Speaking in Core: Sentences for March Words

For the past 5 years, AAC practitioners have become increasingly invested in a core word approach to AAC intervention. Why spend valuable intervention time teaching words that relate only to one specific activity or environment when you could be teaching words that the learner can use all day long? Building competency with a robust base of 300-500 core words gives people the vocabulary they need to function in any environment. (Try that with AAC systems that are mostly nouns and action verbs!).

How can we continually increase our clients’ competence with core words? A few years ago, we decided to approach this by focusing on 12-16 core words each month. Each month, we would highlight those words in our conversation (aided language input), direct intervention, and home programming activities with AAC learners. The repeated experiences with those 12-16 words helped the learners develop new skills, and kept the team focused on the same things. An added bonus: We were less likely to be overwhelmed.

It’s gratifying to see many of you using this approach, whether it is with our 2013 word list, 2014 word list, or one of your own.

Last week, we encouraged people to get ready for the month by printing out the words in the symbol set that corresponds with their client’s AAC system. In this post, ideas for sentences you can model, using aided language input, are shared. In each sentence the core words are in CAPS.

2013 A Year of Core

Words: away, bad, come, good, it, make, now, off, read, there, thing, where

• GOOD!
• READ IT.
• COME here NOW.
• Let’s go AWAY.
• That wasn’t BAD!
• Turn IT OFF.
• Take IT AWAY.
• MAKE a BAD joke.
• WHERE is IT?
• MAKE IT go AWAY.
• We can READ NOW.
• WHERE do you want to READ?
• Is IT A GOOD THING or a BAD THING?
• Do you want IT OFF?
• That is a BAD THING
• THERE is my GOOD friend.
• IT is A GOOD THING.
• IT is GOOD to READ.
• THERE is WHERE we are going.

2014 A(nother) Year of Core

Words: baby, dirty, easy, friend, finish, home, loud, mother/mom, next, red, sleep, smart, teacher, toy, win, wrong

• SMART cookie!
• It is EASY.
• She is too LOUD.
• Shh! The BABY is SLEEPING!
• My FRIEND is SMART.
• My MOM is HOME.
• The BABY is all DIRTY.
• Give your FRIEND the TOY when you are FINISHED.
• That TEACHER is SMART.
• I am FINISHED with the RED one.
• MOM said it is time to go to SLEEP.
• What TOY should we play NEXT?
• Your TEACHER said you FINISHED all your work!

Modeling alone isn’t enough for most of our learners to become competent, but it a good start. We’ll post ideas for direct instruction later on, this week concentrate on building the habit of using and eliciting these words from your learners.

Just a reminder: Don’t abandon the words that were covered in January and February. Continue to model those using aided language input at every opportunity.