Vocabulary Issues
Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind. (KIPLING R. 1923)
In fact, words are well adapted for description and the arousing of emotion, but for many kinds of precise thought other symbols are much better. (HALDANE J. 1932).
Vocabulary selection can be viewed as the process of choosing a small list of appropriate words or items from a pool of all possibilities (YORKSTON K., DOWDEN P., HONSINGER M. , MARRINER N., & SMITH K. 1988 page 189)
The selection of vocabulary for augmentative communication systems is one of the most important tasks facing AAC teams. The communication success of the augmentative communicator will be determined, in part, by this vocabulary. (MORRIS K. & NEWMAN K. 1993 page 85)
Along with training issues, this presentation will focus on one area that can make or break a student’s success in mainstream education - the acquisition and control of language and vocabulary. It is critical that students included in mainstream education have access to a substantial amount vocabulary organized in a manner that promotes timely interaction and linguistic transparency (VAN TATENHOVE G. & VERTZ S. 1993 page 128)
AAC systems should support children’s developing language knowledge and skill. The topics, words, and phrases selected for use in children’s AAC systems must not only reflect current language abilities but also allow children to learn and use language forms that reflect their evolving cognitive, semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic development. (MARVIN C., BEUKELMAN D., BROCKHAUS J., & KAST L. 1994) (This is equally true of adults!)
There are many issues concerning the selection of vocabulary for an augmentative communication system. They are not all covered in this section (for further coverage see BEUKELMAN D. & MIRENDA P. Chapter 9 1992). An attempt has been made to address some of the major issues in the hope that further thought and discussion will lead to improved communication systems. When you think about it, apart from second language teaching, there is probably no other field that involves the selection of ‘language’ for an individual’s use by another person or persons:
Indeed, vocabulary selection during natural speech and written communication interactions is so automatic that most AAC specialists themselves have little experience selecting vocabulary items in advance of the act of speaking or writing. Even professionals who have regular contact with persons who experience communication disorders such as stuttering, voice problems, articulation problems, and cleft palate rarely need to pre-select messages to support conversational or written communication. (BEUKELMAN D. & MIRENDA P. 1992 page 159)
There is always a danger that, in selecting vocabulary for an individual and without the individual’s input, elements are selected on the basis of the usefulness to significant others and not to the individual. Items such as expletives may be considered in very bad taste and simply left out. AYes I will” may be included but ANo I won’t” may not. Be wary not to exercise some form of unconscious social control through the selection of ‘positive’ vocabulary elements. This issue is taken up again later in this section.
In fact, words are well adapted for description and the arousing of emotion, but for many kinds of precise thought other symbols are much better. (HALDANE J. 1932).
Vocabulary selection can be viewed as the process of choosing a small list of appropriate words or items from a pool of all possibilities (YORKSTON K., DOWDEN P., HONSINGER M. , MARRINER N., & SMITH K. 1988 page 189)
The selection of vocabulary for augmentative communication systems is one of the most important tasks facing AAC teams. The communication success of the augmentative communicator will be determined, in part, by this vocabulary. (MORRIS K. & NEWMAN K. 1993 page 85)
Along with training issues, this presentation will focus on one area that can make or break a student’s success in mainstream education - the acquisition and control of language and vocabulary. It is critical that students included in mainstream education have access to a substantial amount vocabulary organized in a manner that promotes timely interaction and linguistic transparency (VAN TATENHOVE G. & VERTZ S. 1993 page 128)
AAC systems should support children’s developing language knowledge and skill. The topics, words, and phrases selected for use in children’s AAC systems must not only reflect current language abilities but also allow children to learn and use language forms that reflect their evolving cognitive, semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic development. (MARVIN C., BEUKELMAN D., BROCKHAUS J., & KAST L. 1994) (This is equally true of adults!)
