Vocabulary Selection

Determining Appropriate Vocabulary

Begin with the following activity to create a communication board:

• Draw a 4 x 8 grid on a piece of paper
• Write at least 16 vocabulary items into your grid you think your student/child needs to communicate
• Think about vocabulary that is "functional"

Look at the vocabulary you selected. Did you have any of the following?

eat _______drink_______ bathroom

Frequently, eat, drink and bathroom are among the first vocabulary items chosen by parents and professionals. Communication boards are then constructed to represent these messages and the child does not use them. The child is then accused of "not being ready for a communication system" or "not liking communication boards" and the idea of their using an AAC system is abandoned.

Taking a closer look at this scenario, we typically find that the child's basic needs such as eating, drinking and toileting are taken care of regardless of whether they request it or not. Thus, the child is left with little motivation or need to communicate these messages.

Motivation Formula

Bruce Baker developed the following formulation to identify the factors inherent in communication motivation. Each of the formula components are defined as follows:
Motivation: Refers to how much the student wants to communicate this message.

Physical effort: This takes into consideration the amount of energy required to produce the message. This may involve pointing to a picture or series of letters. It could also mean pressing a switch once or multiple times as in the case of a communicator who has significant physical challenges.

Cognitive Effort: Involves remembering where a message is located and/or coded.

Time: refers to how long it takes to produce the message.

If the motivation to communicate a message is greater then the physical effort, cognitive effort and time required to produce it, then communication will occur. If not, no message will be generated.

Example

Jenny is a 7 year old child who has cerebral palsy. She requires assistance going to the bathroom. Everyday she is toileted at 10:15. It is 10:05 and she has to go to the bathroom. Rather than using her switch to scan to a message that says "I need to go to the bathroom", she waits 10 minutes for a classroom assistant to take her to the rest room.

Jenny loves to interact socially with others. She has a communication system that produces sequential single messages. Jenny sees a friend in the hallway at school. She presses her sequential communicator to talk to her friend about a TV show they both watch.

Ideas for creating these "social scripts" have been compiled by Linda J. Burkhart and Caroline Ramsey Musselwhite.  See communication social scripts for more information.

Vocabulary Selection Goal

Influencing factors to consider when selecting vocabulary include:

• Age
• Gender
• Social Role
• Living Environments
• Individual Differences
• Life Experiences

When selecting initial vocabulary for an augmentative system, keep in mind the following goals:

• Power in Communication
• Communication/Interaction
• Flexibility
• Pragmatic Coverage

Core vs. Activity-Based Vocabularies

Core vocabularies represent a core of words identified as being important for a student to express across activities and environments. The core vocabulary is the main communication system that travels with the student, being available whenever other activity-based vocabularies are not represented. The fact that the vocabulary can be used across multiple situations builds in opportunities for repeated practice and generalization of the child's core vocabulary.

The following pictures show two overlays for a student's AAC system. The "Core" overlay is placed on the system whenever it is not being used for a specific activity. The student uses "The Picnic" overlay when reading a book by the same title. Notice the bottom four vocabulary items remain constant across both overlays.

CORE	ACTIVITY

Concluding Thoughts

Consider the following when designing communication systems for children:

• Who am I working with?
• What are their specific interests/needs?
• Have I involved the individual and their significant others in the vocabulary selection process?
• Do I have a long-range plan for vocabulary selection/management?