I am always trying to discover new apps that will help address different needs than those already in existence. I recently discovered a brand new app, Colourful Semantics. It was created by London Speech and Language Therapists and produced by the developers TherapyBox.
This app is great for those working with students working on the following goals:
- Answering basic wh- questions
- Describing
- Basic vocabulary (nouns, verbs, adjectives, prepositions)
- Storytelling
- Expanding MLU
- Life skills
This app utilizes 5 different levels:
Level 1 – Who?
Level 2 – What doing?
Level 3 – What?
Level 4 – Where?
Level 5 – Describe?
When you go to the settings tab, you can pick a “user,” select the level, and can even pick out which scenes you want to use.
You can even add your own scenes! Yes! You read correctly! You can add photos from your iPad photo library or take photos right then and there! You can also add own audio recordings! How fun?!
Ideas for use:
- Take pictures of your students performing different actions in different scenes to answer questions.
- Can have students work together to pick actions for each student in the group.
- Can take pictures around the school/home/community/setting you are working in to help build life skills in those environments.
Once you are ready to start, students are presented with an image, and audio question, and four graphics to pick from for their answers. Each image represents the “who” “what” “where” “when” or “describing” answers. This way it is truly representing their understanding of the question forms!
Once they select accurately, they are brought to a larger version of their correct responses with the visual text answer as a word or phrase with the audio as well. I recommend having them repeat it as they say it!
Then the app prompts them to say it for themselves as a complete utterance! It automatically gives your student time to respond before going onto the next question/image.
As you can see, data is collected and you are brought to a score report at the end of the activity session. You can see their responses at each question level and scene. You can also email and/or print reports from this page!
Things I like about this app:
- Ability to add own images/audio
- Works on basic skills in a functional way
- Collects data for multiple students
- Easy to use and navigate
- Encourages expanding MLU
Things I would like to see in an update (it is only on version 1.0 at this time):
- More scenes to select from
- Ability to record and listen back to own verbal responses (and ways to collect data on those responses)
- Way to retrieve previous score reports
- Ability to modify time for verbal responses before moving onto next image
- Reproducible worksheets for further practice for each question type/images
Visit the creators website to learn more about the app and the free Colourful Semantics programme! Learn more about this $38.99 app by visiting iTunes!
Now it is your time to win a copy of this app for yourself! Enter to win below!