There are many issues concerning the selection of vocabulary for an augmentative communication system. They are not all covered in this section (for further coverage see BEUKELMAN D. & MIRENDA P. Chapter 9 1992). An attempt has been made to address some of the major issues in the hope that further thought and discussion will lead to improved communication systems. When you think about it, apart from second language teaching, there is probably no other field that involves the selection of ‘language’ for an individual’s use by another person or persons:
Indeed, vocabulary selection during natural speech and written communication interactions is so automatic that most AAC specialists themselves have little experience selecting vocabulary items in advance of the act of speaking or writing. Even professionals who have regular contact with persons who experience communication disorders such as stuttering, voice problems, articulation problems, and cleft palate rarely need to pre-select messages to support conversational or written communication. (BEUKELMAN D. & MIRENDA P. 1992 page 159)
There is always a danger that, in selecting vocabulary for an individual and without the individual’s input, elements are selected on the basis of the usefulness to significant others and not to the individual. Items such as expletives may be considered in very bad taste and simply left out. AYes I will” may be included but ANo I won’t” may not. Be wary not to exercise some form of unconscious social control through the selection of ‘positive’ vocabulary elements. This issue is taken up again later in this section.
VOCABULARY 2 - Task & Discussion Sheet
Listen to me, angel tot,
Whom I love an awful lot ...
When I praise your speech with glee
And claim you talk as well as me,
That’s the spirit, not the letter.
I know more words and say them better.
OGDEN NASH , ‘Thunder over the nursery’
I must confess that I have always been more impressed with the capacity of the human brain to discriminate, characterize and store in memory the thirty thousand plus arbitrary words in active use than with the complexity claimed to be involved in learning a few dozen syntactic algorithmic rules. (MARIN O. 1982)
What one tends to overlook is the sheer magnitude of the child’s achievement. Simply learning the vocabulary is an enormous undertaking. (MILLER G. & GILDEA P. 1987)
A second reason for the board’s ineffectiveness was that Dawn’s vocabulary was much larger than the board could accommodate. This reinforced her belief that speech was more dependable:
The board doesn’t have the right stuff. It doesn’t have enough words to say what I want to say. It’s hard to use it when there are things you want to say and nothing is there. I might as well use my speech and take my chances.
(SMITH-LEWIS M. & FORD A. 1987 - quoting ‘Dawn’)
The facts and figures have been compiled from NICE M. 1926; SMITH M. E. 1926; JAGGER J. (1929); McCARTHY D. A. (1930); SEASHORE R. & ECKERSON L. (1940); WATTS A. (1944); LORGE I. & CHALL J. 1963; HOWES D. 1966; PEI M. (1967); ODGEN C. (1968); SMITH N. 1973; MORRIS W. (1975); MILLER G. (1977); CAREY S. (1978); MACNAMARA J. 1982; NAGY W. & ANDERSON R. (1984); CRYSTAL D. (1987, 1988); MILLER G. & GILDEA P. (1987); NAGY W. & HERMAN P. (1987); RABAN B. (1988); STEMACH G. & WILLIAMS W. 1988; MILLER G. (1991); INGRAM J. (1992); JACKENDOFF R. (1993) chapter 8; AITCHISON J. (1994); KATAMBA F. (1994); PINKER S. (1994), DUNBAR R. (1996) and SCHOFIELD P. (1996). The exact number of ‘English’ words is, in fact, almost impossible to ascertain. Crystal (1988) states that the figure may be many millions depending upon the way the words are counted and what counts as a word. Pinker notes that if all possible morphological products are counted then the list may be infinite (PINKER S. 1994 p. 149). An infinite lexicon would raise questions concerning the storage of the vocabulary lexicon in the human brain (assuming that we are cognizant of even a hundredth of infinity!). Sagan (1985) estimates, from the number of neurons and synaptic connections in the brain, that it can hold 12,500,000,000,000 (twelve and a half billion) bytes of information. Assuming the average word to comprise 6 to 10 bytes, the human brain could store a billion and a quarter words. However, it is unlikely that all possible word forms are stored in this way (see KATAMBA F. 1994; AITCHISON J. 1994; PINKER S. 1994).
