GCV - General Core Vocabulary list from AAC Institute |
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The following article resides here: www.aacinstitute.org Core Vocabulary
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The following article resides here: http://www.aacinstitute.org/Resources/ParentsCorner/2006April.html Robin Hurd organises the Parents' Corner section of AAC Institute's website, where you will find an archive of monthly articles. April 2006: Defining our terms: Core Vocabularyby Robin HurdLast summer while I was antiquing, I ran across an old school book from the 40’s. It was called a “core vocabulary reader”. Intrigued, I bought the book. Inside it, I found a story with chapters and a plot line that used only 149 words; all but three of them core vocabulary. The concept of core vocabulary is not a new one, nor is it an idea that applies specifically to people who use AAC. Taking some time to look at the definition of core vocabulary and its history can help us to understand how the word applies to our children who use AAC. Core vocabulary, or high frequency words, means those common words that we all use to make up the majority of what we say. Researchers tell us that roughly 80% of what we say or write is made up of a list of basic words that number in the hundreds. All of the other words in our vocabulary of thousands of words are used much less frequently. These can be called the fringe vocabulary, extended vocabulary, or the “million dollar words”. In the 40's, when my core vocabulary reader was written, reading education focused on teaching children to recognize core vocabulary words by sight when reading. The series used only those core vocabulary words to create a chapter book that gave children practice, practice, practice reading basic words by sight until they could read these words fluently. Today, though reading is taught differently, through a combination of sight words and phonics instruction; core vocabulary, or high frequency words, still make up the majority of the words in early readers, just as they make up the majority of words in our conversations.. When we use the term core vocabulary when talking about AAC, it means the same thing that it does when talking about reading or the speech of verbal people. We mean those basic words that make up the vast majority of communication. The difference between core vocabulary on an AAC system and that of a verbal person is that the vocabulary choices of a person using AAC are often limited and controlled by someone other themselves. Care must be taken when planning an AAC system so that the person who uses it can get to the words needed to communicate fluently. Having access to the same core vocabulary, or high frequency words, that others use most often when communicating is essential to developing the skills need to speak, write and read. When putting together an AAC system, people sometimes call whatever words they choose to put on the system the child’s “core vocabulary” even if those words are mainly personal names, specific toys, food choices, or pre-stored messages. Doing this may leave the impression that this child has the same access to language as a speaking child, but that impression is false! Only when a child’s AAC system contains the same basic words that others use to build sentences in addition to extended vocabulary words that are personally important can we claim that a child using AAC has the same opportunities to build language skills. As always, your comments and questions help keep this column interesting! E-mail me at parents@aacinsititute.org |
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The following article resides here: http://www.aacinstitute.org/Resources/ParentsCorner/2006June.html Robin Hurd organises the Parents' Corner section of AAC Institute's website, where you will find an archive of monthly articles. June 2006: Defining our terms: Evidence-Based Practiceby Robin HurdChanges in legislation in the United States have made a big difference in the way school staff are expected to serve special needs students. One of those big differences is that staff must be able to provide evidence to support their decisions about what and how they teach, what kind of assistive technology they provide, and even what kind of placement they recommend for students with special needs. Schools also need to be prepared to use evidence to show that students are indeed learning and achieving their goals. As evidence-based practice becomes the standard expectation within education, it is important for parents as well as school staff to understand what evidence-based practice is, and what kinds of evidence should be considered when planning for our children’s education, and how to gather that evidence. Too often, evidence-based practice seems like something for medical doctors and researchers, and is intimidating to people who aren’t trained in it—including, at times, school staff. By taking a look at how evidence-based practice can guide the way students are taught and improve the results of that teaching, we can take this concept from a theoretical one, to one that has everyday applications. First, let’s look at the types of evidence that are available. We can group evidence into 3 categories: evidence on normal development of children, evidence on others who fit into our child’s disability grouping, and evidence specifically about our child. Evidence on normal development of children includes much research that school staff are already familiar with. An example of this is Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences, which we talked about in a Parent’s Corner article in March. Another familiar bit of research that fits into this category is Brown’s Stages of Language Development, which shows what words children learn through each phase of learning to talk. Both of these pieces of research are useful, even though our children have special needs, but they are not the only bits of research done on normally developing children that have application to children with special needs. Evidence on others who fit into our child’s disability grouping would be research that involved children with identified disability labels that also apply to our children: language delays, children who use AAC, autism, apraxia, cerebral palsy, motor impairments, and so on. This type of research can help guide us to specific practices that have been already proven to produce results with students who have disabilities similar to our children and help us determine evidence based expectations of what our children can achieve. The third type of research is data collected specifically about our child. This is information that shows us exactly how well the game plan is working for our child, and what works best. One way to collect this type of data is to use Language Activity Monitoring (LAM) to automatically record what your child says on the AAC system, how long it took to say each word, and how often your child is using pre-stored messages, making up his own sentences or using spelling and word prediction. For more information on LAM, see the December 2004 Parent’s Corner article. Other types of research specifically about your child can be about access methods. How fast can your child access the AAC stem? Where should the switch be placed and what type of switch gets the best results? Does your child’s accuracy improve with a keyguard? Larger buttons on the AAC system? How is your child’s vision? Hearing? If there a time of day when accuracy and speed are best? Worst? Too often, these questions are answered by our best guess, but for the best outcomes, these questions can and should be answered by information, not guesswork. These three types of evidence can work together to help get the best results possible for children who use AAC. For example, using evidence on how children who are beginning to speak use words (Brown’s stages of Language Development), we can know what words a child who is beginning to learn to speak using AAC should have access to. Using information gained from other children with and without language delays, we can plan to teach these words in the way children learn best: within the context of meaningful activities, instead of rote memory and drill. By gathering evidence from the child we are working with, we can check for the most effective access method for the device. But most importantly, we can keep track of what type of words the child is saying with the AAC system and plan our teaching to target new words that children who are learning to talk would be learning next (based on evidence we looked at in the beginning.) All three types of evidence work together to make sure that the child who uses AAC gets an AAC system—device plus the training to go with it— that is based on best practices in teaching and language development. The end result of evidence based practice, aside from simply meeting the requirements for it the schools are now facing, is that the student who uses AAC is now most likely to see the results we want: a child who is learning and developing language skills that will be useful all of her life. As always, your comments and questions help keep this column interesting! E-mail me at parents@aacinsititute.org
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Brief note from Terry's day at Katya Hill's workshop, more to write later: All populations, in all situations, need access to core vocabulary. The words that make up the general core of language are the same for everybody, everywhere. Dr Katya Hill, at her 'AAC Results You Can Count On' workshop, Unity Centre, Rotherham, September 2006, pointed us to 5 well known language sample analyses, with the language samples being collected from the following 5 populations:
and told us that the findings were unanimously that all humans, whatever their disposition, use the same few hundred words, and for most of what they say (or think and feel in the case of non-speakers), in my own words, this is not an ad verbatim quote for now. It was wonderful meeting Katya and Barry, and a very useful workshop. Hope I am capable of using well built questions that will guided evidence-based practice for Michael now! |
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