I regularly have conversations with students about the challenges around figuring out appropriate vocabulary to feature in assessment or use as target focuses in intervention which features multimodal communication/AAC for beginning communicators (either within Early Intervention and a true “first lexicon,” or when serving individuals with complex profiles and may be chronologically older but communicating at earlier levels), and the following is a summary of my thoughts evolving from those discussions and subsequent reading I have done.
As per the research by Light & Drager (http://aackids.psu.edu/index.php/page/show/id/6), appropriate vocabulary should reflect the interests/needs of the communicator (determined with interviews, observations, survey tools, Communication Signal Inventory); and developmentally appropriate vocabulary based on the individual’s age/life experiences.
In terms of Resources relative to the first piece — individualized vocabulary of high personal relevance as per the recommendations of Drs. Light & Drager — the Vocabulary Selection Questionnaire for Preschoolers Who Use AAC from Fallon et al (2001) is an excellent resource available for free download at the http://aackids.psu.edu website. This can also be adapted for older communicators or used as an example for how we need to consider various contexts/environments.
I have also tried to pull together a couple of options under the Resource link above (password: “m4ter14ls”), including: (1) a “Kid Culture” Alphabet of a range of characters, movies, places, toys, etc. that may be of appeal to younger audiences, and (2) an adaptation on the work of Laura Molleur/M.Ed — she had put together a really solid Interests and Preferences summary through Victoriesnautism.com. I added a little detail related to teasing out what observable signals, behaviors, or expressions lent to impressions of likes or dislikes. That’s titled “Review of Interests and Preferences.”
With the second piece (developmentally appropriate vocabulary based on the individual’s age/life experiences), there are a couple of resources that may be helpful.
>>With Early Intervention with young children, the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Developmental Inventories are now available online through the CLEX website and even includes gestures: http://www.cdi-clex.org/ This can give insight into terms by age and gender that may be relevant for review and consideration.
>>In 2009, Susan Lederer presented “First Words, First Books and Focused Language Stimulation” for www.speechpathology.com. She discussed a review she had completed of a number of resources to develop a list of 30 possible targets that met the following criteria: mastered by 50% of children by 20 months (Fenson et al., 1994), mastered by 80% of children developing typically by 24 months, and mastered by 80% of late talkers by 36 months (Rescorla, Christine, & Alley, 2001).
She also stipulated that “these 30 words could be demonstrated easily by gesture, picture, or sign; are meaningful and pragmatically useful; include substantive and relational words from all of Bloom & Lahey’s (1978) early content categories; and are phonemically simple.”
In subsequent research (2007), Lederer added words that 50% of children with developmental delays acquired by age three (bring her total under review to 42).
Substantive
Existence/People: mommy, daddy, baby, me
Existence/Animals: bird, cat, cow, dog, duck
Existence/Foods: apple, banana, cookie
Existence/Toys: book, bubbles, bus, car, ball
Relational
Action: eat, go, hug, kiss, open, wash, drink
Greetings: bye, goodnight, hi
Attribution: big, dirty, hot
Locatives: down, in, off, on, out, up
Recurrence: more
Rejection: no
Non-existence: go away
Possession: (none)
I very much appreciate that the above list is specific and covers a range of semantic categories/communicative functions — it’s not just all nouns to be used in “I want…” sequences. I also find her Focused Language Stimulation and premise through shared storybook reading activities to be very compelling — consistent with the research here at PSU as well.
Then she has another presentation on www.speechpathology.com on the first lexicon and there she adds that as of 2010 she has revised her position on “more”: specifically, delaying using it until a child is at a point to combine words/concepts — that “more” is not a stand-alone concept, it’s really “more toys” or “more milk” or whatever. That blew my mind. For many years, I have always felt comfortable using and teaching it, but I have also seen the patterns Lederer identified as problematic — that kids may not get the concept as “more+,” they learn and use it as a complete request on it’s own, like “[I want] more.” or “more [partner fills in based on situation or guesses],” and as a result it may actually limit vocabulary growth. Two, that many kids may know that it is a communicative act along the lines of “I do this thing and stuff happens for me” but not associate it with a specific message — so beginning communicators start to use it indiscriminately in a variety of situations (such as to start interactions or convey protest), not just express a request to continue.
Anyway, as a starting point: I like her list, and LOVE her book list.
>> The University of Nebraska-Lincoln has done considerable research around vocabularies (as well as other AAC-related work) for a wide variety of age groups and population profiles.
>> In September of 2014, the SIG 12 Perspectives article, “Promoting Academic Achievement for Early Communicators of All Ages” by Lois Geist, Penny Hatch, and Karen Erickson argued strongly in favor of strongly considering the DLM Core: “The DLM Core is intended to be flexible enough for repeated and frequent use across a variety of contexts. Words were prioritized based on their frequency of use in oral and written language and necessity for academic engagement, learning, and demonstration of knowledge.” There is substantial information available about this at Department of Allied Health Sciences Center for Literacy and Disabilities website, but I find the DLM Core first 40 vocabulary the easiest to read as a basic start. As an aside, I found the Geist, Hatch, Erickson article to be compelling on a number of levels — lots of solid information relevant to school-based SLPs.
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