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COLOURFUL SEMANTICS

In addition to the Colourful Semantics printable pack available in our Resources section we have also developed the Colourful Semantics iPad app.  

Based on independent research carried out in the UK by Alison Bryan and others between 1997* & 2011** 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   

The Colourful Semantics app is available in English and Arabic from the AppStore store 

*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.