As new words are being created all the time (perhaps as many as ten new words a day), the notion of a static and complete dictionary is somewhat ‘nice’ (the word ‘nice’ is used here in one of its original meanings - in old French it meant ‘silly’ - to make a point about those who disapprove of the corruption of the original meanings of words, ‘gay’ for example, and the introduction of foreign vocabulary):
Of course, not everyone likes the rate at which English vocabulary continues to expand. There is often an antagonistic reaction to new words. Computer jargon has its adherents, but it also has its critics. Old rural dialect words may be admired, but the new words from urban dialects are often reviled. The latest slang is occasionally thought of as vivid and exciting, but more often it is condemned as imprecise and sloppy. The news that fresh varieties of English are developing around the world, bringing in large numbers of new words, is seen by some as a good thing, adding still further to the expressive potential of the language; but many people shake their heads, and mutter about the language going downhill. (CRYSTAL D. 1988)
A new word is like a fresh seed sewn on the ground of the discussion. (WITTGENSTEIN L. 1929)
Estimates of the personal vocabulary size of an individual at any point in his or her development vary enormously. Again, it depends on what counts as a word and whether we are talking about expressive or receptive vocabularies. Pinker (1994) estimates that an average American high school graduate knows between 45,000 and 60,000 ‘listemes’ (the DI SCIULLO A. & WILLIAMS E. 1987 definition of a word or word group root that has to be committed to memory and whose meaning cannot be deduced from its parts). Nagy & Anderson (1984) and Nagy & Herman (1987) estimate the reading vocabulary of an average American student at 40,000 words. However, Miller (1991) raises this figure to 60,000 - 80,000 if proper nouns and other expressions are included. Seashore & Eckerson (1940) calculated that the average adult knows 150,000 words (a word being defined as an item listed in the 1937 edition of Funk and Wagnell’s New Standard Dictionary of the English Language. See AITCHISON J. 1994 and PINKER S. 1994 for descriptions of the methodologies used in such calculations) of which approximately 60,000 were basic words (‘listemes’?) and 96,000 were derivations and compounds of these words. They suggested that the average adult actively uses 90% of their vocabulary store. However, when asked to estimate their vocabulary size people incorrectly guess at between 1% and 10% of the correct amount (SEASHORE R. & ECKERSON L. 1940). Note that the figure of 60,000 keeps appearing. However, with the wide fluctuations in estimates of the size of cerebral lexicons, the figures quoted in texts and, for that matter, on the overhead should be not be treated as the final word in this matter (pun intended!). For example:
We can estimate that an average six-year-old commands about 13,000 words (PINKER S. 1994)
At two years of age the average vocabulary is 300 words. By the age of five it is five thousand. By twelve it is about 12,000 (BOUTTELL J., Guardian, 12 August, 1986)
In English, there are about 500,000 words. About 20,000 of them are considered Acommon” and used by everyday people1. By the time speaking children are two years old, they use about 2,000 different words in a single day. By age ten, they might use as many as 5,000 - 7,000 different words in a single day2. (VAN TATENHOVE G. 1994 with references to:
1 ODGEN C. (1968); 2 CRYSTAL D. (1986 - ISAAC in chains))
Compare these totals with the vocabulary of any of the ‘talking apes’, animals who have been taught a language-like system in which signs stand for words. The chimps Washoe and Nim actively used around 200 signs after several years of training, while Koko the gorilla supposedly uses around 400. None of these animals approaches the thousand mark, something which is normally achieved by children soon after the age of two. (AITCHISON J. 1994 page 7)
Children pick up words like a magnet picks up pins - possibly over ten a day. Estimates vary as to vocabulary size at each age. On average, a two-year-old actively uses around 500 words, a three-year-old over 1,000, and a five-year-old up to 3,000. And this is far fewer than the number of words which can be understood. The passive vocabulary of a six-year-old has been estimated at 14,000 by one researcher. (AITCHISON J. 1994 page 169)
A human baby produces its first real words at about eighteen months of age. By the age of two, it has become quite vocal and has a vocabulary of some fifty words. Over the next year it learns new words daily, and by the age of three it can use about 1000 words. ..... Then the floodgates open. by the age of six, the average child has learned to use and understand around 13,000 words; by eighteen it will have a working vocabulary of about 60,000 words. (DUNBAR R. 1996 page 3)
Smith’s study of the expressive vocabulary size of children (SMITH M. E. 1926) detailed an increase from 1 word at 8 months to 272 words at 2 years, 896 at 3 years, and 1222 words at 42 months and to 2072 at five years. The five-year-old figure was supported by Jagger’s study (JAGGER J. 1929) although by Watts’ (WATTS A. 1944) calculations this figure is reached by most children at least a year earlier. Nice (NICE M. 1926) tabulated forty-seven published vocabularies of two-year-olds and found reported vocabularies varying between 5 and 1212 words with an average of 328. By 30 months the ranges had increase to between 30 to 1509 words with an average of 690. Von Tetzchner & Martinsen state that 2 to 3-year-olds have at least 1,000 words (three times the size of Bouttell’s estimate) at their command (VON TETZCHNER S. & MARTINSEN H. p. 182 1992). While I am personally inclined to agree with the Von Tetzchner figure, one thing is certain - a child’s seemingly effortless acquisition of language is truly amazing:
Children aren’t even told that there are rules; they just somehow figure them out - although how is still a puzzle (INGRAM J. 1992)
It has been estimated that a child must be learning new words at a rate of up to ten a day or, put another way, a new word every ninety waking minutes (CAREY S. 1978; INGRAM J. 1992; JACKENDOFF R. 1993 page 103; AITCHISON J. 1994 page 169; PINKER S. 1994; DUNBAR R. 1996 page 3)(although MILLER G. & GILDEA P. 1987 page 86 suggest 13 words and CHOMSKY N. 1988 page 27 suggests 12).
