Communication levels

At cyan level, students’ actions and communication are not intentional. Students at this level might react to sensations and/or have reflexive responses.

Actions are not under the student’s own control, but they may let you know if students are comfortable, uncomfortable, hungry or sleepy. 

Those supporting the students interpret the students’ needs from behaviours such as body movements, facial expressions and sounds, for example, crying.

At pink level, students have control of their actions, but they don’t use them to communicate intentionally. They are beginning to understand cause and effect.

Examples of actions are: touching things with intention as in messy play, playing with their vocalisations, clapping hands, etc.

Students at this stage do not yet realise that they can use these actions to control another person’s behaviour. 

At Indigo level, students use actions intentionally to express their needs and desires to others.

This level marks the beginning of intentional communication with pre-symbolic unconventional communication.

Examples of actions are vocalisations to ask for ‘more’ of a game, simple gestures such tugging on people; or a student that hands you the cup for ‘drink’ or pulls you to the fridge for ‘cake’.

At Orange level, students begin to use conventional gestures to communicate.

Students use pre-symbolic communication, for example, pointing or nodding, i.e. looks at you, then at cup; or points to cup and fridge.

Communication is “pre-symbolic” because it does not involve any sort of symbol; it is  “conventional" because they are socially acceptable and we continue to use them to accompany our language as we mature.

At Yellow level, “Concrete" symbols that physically resemble what they represent, are used to communicate.

Concrete symbols look like, feel like, move like, or sound like what they represent.

Concrete symbols include pictures (a student gives you a picture of a cup), objects (such as a shoelace to represent "shoe"), "iconic" gestures (such as patting a chair to say "sit down") and sounds (such as making a buzzing sound to mean “bee”).

Some students skip this stage and go directly to Green Level. For some individuals, concrete symbols may be the only type of symbol that makes sense to them; for others, they may serve as a bridge to using abstract symbols.

At Green level, abstract symbols such as speech, manual signs, tactile signs, brailled or printed words and/or any communication technology using symbols are used to communicate.

These symbols are “abstract” because they are NOT physically similar to what they represent.

They are used one at a time, for example, the student signs JUICE or says “juice”.

At Purple level, students combine symbols (any sort) into ordered two or three-symbol combinations according to grammatical rules. 

Abstract symbols such as speech, manual signs, tactile signs, brailled or printed words and/or any communication technology using symbols are used to communicate.

Examples of sentences are "want juice", "me go out", according to grammatical rules.

At Grey level, students combine symbols (any sort) into ordered multiple symbol combinations according to grammatical rules.

Abstract symbols such as speech, manual signs, tactile signs, brailled or printed words and/or any communication technology using symbols are used to communicate.

Examples of sentences are "I want a cup of juice and a sandwich", "I don’t want to go out to play", according to grammatical rules.