ABC traffic light: a health education tool

Abstract

It is during the childhood period of one’s life trajectory that the exponential increase of vocabulary acquisition occurs. In Portugal, language disorders are the most frequently seen child development impairments, affecting 3 to 15 per cent of children under six years. Because delays in the acquisition of basic vocabulary can compromise inter-peer relational communication, a timely therapeutic assessment and intervention becomes all the more crucial. A speech therapy ludic-pedagogic intervention tool—the ABC Traffic Light—was created so as to aid in promoting basic vocabulary acquisition in children aged between three and six years. It consists in a traffic light with three built-in pouches, each of which containing cards suggestive of activities of varying difficulty levels. The empirical range of the proposed tool in the context of speech therapy assessment and intervention sessions should be highlighted.