Ky Dickens on Autism, Non-Speakers, and Assuming Competence — Creator of The Telepathy Tapes

The Telepathy Tapes Season 2 is out now!  Ky Dickens, creator and producer of The Telepathy Tapes—one of the most talked-about and shared podcasts of 2024 and 2025—joins Autism Mom Sarah Kernion for a conversation that sits at the intersection of autism, non-speaking communication, and caregiver belief. Her work has reignited global discussion about how intelligence, awareness, and connection are understood in the absence of speech. The dialogue centers on non-speaking autistic individuals and the families who live daily with the consequences of being underestimated. It challenges the reflex to equate speech with competence and invites a reexamination of behavior as communication—an insight deeply familiar to autism parents navigating profound autism and neurodiversity. Together, they explore why assuming competence is not naïve optimism but an ethical stance, how caregiver stories often precede scientific recognition, and what responsibilities communities carry when engaging with new frameworks for communication. Woven throughout is a caregiver truth echoed across autism parent spaces: belief changes advocacy, advocacy changes access, and access changes lives. By grounding The Telepathy Tapes within the lived realities of autism parenting, this conversation ensures that curiosity is matched with care—and that non-speakers are centered not as mysteries to solve, but as people to understand. Chapters (00:00:00) - The Telepathy Tapes(00:03:26) - Asha Mossbridge on Assuming Competency(00:11:44) - What is fueling a non-Speaker's Spell?(00:19:05) - telepathy: Science needs to evolve(00:26:15) - The Energy It Takes to Meet the Non-Speakers