The standard estimate is that a five-year-old knows on the order of 10,000 words. This means that between the ages of two and five (three years, about a thousand days), the child has averaged ten new words a day, or close to one every waking hour! Since a word may take a period of time to master, this also means the child is probably working on dozens of words at a time. (JACKENDOFF R. 1993, page 103)
If a child does acquire ten new words a day from the onset of speech (assume one-year-old) then by two years of age she or he must have a vocabulary in the region of 3,650 words ((2-1)x365x10) and by the time that child is ready for school:
...... normal children certainly have several thousands of words which are in some sense in their vocabulary by the age of five. (DONALDSON M. 1987)
Allow staff approximately 15-20 minutes to work through the tasks set. Some follow up points are made below.
According to Jones (JONES A. 1993) the 37 most frequently used words by people with AAC systems are (in alphabetical order): a, and, be, can, come, do, get, go, have, her, here, how, I, in, it, know, like, make, man, me, my, on, say, see, she, take, that, the, they, this, to, what, when, where, who, with, you.
(For work on vocabulary frequency among AAC users as well as other frequency lexicons see - RINSLAND H. 1945; MEIN R. & O’CONNOR N. 1960; HOWES D. 1966; JONES L. & WEPMAN J. 1966; BERGER K. 1967; BROWN CORPUS 1967; KUCERA H. & FRANCIS W. NELSON 1967; SHERK J. 1973; BRAINE M. 1976; MOE A., HOPKINS C., & RUSH R. 1982; BEUKELMAN D., YORKSTON K., POBLETTE M., & NARANJO C. 1984; HOFLAND K. & JOHANSSON S. 1984; JAMES J. 1984 a&b; BEUKELMAN D. & YORKSTON K. 1985; RABAN B. 1988; YORKSTON K., DOWDEN P., HONSINGER M., MARRINER N., & SMITH K. 1988; YORKSTON K., FRIED-OKEN M., BEUKELMAN D. 1988; BEUKELMAN D., JONES R., & ROWAN M. 1989; McGINNIS J. & BEUKELMAN D. 1989; McGINNIS J. 1991; STUART S. 1991; ELDER P. 1992; JONES A.P. 1993; STUART S., VANDERFOOF-BILYEU D., & BEUKELMAN D. 1993; MARVIN C. A., BEUKELMAN D., & BILYEU D. 1994; CROSS R. 1996; STUART S., BEUKELMAN D., & KING J. 1997;)
An interesting snippet of information that has recently come to my attention is the claim that, on average, women use 3.5 times as many different words in a day as do men (7,000 words per day as opposed to 2,000 words per day). As the source of this information (SCHOFIELD P. 1996) did not qualify the source of his data further I have no way of knowing whether this is based on fact or fantasy. Note that he does not claim women are more verbose than men, simply that they use a greater range of vocabulary.
The staff may have many others words included in their lists. Why should there be a discrepancy? There is a distinction between the words that are most frequently used, those which are necessary, and those which may be identified as heading the teaching list. The word toilet for example does not appear in the Jones list and yet may be one of those which are considered essential for early teaching.
