PrAACtically October: A Year of Core Vocabulary Resources

Know any AAC learners like these?

• Jeremiah has an SGD with thousands of core and fringe words, but he uses less than 100 of them in day-to-day life.
• Bella used an AAC app with visual scene displays to interact at playtime and during daily routines for the past several months. Her team just added an app with grid-based vocabulary so that she can begin to create novel sentences and expand her language abilities.
• Mason was recently evaluated for an AAC device, but it will likely take a few months to get the funding situation straightened out. In the meantime, his team created a manual communication board that mirrors the main screen of the SGD’s language software.

Each of them need lots of practice to become fluent with the core words in their AAC systems. Are you looking for resources to support your use of core words in therapy, in the classroom, and/or at home? Today’s post has some resources for those of you who try to highlight a small set of of words each month

Those who are following along with our first set of core words (2013)  (12 words/month) or the second set (2014)  (16 words/month; Different than the previous year’s core words), may have printed out some of the word cards to use with the AAC learners in your life.  Thanks to the kindness of PrAACtical AAC readers (Barbara Fernandes, Bill and Lori Binko, Heidi LoStracco, Alison Wade, Russell Cross, Gail Van Tatenhove, Eric Sailers, Rachael Langley, Laura Kessell, Christine Bayley and others) we have a variety of resources to explore.

Word and Symbol Cards

1. Templates for you to plug in your own symbols: Set 1 words, Set 2words
2. Minspeak/Unity version: Set 1 words
3. PCS versions: Set 1 words , Set 2 words 
4. Lesson Pix: Set 1 words
5. Speak for Yourself version: Set 1 words
6. Symbol Stix: Set 1 words
7. Smarty Symbols: Set 1 words, Set 2 words
8. CoughDrop: Set 1 words; Set 2 words
9. WordPower: Set 1 words (Note: This is a large file that contains the resources for several versions of WordPower)

Our words for this month are as follows.

• Set 1 (2013): another, change, every, for, idea, pretty, say, start, thank you, think, try, under
• Set 2 (2014): afternoon, break, food, hide, hold, if, keep, medium, most, never, party, picture, quick, stop, story

We can highlight these as we talk, teach specific lessons to strengthen use of the words, and model them throughout the day. Here are some suggestions for sentences using the first set (2013) of words. Laura Kessel for putting this together.

As we all know, story reading is a great way to highlight core words, build fluency with AAC, and support literacy development. Christine Bayley graciously provided some book suggestions and I added a few of my own.

• Afternoon: One Afternoon (Yumi Heo) 
• Another: Another Monster at the End of this Book (Jon Stone) 
• Break: Thomas Breaks a Promise (Random House) 
• Change: When the Wind Changed (Ruth Park) 
• Every: Every Little Thing (Bob & Cedella Marley) 
• Hide: Stuart Hides Out (Susan Hill) 
• Hold: Let Me Hold You Longer (Karen Kingsbury) 
• Idea: What to Do with an Idea (Kobi Yamada)
• If: If Kids Ran the World (Leo & Diane Dillon) 
• Keep: If I Could Keep You Little (Marianne Richmond) 
• Most: The Most Magnificent Thing (Ashley Spires) 
• Never: The Girl Who Never Made Mistakes (Mark Pett) 
• Picture: The Book With No Pictures (BJ Novak) 
• Pretty: My Rules for Being a Pretty Princess (Heath McKenzie) 
• Quick: Quick as a Cricket (Audrey Wood) 
• Say: Oh, Say Can You Say (Dr. Seuss) 
• Thank you: Richard Scarry’s Please and Thank You Book (Richard Scarry) 
• Think: The Little Engine That Could (Watty Piper); Oh, the Thinks You Can Think! (Dr. Seuss) 
• Try: Try, Try Again (P. K. Hallinan) 
• Under: There is an Alligator Under my Bed (Mercer Mayer) 

Need even more ideas? Rachael Langley has been kind enough to put together calendars with daily suggestions for practicing these words. The October calendar for this year features the set 2 words. You can take get ideas for set 1 words from Rachael’s previous calendar.

Set 1

Set 2

Happy talking!