The Oral Core Vocabulary of Typically Developing English-Speaking School-Aged Children: Implications for AAC Practice

Abstract

This study analyzes the core vocabulary used by typically developing school-aged English-speaking children in the United States while participating in a variety of school activities. The language of typically developing children, some of whom spoke English as a second language was recorded, transcribed and analyzed to identify the most frequently used words across samples. An inventory of oral core vocabulary of typically developing school-aged children resulted from this analysis. This inventory can be used as a source list for vocabulary selection for school-aged children with AAC needs. Implications for vocabulary selection are discussed.

Keywords::

• Core Vocabulary
• AAC
• Vocabulary Selection
• School-aged Students

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the children who participated in the study, and the Berkeley Unified School District (CA).

Note

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.

The research reported in this article was made possible with the support of a grant by the University of Cologne (Germany) and the assistance of Nevin, Nicole, Caroline, Linsey, Jan, and Anke in transcription and analysis.

Supplementary material available online

Supplementary Appendix Table I.

Notes

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