It should not surprise anyone to find that the next two tasks will generate a large range of suggestions. However, what are the similarities? What does this suggest? Ask a volunteer to envisage an everyday situation. Use the 20 words and sentences suggested by any one member of staff and try to hold a conversation. Can you do it? What were the difficulties? What would need to be done to ease the problems?
Whom I love an awful lot ...
When I praise your speech with glee
And claim you talk as well as me,
That’s the spirit, not the letter.
I know more words and say them better.
OGDEN NASH , ‘Thunder over the nursery’
I must confess that I have always been more impressed with the capacity of the human brain to discriminate, characterize and store in memory the thirty thousand plus arbitrary words in active use than with the complexity claimed to be involved in learning a few dozen syntactic algorithmic rules. (MARIN O. 1982)
What one tends to overlook is the sheer magnitude of the child’s achievement. Simply learning the vocabulary is an enormous undertaking. (MILLER G. & GILDEA P. 1987)
A second reason for the board’s ineffectiveness was that Dawn’s vocabulary was much larger than the board could accommodate. This reinforced her belief that speech was more dependable:
The board doesn’t have the right stuff. It doesn’t have enough words to say what I want to say. It’s hard to use it when there are things you want to say and nothing is there. I might as well use my speech and take my chances.
(SMITH-LEWIS M. & FORD A. 1987 - quoting ‘Dawn’)
The facts and figures have been compiled from NICE M. 1926; SMITH M. E. 1926; JAGGER J. (1929); McCARTHY D. A. (1930); SEASHORE R. & ECKERSON L. (1940); WATTS A. (1944); LORGE I. & CHALL J. 1963; HOWES D. 1966; PEI M. (1967); ODGEN C. (1968); SMITH N. 1973; MORRIS W. (1975); MILLER G. (1977); CAREY S. (1978); MACNAMARA J. 1982; NAGY W. & ANDERSON R. (1984); CRYSTAL D. (1987, 1988); MILLER G. & GILDEA P. (1987); NAGY W. & HERMAN P. (1987); RABAN B. (1988); STEMACH G. & WILLIAMS W. 1988; MILLER G. (1991); INGRAM J. (1992); JACKENDOFF R. (1993) chapter 8; AITCHISON J. (1994); KATAMBA F. (1994); PINKER S. (1994), DUNBAR R. (1996) and SCHOFIELD P. (1996). The exact number of ‘English’ words is, in fact, almost impossible to ascertain. Crystal (1988) states that the figure may be many millions depending upon the way the words are counted and what counts as a word. Pinker notes that if all possible morphological products are counted then the list may be infinite (PINKER S. 1994 p. 149). An infinite lexicon would raise questions concerning the storage of the vocabulary lexicon in the human brain (assuming that we are cognizant of even a hundredth of infinity!). Sagan (1985) estimates, from the number of neurons and synaptic connections in the brain, that it can hold 12,500,000,000,000 (twelve and a half billion) bytes of information. Assuming the average word to comprise 6 to 10 bytes, the human brain could store a billion and a quarter words. However, it is unlikely that all possible word forms are stored in this way (see KATAMBA F. 1994; AITCHISON J. 1994; PINKER S. 1994).
