PrAACtically October: AAC Resources for A Year of Core Vocabulary Words (Remote or In-person Learning)

Do you 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 a 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 needs 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 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 (Brian Whitmer, 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. Symbol Stix: Set 1 words
6. Smarty Symbols: Set 1 words, Set 2 words
7. CoughDrop: Set 1 words; Set 2 words
8. WordPower:
   • Set 1 words
   • Set 2 Words in Symbol Stix and PCS
   • Note: These are large files that have sets for different 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

Rachael Langley’s suggestions for how to infuse core words into daily routines have helped many of us increase the focus on the words of the month, and this perpetual calendar for October is no exception. Perpetual calendars are designed to be used year after year. At the start of the month, just write in the numbers in the blank squares, and you are good to go.

You can click here or on the image to download a copy. Many, many thanks to Rachael for making these resources and sharing them so that they can be used by families, teachers, and therapists.

We can also 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 Set 1 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 did calendars for both sets of words in previous years and both are chock full of engaging practice activities.

Set 1

Set 2

Happy talking!