Resources

Based on independent research carried out in the UK by Alison Bryan and others between 1997* & 2011** we have created the fun and effective Colourful Semantics iPad app to work on developing a child’s: spoken sentences ability to answer WH-Questions use of nouns, verbs, prepositions and adjectives story telling skills written sentences In our app children work through the 5 levels of the Colourful Semantics programme to eventually produce grammatical and informational sentences: Level 1 – Who is in the picture? “the man” Level 2 – What is the person doing? “is eating” Level 3 – What is the person eating? “the sandwich” Level 4 – Where is the person eating the sandwich? “in the kitchen” Level 5 – Describe? “big” With the end result being: “The man…is eating…the big …sandwich…in the kitchen” What is unique about this approach is that children learn to associate different ‘types’ of words with particular colours whereby: Level 1 – Who? “the man” (Subject – Orange) Level 2 – What doing? “is eating” (Verb – Yellow) Level 3 – What? “the sandwich” (Object – Green) Level 4 – Where? “in the kitchen” (Location – Blue) Level 5 – Describe? “big” (Adjective – Purple) Colourful Semantics is used with a wide variety of clinical presentations including: Language delay or disorder Specific Language Impairment (SLI) Autistic Spectrum Disorders Hearing impairment Mild and Moderate Learning Disabilities Cerebral Palsy Aphasia Colourful Semantics is available in English and Arabic from the AppStore store More information about Colourful Semantics *Bryan, A. (1997) Colourful Semantics: thematic role therapy. In Chiat, S., Law, J. and Marshall, J. (Eds) Language Disorders in Children and Adults: Psycholinguistic approaches to therapy. London: Whurr. ** Bolderson et al in (2011) Colourful Semantics: A Clinical Investigation. Child Language Teaching and Therapy October 2011 vol. 27 no. 3 344-353.

Teaching grammar to school-aged children with specific language impairment using Shape Coding. This paper describes an approach to teaching grammar which has been designed for school-aged children with specific language impairment (SLI). The approach uses shapes, colours and arrows to make the grammatical rules of English explicit. Evidence is presented which supports the use of this approach with older children in the areas of past tense morphology, comprehension of dative structures and comparative questions. I conclude that there is sufficient evidence that this kind of intervention can be effective with these older children. This challenges the current move to reduce direct intervention for school-aged children.

Social stories were developed by Gray, C (1991). These are a collection of stories used by Chris. Description: Examples written back in 2007-08

Inclusive Technology Switch Progression Road Map, written by Special Projects Manager Ian Bean.

An easy read questionnaire which Chris wrote for young people admitted under the Mental Health Act (1983)

An Easy Read booklet written for adolescents detained under Section 2 of the Mental Health Act (1983) including a short questionnaire to test understanding of their rights