A Waterloo mother is fighting to allow her non-verbal son the use of a communication method the Waterloo Regional District School Board (WRDSB) says they do not recognize as valid.
Jude Valant is a 19-year-old student at Bluevale Collegiate Institute in Waterloo. He has severe autism and does not speak, but relies on Rapid Prompting Method, or RPM, to communicate.
RPM allows him to spell out words and sentences by pointing to letters on a board. According to his mother, Melissa Valant, it allows him to express thoughts, opinions and even tell jokes, but the WRDSB does not allow its use in school.
“[Without RPM] he can’t share with somebody specifically what he really thinks and feels himself,” Valant said.
Melissa Valant is a part-time teacher in the region, and believes her dispute with the school board reflects a broader challenge in special education — the disconnect between official school policies and the real communication needs of some students. She argues that school boards too often apply a blanket approach to autistic students, rather than recognizing individual differences.
“We can’t assume that because you’ve met one person with autism that you’ve met every person with autism,” she said.
RPM involves a communication partner providing short, repeated prompts or questions while the individual points to letters, words, or pictures on a board that the partner holds to spell out responses.
Valant says she first encountered RPM when Jude was nine years old. During his session, he was asked why he chewed gum. According to Valant, he spelled out “it relieves boredom.” She says that in that moment, she knew Jude’s ability to articulate his thoughts went far beyond what his teachers had previously thought.
“That confirmed for me that what I’ve always known about our boy,” she said. “How incredibly capable, bright and brilliant he is.”
When Valant first informed the school board about RPM, she was told that it was not an approved communication method. She says the news felt like a “gut punch.”
“You’re consistently told you know what’s best for your child,” she said. “It feels very performative because they’re the ones that make the final decisions regardless of what might be best for the student.”
The WRDSB said it “carefully considers the advice of our professional teams when determining which resources and supports are appropriate for use with students.”
In this case, RPM is not approved.
“When a tool or method is not approved, our staff work closely with students, parents, families, caregivers, and specialized support teams to identify alternative, evidence-based methods that best meet each student’s individual needs,” a statement to CBC News said.
“The WRDSB’s approach aligns with the direction and guidance of experts, professional organizations and regulatory bodies, including Speech-Language & Audiology Canada (SAC) and the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA).”
One expert said the concern with RPM lies in whether the communication is truly coming from the individual who relies on it.
Sari Risen, a speech-language pathologist and behaviour analyst, says there is no reliable evidence showing that messages produced through RPM come from the person using the method.
“At this point, when we don’t have research on it,” Risen said. “There always has to be someone there.”
Risen explained that small movements, such as shifting the letter board or changing its position, can unintentionally guide a person toward certain letters or words, without the partner realizing they are doing it.
RPM also closely resembles facilitated communication, according to Risen. Facilitated communication has been widely discredited. It differs from RPM in that someone guides an individual’s hands or arm to help them communicate. Risen says that there is still doubt about RPM effectiveness despite its differences from facilitated communication.
“Even though there is that separation, you’re still relying on that person to help you along,” she said.
Risen adds that the lack of independent communication with RPM is a significant problem because it can make it difficult for educators to accurately assess a student’s true skill level. She warns that if a student appears to produce advanced messages through RPM that aren’t actually their own, educators might mistakenly place them in higher-level classes, such as advanced science.
“If they actually don’t have these advanced science skills, we’re now wasting their time and potentially creating interfering behaviours or problem behaviours,” she said.
Currently, Jude demonstrates his understanding of lessons through daily multiple choice tests that Valant says are very hard on him.
“Imagine how frustrating it is to be sitting somewhere every day where you have all these ideas in your head and the only way that you can communicate is by answering A, B, C or D,” she said.
For day-to-day interactions he uses communication apps. Jude first tried an app called Proloquo2Go, which lets people with speech difficulties form sentences by selecting symbols or text, which are then played aloud.
However, Valant argues it only expresses basic thoughts and that Jude refuses to use it.
They also tried Predictable, a text-to-speech app, which uses word prediction and saves frequently used phrases but Jude’s skills are not strong enough to use it effectively, according to Valant.
In May 2024, tensions with the school board came to a head. Jude, who has an Individualized Education Plan (IEP), has annual goals meant to track his progress. But when most of these goals were focused on his use of the Predictable app, Valant called the school and set up a meeting with the vice principal, Jude’s classroom teacher and his speech-language pathologist.
In the meeting, Valant claims the speech-language pathologist acknowledged the issues Jude was having with the Predictable app.
“Everyone on that table could attest to the fact that she said it was not working for him,” she said.
Since then, Jude is continuing to make the best of what his school offers. Valant is continuing to push for RPM as much as she can, but time is running out as Jude only has a year and a half left in high school.
Valant emphasizes that she is not advocating for RPM to be universally adopted.
“I’m not here wanting to put an RPM banner outside the school,” she said. “I’m just asking: Can you let him use what works for him?”
Want Valant wants is to see accommodations for people with autism handled on a case-by-case basis. She says this flexibility is given to neurotypical children.
“We differentiate all of our teaching,” she said. “For those kids that are kinesthetic or tactile or auditory or visual, we put things in place to support them.”
But most of all she wants her son to be able to enjoy his remaining time in school.
“He deserves to be heard,” she said.
