Why Gateway? Efficient and effective communication and the ability for children to develop their expressive language skills from a developmental framework.
Gateway promotes efficent and effective communication and follows a developmental model of language acquisition. Core vocabulary can be access using an average of < 2 key selections per word thus providing maximum efficiency for the user. Words considered fringe or less frequently used vocabulary may require > 2 key selections. The table to the right presents sample sentences for Gateway 40, 60 and Pro with the corresponding number of key selections required to form each sentence.
The cognitive demands of learning Gateway are minimized by utilizing the Fitzgerald Key format as the vocabulary organization format. Words are color-coded and categorized according to people, verbs, little words, descriptive words, objects and places. Since young children can easliy categorize common objects according to category exemplars (e.g., shoe => Cloths, understanding the organization of Gateway vocabulary is developmentally intuitive. The Gateway series of page sets meets the needs of individuals demonstrating a wide range od expressive language abilities. Gateway 12 can be introduced to children functioning at the 18-24 month expressive language level, while Gateway Pro can meet the needs of q competent adult communicator. Collectively, the Gateway© series of page sets provide a developmental model of language acquisition.
The vocabulary within each of the Gateway page sets was selected based upon word frequency research (Beukelman, Jones & Rowan, 1989; Raban, 1988), through use of environmental surveys (Bruno, 1989. Carlson, 1981) and by analyzing the vocabulary contents of numerous communication boards of competent communicators.. To provide opportunities for age appropriate syntactical development, auxiliaries and word morphology function keys are incrementally added to page sets in an order and complexity that parallels normal syntactical development.
Young children learn to communicate through play. Child page sets contain pages of jokes, riddles, and popular board games. Since many school-aged children use the Gateway page sets, academic pages are included in Gateway 12, 20, 40, 60, Pro and Scanning Pro. Pages are included to help children todemonstrate their competency when learning about the states, capitals, countries, nature, and more. A TEST page allows a user to complete a test or worksheet without significant adult asistance. Commands for formatting text and computer access are included. There are pages with many "open" locations to allow for easy customization. These pages provide a framework for customization by the student's speed-language pathologist.