As new words are being created all the time (perhaps as many as ten new words a day), the notion of a static and complete dictionary is somewhat ‘nice’ (the word ‘nice’ is used here in one of its original meanings - in old French it meant ‘silly’ - to make a point about those who disapprove of the corruption of the original meanings of words, ‘gay’ for example, and the introduction of foreign vocabulary):
Of course, not everyone likes the rate at which English vocabulary continues to expand. There is often an antagonistic reaction to new words. Computer jargon has its adherents, but it also has its critics. Old rural dialect words may be admired, but the new words from urban dialects are often reviled. The latest slang is occasionally thought of as vivid and exciting, but more often it is condemned as imprecise and sloppy. The news that fresh varieties of English are developing around the world, bringing in large numbers of new words, is seen by some as a good thing, adding still further to the expressive potential of the language; but many people shake their heads, and mutter about the language going downhill. (CRYSTAL D. 1988)
A new word is like a fresh seed sewn on the ground of the discussion. (WITTGENSTEIN L. 1929)
Estimates of the personal vocabulary size of an individual at any point in his or her development vary enormously. Again, it depends on what counts as a word and whether we are talking about expressive or receptive vocabularies. Pinker (1994) estimates that an average American high school graduate knows between 45,000 and 60,000 ‘listemes’ (the DI SCIULLO A. & WILLIAMS E. 1987 definition of a word or word group root that has to be committed to memory and whose meaning cannot be deduced from its parts). Nagy & Anderson (1984) and Nagy & Herman (1987) estimate the reading vocabulary of an average American student at 40,000 words. However, Miller (1991) raises this figure to 60,000 - 80,000 if proper nouns and other expressions are included. Seashore & Eckerson (1940) calculated that the average adult knows 150,000 words (a word being defined as an item listed in the 1937 edition of Funk and Wagnell’s New Standard Dictionary of the English Language. See AITCHISON J. 1994 and PINKER S. 1994 for descriptions of the methodologies used in such calculations) of which approximately 60,000 were basic words (‘listemes’?) and 96,000 were derivations and compounds of these words. They suggested that the average adult actively uses 90% of their vocabulary store. However, when asked to estimate their vocabulary size people incorrectly guess at between 1% and 10% of the correct amount (SEASHORE R. & ECKERSON L. 1940). Note that the figure of 60,000 keeps appearing. However, with the wide fluctuations in estimates of the size of cerebral lexicons, the figures quoted in texts and, for that matter, on the overhead should be not be treated as the final word in this matter (pun intended!). For example:
We can estimate that an average six-year-old commands about 13,000 words (PINKER S. 1994)
At two years of age the average vocabulary is 300 words. By the age of five it is five thousand. By twelve it is about 12,000 (BOUTTELL J., Guardian, 12 August, 1986)
In English, there are about 500,000 words. About 20,000 of them are considered Acommon” and used by everyday people1. By the time speaking children are two years old, they use about 2,000 different words in a single day. By age ten, they might use as many as 5,000 - 7,000 different words in a single day2. (VAN TATENHOVE G. 1994 with references to:
1 ODGEN C. (1968); 2 CRYSTAL D. (1986 - ISAAC in chains))
Compare these totals with the vocabulary of any of the ‘talking apes’, animals who have been taught a language-like system in which signs stand for words. The chimps Washoe and Nim actively used around 200 signs after several years of training, while Koko the gorilla supposedly uses around 400. None of these animals approaches the thousand mark, something which is normally achieved by children soon after the age of two. (AITCHISON J. 1994 page 7)
Children pick up words like a magnet picks up pins - possibly over ten a day. Estimates vary as to vocabulary size at each age. On average, a two-year-old actively uses around 500 words, a three-year-old over 1,000, and a five-year-old up to 3,000. And this is far fewer than the number of words which can be understood. The passive vocabulary of a six-year-old has been estimated at 14,000 by one researcher. (AITCHISON J. 1994 page 169)
A human baby produces its first real words at about eighteen months of age. By the age of two, it has become quite vocal and has a vocabulary of some fifty words. Over the next year it learns new words daily, and by the age of three it can use about 1000 words. ..... Then the floodgates open. by the age of six, the average child has learned to use and understand around 13,000 words; by eighteen it will have a working vocabulary of about 60,000 words. (DUNBAR R. 1996 page 3)
Smith’s study of the expressive vocabulary size of children (SMITH M. E. 1926) detailed an increase from 1 word at 8 months to 272 words at 2 years, 896 at 3 years, and 1222 words at 42 months and to 2072 at five years. The five-year-old figure was supported by Jagger’s study (JAGGER J. 1929) although by Watts’ (WATTS A. 1944) calculations this figure is reached by most children at least a year earlier. Nice (NICE M. 1926) tabulated forty-seven published vocabularies of two-year-olds and found reported vocabularies varying between 5 and 1212 words with an average of 328. By 30 months the ranges had increase to between 30 to 1509 words with an average of 690. Von Tetzchner & Martinsen state that 2 to 3-year-olds have at least 1,000 words (three times the size of Bouttell’s estimate) at their command (VON TETZCHNER S. & MARTINSEN H. p. 182 1992). While I am personally inclined to agree with the Von Tetzchner figure, one thing is certain - a child’s seemingly effortless acquisition of language is truly amazing:
Children aren’t even told that there are rules; they just somehow figure them out - although how is still a puzzle (INGRAM J. 1992)
It has been estimated that a child must be learning new words at a rate of up to ten a day or, put another way, a new word every ninety waking minutes (CAREY S. 1978; INGRAM J. 1992; JACKENDOFF R. 1993 page 103; AITCHISON J. 1994 page 169; PINKER S. 1994; DUNBAR R. 1996 page 3)(although MILLER G. & GILDEA P. 1987 page 86 suggest 13 words and CHOMSKY N. 1988 page 27 suggests 12).
