ten months.

My most recent column, “A Life Shattered by Pseudoscience,” is probably the most important thing I have written for Skeptical Inquirer. Kevin Plantan was jailed for ten months because of false accusations that he sexually abused his nonspeaking autistic daughter. The accusations were made in facilitated communication sessions with home health aides and with the girl’s mother, Kevin’s ex-wife. Kevin has been reluctant to come forward to tell his story, but he agreed to let me write about his case and gave me extraordinary access to people, court documents, and other materials. His story is a human tragedy that could have been averted if investigators had been informed about facilitated communication. The article runs to over 4,000 words and is based on several hours of interviews and extensive research into the case. Kevin’s story and others like his are an important contrast to the typical fluff pieces written about this pseudoscientific communication technique.

That’s it for now. Chances are I will not clutter your inbox again until after my trip to England in early September. Until then, make the best of these waning days of summer.

SV