Wax crayons spill from their box to the brown earth below as little Naamwime decides which colour to use. He selects the blue crayon then jettisons it to pick the purple crayon, and now he attempts to make some marks on a page. His fingers are unused to holding a pencil and so the marks he makes are light and hesitant. Naamwime is eight and deaf mute, and he doesn't attend school; he probably never will. The Ghanaian education system has no space for children such as Naamwime so he will spend his days at home while his brothers and sisters go to school. Naamwime's condition has never officially been diagnosed. With one doctor in a district of 65,000 people, children such as Naamwime do not receive a high priority.

Local ATE worker Kenneth Gan has taken me to visit remote homesteads in what feels like one of the most far flung places on Earth. I'm here to meet up with Special Needs children in the Lawra district (150 of them and counting) to devise a programme of stimulative activities that I can roll out when I return in January for six weeks.

Each house we visit takes the form of a series of three or four low slung earthen rooms built around a baked earth courtyard. The houses have no electricity and water is collected in pitchers from a nearby well. Most of our families live a few miles from the main dirt road, Kenneth uses his skills as a motorbike driver to navigate the paths as they wind their way around fields. It is now rainy season so the maize and millet fields stand tall, while groundnut, chili pepper and okra plants cluster arounnd the homesteads. Little goats, no bigger than a labrador, are tethered to posts to prevent them nibbling the precious crops.

Naamwime is slowly getting used to handling the crayons. He is fascinated by colours, much more so than other children we have visited. Perhaps colour will be the key that opens up young Naamwime to a world of stimulation and suprises. Maybe, maybe not. But when I return in January I'll make sure I have a bundle of activities and games that involve a rainbow of colours.