The standard estimate is that a five-year-old knows on the order of 10,000 words. This means that between the ages of two and five (three years, about a thousand days), the child has averaged ten new words a day, or close to one every waking hour! Since a word may take a period of time to master, this also means the child is probably working on dozens of words at a time. (JACKENDOFF R. 1993, page 103)
If a child does acquire ten new words a day from the onset of speech (assume one-year-old) then by two years of age she or he must have a vocabulary in the region of 3,650 words ((2-1)x365x10) and by the time that child is ready for school:
...... normal children certainly have several thousands of words which are in some sense in their vocabulary by the age of five. (DONALDSON M. 1987)
Allow staff approximately 15-20 minutes to work through the tasks set. Some follow up points are made below.
According to Jones (JONES A. 1993) the 37 most frequently used words by people with AAC systems are (in alphabetical order): a, and, be, can, come, do, get, go, have, her, here, how, I, in, it, know, like, make, man, me, my, on, say, see, she, take, that, the, they, this, to, what, when, where, who, with, you.
(For work on vocabulary frequency among AAC users as well as other frequency lexicons see - RINSLAND H. 1945; MEIN R. & O’CONNOR N. 1960; HOWES D. 1966; JONES L. & WEPMAN J. 1966; BERGER K. 1967; BROWN CORPUS 1967; KUCERA H. & FRANCIS W. NELSON 1967; SHERK J. 1973; BRAINE M. 1976; MOE A., HOPKINS C., & RUSH R. 1982; BEUKELMAN D., YORKSTON K., POBLETTE M., & NARANJO C. 1984; HOFLAND K. & JOHANSSON S. 1984; JAMES J. 1984 a&b; BEUKELMAN D. & YORKSTON K. 1985; RABAN B. 1988; YORKSTON K., DOWDEN P., HONSINGER M., MARRINER N., & SMITH K. 1988; YORKSTON K., FRIED-OKEN M., BEUKELMAN D. 1988; BEUKELMAN D., JONES R., & ROWAN M. 1989; McGINNIS J. & BEUKELMAN D. 1989; McGINNIS J. 1991; STUART S. 1991; ELDER P. 1992; JONES A.P. 1993; STUART S., VANDERFOOF-BILYEU D., & BEUKELMAN D. 1993; MARVIN C. A., BEUKELMAN D., & BILYEU D. 1994; CROSS R. 1996; STUART S., BEUKELMAN D., & KING J. 1997;)
An interesting snippet of information that has recently come to my attention is the claim that, on average, women use 3.5 times as many different words in a day as do men (7,000 words per day as opposed to 2,000 words per day). As the source of this information (SCHOFIELD P. 1996) did not qualify the source of his data further I have no way of knowing whether this is based on fact or fantasy. Note that he does not claim women are more verbose than men, simply that they use a greater range of vocabulary.
The staff may have many others words included in their lists. Why should there be a discrepancy? There is a distinction between the words that are most frequently used, those which are necessary, and those which may be identified as heading the teaching list. The word toilet for example does not appear in the Jones list and yet may be one of those which are considered essential for early teaching.
It should not surprise anyone to find that the next two tasks will generate a large range of suggestions. However, what are the similarities? What does this suggest? Ask a volunteer to envisage an everyday situation. Use the 20 words and sentences suggested by any one member of staff and try to hold a conversation. Can you do it? What were the difficulties? What would need to be done to ease the problems?
VOCABULARY 3 - What does a sentence mean?
The words of the world want to make sentences. (BACHELARD G. 1960)
The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words. (DICK P. 1986)
It is often stated that sentence and phrasal forms are the best way to introduce augmented communication to a person with a severe impairment. The sentence provides a means of comprehensible, effective, fast, and versatile communication. This is not necessarily the case - the word may hold the key to successful implementation of AAC for all levels of cognition.
In the beginning was the word and the word was
(ST. JOHN Chapter 1 Verse 1)
good?
