If you have a spare two minutes and 41 seconds to spare then I’d urge you to take a look at the video Speechmark Publishing has put on its Facebook page showing Aiden, a little boy with a rare craniofacial disorder, using the apps the company has created. For teaching and engaging your pupils with special needs then you can’t really disagree with Aiden’s mother, who says that the ColorCard app she used was ‘simple, no fuss, creative, constructive and invaluable.’ And although Aiden is only six years old, the apps on offer would work just as well for older pupils in a range of settings.
You might not be all that familiar with Speechmark ColorCards; but they have been created by speech and language therapists and teachers with the intention of making a difference by helping to improve attention, language and observation skills as well as develop emotional literacy. They have up until recently been published as photographic cards along with books of teaching ideas – but now they are available for the iPad, which is the perfect home for them.
You can purchase ColorCards Apps on their own or as a bundle. The bundle of five speech, language and communications apps includes a basic sequences app and two more that focus on more challenging sequences, plus ‘everyday objects’ and ‘what can you see?’ The idea of the bundle is that you pass from one app to the other working through activities using 220 high quality real-life photographs, all of which have been tried and tested with children and adults experiencing speech difficulties. There are also animations to make the apps more rewarding and motivating.
Adaptable content
It is obvious that much of the content in these apps will be more than suitable for a whole range of scenarios as they have been selected with great care. The content has all sorts of uses and you could plan intervention work for activities in vocabulary, sentence structure, ordering information, reading, writing, turn taking, memory and of course, talking. The content isn’t exclusively something you would link to literacy though – with a little creative thinking there are lots of delicious opportunities right across the curriculum for sequencing, describing, inference and logical thought.
You might be concerned that some of the images aren’t really what you want, because they don’t match the needs of a particular pupil you have in mind. But one of the stand-out features of the apps is the ability to create and add your own photos. Some initial feedback from Speechmark suggests that the personalisation feature of the apps has enabled users to tailor content not only according to the curriculum (e.g. sequencing steps of growth in science) but also to address particularly challenging social situations, such as ordering a sequence of events when in the canteen. You could easily apply this to other social contexts around school and make life easier for pupils in the process.
Track progress
Another great feature is the comprehensive reporting tool, as this will help you monitor, track and measure pupil progress over time. What’s extra special here is the ability to download reports and share feedback at school or with parents. It is very easy to create user profiles to chart results. You can add a pupil photo and write notes – and what’s top drawer is the graphing of data and a very handy progress wheel to help with monitoring. We all know that visual and auditory feedback helps support learning and so it is good to see that these apps, in common with many these days, include the ability to record, play back or download audio files. This feature is ideal for pupils that experience speech problems because the feedback is instant and so you’d be crazy not to use it for recording levels of progress.
The apps are not cheap – individually they cost £21.99, but you can make a saving by purchasing the bundle for £89.99. And the fact is, schools and parents who choose to invest will find themselves in possession of a powerful and flexible resource, suitable for different ages and ability levels, which can be used in one-to-one sessions or for group work as the content is easily adaptable for specific therapy and teaching aims. I think even with fairly short-term use you would see a positive impact in terms of improving communication skills, vocabulary, expressive language, and problem-solving; hopefully in time the company will be able to publish some case study examples of their use in secondary school settings so colleagues can share their experiences.
