Belfast: Pupils write song to give non-verbal classmates a voice

Due to its work, Mitchell House has been accredited as a Communication Friendly Setting by Elklan, a UK-wide organisation supporting children’s speech, language and communication.

It is one of only two schools in Northern Ireland to achieve the accreditation for its work using augmentative and alternative communication (AAC).

Principal Miriam Donnan said that they were proud to share the different ways their pupils communicated.

“We want to tell the world that communication is not just about speech,” she said.

“We work really closely with our speech and language therapy department here in school to really promote lots of different ways of communicating and we wanted to celebrate that and share that with everybody.

“So the class themselves came up with the idea for the song and the words are all their own that they came up with their teacher Miss Ryan and it’s really a lovely celebration of everybody’s voice matters.”

And Gemma wants everyone to know that sometimes a little patience and consideration might be required.

“It’s really important that people understand that you have to take time and be patient to understand how other people communicate,” she said.