Review: Colour Coding for Learners with Autism

Colours bring order to chaos for autistics

"I've spent so many years involved in autism education that I've tuned into how these children learn," says author Adele Devine. She is generous also, for the book comes with a CD-Rom that contains resources that can be printed and mounted on card. And why? To help autistic children create order in their frequently over-complicated worlds.

The author points out that research using eye-tracking technology has shown that autistic children are drawn to looking at shapes and colours more so than their peers. On the basis of that research, combined with personal experience (she works as a special needs teacher), the aim of the book is to encourage greater independence and fulfilment for autists in all learning environments.

This book is a helpful aide-memoire for anyone working with autistic children. The reader does not have to turn too many pages before he/she realises that the author can enhance and illuminate extant knowledge about colour coding and its relevance and importance to the autistic learner population. But it is not only when in the role of pupil that the autistic child may benefit from colour coding - emotionally speaking, the autistic child also seeks comfort in colours, for "colours bring order to chaos", the author advises.

The author poses two important questions: are we allowing individuals to develop their talents with our current teaching methods and could we support people with autism further?

Before language development, it has been noted that autistic individuals often use colour to bring orderliness to disorder, but the author warns that educationalists must "take care" about how colours are introduced to the autistic student. She gives the scenario of a difficult train journey, and asks the reader to relate the feeling of being on such a journey to the autistic child's experience of how they might feel when they first start school.

There is a good flow to the book, beginning with "colour language" - a communication method that is one of the first types of vocabulary children learn (colour communicates faster than words or black and white pictures) ending with the relationship of colour to synaesthesia and autism. Colour semantics is also written about, and its usefulness in assisting emerging literacy skills in school is discussed, along with examples of how colour can be used to illustrate science (e.g. process of osmosis) and to illustrate numeracy.

It is obvious that Devine knows what she is talking about and, what's more, her passion to get a "good deal" for autists in terms of their education shines through. Helpful hints and tips abound, and the reader is left with a keenness of wanting to try that which she suggests. I would not hesitate to recommend this book to any rookie teacher or teaching assistant with a burgeoning career in the field of autism education.

Elaine Nicholson, MA, chief executive, Action for Asperger's

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