Hi my name is Catherine Horton and I'm the clinical director of Pyramid U.S.
My background is in speech and language and I'm also a board certified behavior analyst.
Today I wanted to continue our discussion regarding core vocabulary.
As a review, core vocabulary as defined by Beukelman and Miranda in 2013 refers to
those words and messages that are commonly used by a variety of
individuals that occur very frequently.
Whereas fringe vocabulary refers to a vocabulary that's more specific to a
topic, environment, or individual. Out of confusion exists based upon the fact
that different practitioners include slightly different words on their core
lists; however for our purposes today, I will be referring to the core words
originally included within the 2003 article by banjee and colleagues
entitled core vocabulary determination for toddlers. People have mistakenly
asserted that Pyramid is anti core, however our stance has always been to
teach vocabulary in a way that's meaningful to our learners. We collect
and analyze data to make sure that all of our students are making progress.
If a student's skills aren't progressing in any way; functional academics
independent living skills, etc, then it's an indication that a change needs to
occur within our lesson plans, or the way that we are teaching the skills.
Our approach is the same for any communication skills that we're teaching
to our learners including when we provide instruction on either core or
fringe words. Further, we've long believed that the question should not be core or
fringe, rather; our model encompasses the inclusion of core words as appropriate
and not a transition to core. In a video that remains available online Dr. Joe
McCleery described considerations for when to teach core
vocabulary based upon research regarding typical speech and language development.
The most important part of our view is that inclusion of the core words is
based upon the repertoire of typically developing children who already have 350
to 400 words in their vocabulary. It's reasonable to look at an AAC users
vocabulary when it's that large to assure that the most common spoken words
are being addressed by the current AC system; however, to argue that the most
frequently used words when the repertoire is at least 400 should also
be representative of a person's language when the repertoire is 100 or less just
isn't reasonable. Doctor McCleery also notes some research suggesting that when
the language of typically developing children includes an overabundance of
Core versus Fringe words subsequent language development may be impoverished.
Thus, attempts to focus on teaching core vocabulary too early may not lead to
successful long term communicative growth. Further, despite extensive searches we
have not been able to locate any controlled or experimental studies
demonstrating the effectiveness of teaching core words to our emergent
communicators. In addition to analyzing core vocabulary from a developmental
perspective, it may also be helpful to use Skinner's analysis of verbal behavior to
classify the conditions under which the Core versus Fringe vocabularies
generally appear. For our learners with autism spectrum disorders, a variety of
teaching strategies recommend an early emphasis upon mand development since the
associated reinforcers tend to be more powerful for young children with ASD;
however, an analysis of several of the words on the Banajee
Core vocabulary list reveals that many of the words function as generalized
mands. This is the case for words like more, that the learner may use to gain
access to a variety of different edibles items or activities, research regarding
generalized mands shows us that specific mands are more effective in reducing
problem behavior and specific mand training has also been shown to support
the development of other verbal operants, such as tacts and echoics. Further, if
generalized mands are taught first, extinction will have to be employed to
teach more specific mands later. In other words, if we teach 'more' without teaching
specific requests first later on we're going to have to stop responding to the
learner's use of 'more'. Continued use of Skinner's analysis reveals that in many
circumstances, use of core vocabulary may best be conceptualized as an autoclitic.
An autoclitic is verbal behavior that depends upon the speaker's own verbal
behavior, in fact on page 330 of the book 'verbal behavior' Skinner specifically
indicates in the absence of any other verbal behavior whatsoever autoclitics
cannot occur. We do not simply say 'almost' or 'perhaps' or 'some' or 'the'. Note that both
'some' and 'the' are two of the words incorporated on the Bannajee list and
this analysis could appropriately be extended to other core items such as 'a'
'that' and other words depending on the context. Quite simply, words like 'some' and 'the' modify other words and are only acquired in conjunction with other words
Children don't walk into a room and announce 'some'. In fact if this did happen,
a communication breakdown would likely occur. Given the occurrence of
challenging behavior on the part of many learners it's important to ensure that
early communication training focuses on teaching specific words that result in
access to the exact item that specified. This information supports our approach
to focus on teaching specific vocabulary often referred to as 'fringe words first'
This vocabulary should be selected based upon individual preferences for each
learner once this repertoire is in place we continue with our assessments to
determine which of the core words should be included for selection within our
structured teaching lessons. Within my role as a consultant, I've had the
opportunity to observe a variety of approaches for teaching core, this
includes one common approach often referred to as aided language
stimulation and which their trainer repeatedly models a variety of core
words in the hopes that the student may eventually begin pointing to these same words.
'Put all in here...'
Just as with any skill there is no one Universal teaching strategy that's going to be effective for all learners. However, it's important
to note that in order for modeling to be an effective teaching strategy the
student must both be attending to the communication partner as well as
imitating, these two skills in of themselves are oftentimes difficult for
students with ASD. Given this information we often consider a structured teaching
plan when introducing new skills including core vocabulary. One example of
this approach can be found in the PECS second edition manual written in 2002 by
Lori Frost and Andy Bondy regarding the description for teaching requests for
help. Help is a word commonly included on many core lists. This skill should really
only be introduced after mastery of specific mands. To teach this skill, we
first identify opportunities where the learner may require
assistance, for now let's look at a student who has difficulty turning the
knob of a wind-up toy. Notice that the learner is first given
the opportunity to wind the knob on his own, at the point, when he has attempted
to wind, but before he begins to engage in a challenging behavior the physical
prompter prompts the student to request assistance by constructing the sentence
'I want help'. In addition, the child also hands over the windup toy so it's clear
that he needs help with the toy. The communicative partner then provides the
appropriate amount of assistance. It's important to ensure generalization of
this skill by structuring opportunities for 'help' with a variety of different
items, in addition be sure that the student does not over generalize this
skill by sometimes providing the toy already wound given the structured
teaching plan. The goal is to begin eliminating the prompts provided by the
physical prompter as quickly as possible, thereby moving towards independence.
Over time, systematically increase the communicative expectation to more
complex utterances such as 'I want help toy' and eventually 'I want help winding toy'.
A more advanced lesson could occur with teaching a preposition 'on', this may best
be conceptualized as an advanced attribute or commenting lesson. To teach
this concept use a preferred item and another common object that is in the
students repertoire, from there vary the placement of the preferred item as a fun
way to target prepositions. Specifically there's a preferred ball on the top of
the container and a broken or non preferred ball in the container, and so
doing, you have captured a request for 'I want the ball on the container' and use
of other prepositions like 'in' or 'next to' would be viewed as an error, signal in
the use of error correction strategies. I hope these two examples begin to provide
you with a guideline for an alternative approach to teaching core words. As with
any skill detailed lessons should be created implemented and modified as
necessary to ensure that all of our learners are making meaningful progress
I believe that we all have the same end goal for all of our learners to the
independent communicators and I'm hopeful that this information will
assist you and further evaluating your plans to make this goal a reality for all students.
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