A new programme to help children with additional needs has been launched in the Midlands.
Voices for Autism Longford is a group founded by local parents of non-verbal autistic children to help them access a new teaching method.
RPM or Rapid Prompting Method is a communication techniques developed in the United States to help non-verbal children communicate via pointing, typing, or writing.
The method was recently trialed at St Christopher's Special School in Longford Town with a group children.
According to School management, the programme was a major success, with the centre now hoping to train more staff in the method.
The newly established group has launched a go fund me campaign to raise money to cover the costs of training staff and students at St. Christopher's.
Local parent, Elaine Jenkins says RPM is a game changer:
''With my child being nonverbal, the mistake can be made you know that maybe they're not able to learn educationally. But for years my child would have been offered maybe younger books, Junior infant books or whatever. But the teacher reported back that he's now working through comprehending third and fourth class books. So he would be kind of comprehending stuff at his age level which is absolutely mind blowing for us.''
LISTEN: Elaine has been speaking our reporter Daniel Considine about the new teaching method:
