Pupils at Special School Create Song to Amplify Non-Verbal Voices

Students at Mitchell House Special School in east Belfast have created a song titled 'My Voice' to highlight the communication abilities of non-verbal pupils and educate the public about alternative methods.

The song, written and recorded by the school's 11- to 13-year-old 'Moon' Class, aims to raise awareness of communication tools such as Makaton, eye gaze technology, and electronic devices.

"The meaning of the song is that we wanted to tell you that no matter how you use your voice, it's still important and that's really the school motto that we wanted to embody," said 12-year-old Gemma, one of the students involved. "It's really important to me personally being friends with a lot of people who are non-verbal that people understand that they're not actually non-verbal. It's people who don't understand them that think they're non-verbal."

Alternative verses in the song include lines like, "Sometimes my voice is confident, sometimes my voice is calm, sometimes I use my talker, to tell you who I am."

Katie-Louise, 11, used an electronic communication device to contribute. "We're celebrating how we all communicate differently," she told BBC News NI. "This month we wrote a song with our teacher Miss Ryan to show how we all communicate differently and that our voices matter."

Matthew, the school's deputy head pupil, uses eye gaze technology to communicate. This method allows individuals to operate computers or tablets using eye movements. His friend and head pupil, Caelainn, explained that Matthew also uses cards for yes/no questions, but can operate an electronic device with his eyes, which picks up on his gaze.

"It's been a privilege to be here for 16 years, it's been amazing and all the kids are amazing, they're so friendly, they're so respectful to people and they're good with other people's needs," Caelainn added.

Mitchell House has been accredited as a Communication Friendly Setting by Elklan, a UK-wide organization focused on children's speech, language, and communication. It is one of only two schools in Northern Ireland to receive this accreditation for its work with augmentative and alternative communication (AAC).

Principal Miriam Donnan expressed pride in sharing the diverse communication methods used by the students. "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."

Gemma emphasized the need for patience and understanding when interacting with individuals who communicate differently. "It's really important that people understand that you have to take time and be patient to understand how other people communicate," she said.