There is more to language than single words. We have to learn how to put words together to form sentences. This is a difficult lesson but once a child has learnt it he is able to express his own ideas more freely. (JEFFREE D. & McCONKEY R. 1976)
Even some of those people working with phrase-based systems acknowledge that they may not hold all the answers for free-flowing conversation:
Although the use of prestored text may be capable of increasing the output that can be achieved by an AAC user, it seems unlikely that a system that relies exclusively on prestorage of potential utterances will ever be capable of meeting all of a user’s requirements for precision of responding in a free flowing conversation. (TODMAN J., ELDER L., & ALM N. 1995 page 229)
When Baker began introducing ‘Minspeak’ (an encoding system utilised by the VOCAs produced by Prentke Romich Company) to the world (BAKER B. 1982) he believed that the approach would be phrasal:
A person using a Minspeak machine might have a sentence vocabulary (rather than a word vocabulary because Minspeak is based on the sentence) of 800 to 900 sentences (SWARTZ S. 1984)
Minspeak has a modern linguistic coding system based on general ideas underlying human communication. The coding technique uses sequence to define context, thus exploiting the human mind’s ability to process semantic information. Easy-to-use symbols on each key represent ideas. The meaning of each key changes according to the sequence in which it is hit. By combining these symbols whole spoken sentences can be generated. (BAKER B. 1984)(My italics)
He later reversed his belief and recently (BAKER B. 1993; BAKER B. 1996) moved to emphasise the power of the word. There are some important issues that correlate to the use of a words strategy (as opposed to the program of the same name Words Strategy (BAKER B. 1988) approach that need further exploration and emphasis.
Thus at the time of Minspeak’s introduction, it was described as a sentence-based system driven by individually tailored icons. As powerful as this concept seemed, its implementation led to two discoveries of crucial importance in AC. The first discovery was that individuals did not readily incorporate prestored sentences into their vocabularies. It appeared that only in highly engineered, dependent or language learning modes did individuals using communication aids typically use their prestored sentences. When asked why he didn’t use an appropriate though prestored sentence Rick Creech replied, AI can’t remember what sentences I have even though I can remember the icon code for the sentences.” AI don’t think in sentences, I think in words” was stated by many augmented communicators. (BADMAN A. & BAKER B. 1995 page 5)
Both Saussure (1916) and Wittgenstein (1953) fundamentally affected present-day thinking about language. Both were anti-nomenclaturist and both compared language to a rule governed game (notably chess). Apart from the words that are labelled onomatopoeic (for example ‘cuckoo’ and ‘buzz’) there is no connection between the letters that make the word and the item to which the word refers:
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet (SHAKESPEARE. Romeo and Juliet, II, ii)
The connection between a dog and the word dog is purely arbitrary. Indeed, in another language other letter combinations refer to the same animal form: ‘chien’, ‘canis’, ‘Hund’, etc.
A linguistic sign is not a link between a thing and a name, but between a concept and a sound pattern. The sound pattern is not actually a sound; for a sound is something physical. A sound pattern is the hearer’s psychological impression of a sound, as given to him by evidence of his senses. This sound pattern may be called a ‘material’ element only in that it is the representation of our sensory impressions. The sound pattern may thus be distinguished from the other element associated with it in a linguistic sign. This other element is generally of a more abstract kind: the concept (DE SAUSSURE F. 1912 pp 98)
Words Wittgenstein now insisted, cannot be understood outside the context of the non-linguistic human activities into which the use of the language is interwoven .... the way to understand the meaning of a word is to study it in the language-game to which it belongs, to see how it contributes to the communal activity of a group of language-users. In general, the meaning of a word is not an object for which it stands, but rather its use in a language. (KENNY A. 1973 page 14)
It’s only for a small minority of words that we can give definitions without these fuzzy edges. Until recently, the metre was officially defined as the distance between two particular scratches on a particular metal bar kept in a particular vault in Paris, and, if you wanted to know if your metre stick was a metre long or not, all you had to do was to take it to Paris and lay it alongside that bar. This works pretty well for metre, but it wouldn’t work for most other words: we could hardly keep a standard dog in a vault to compare against candidate dogs, or a standard chair, or a standard smile. (TRASK R. 1995 Page 50. Trask’s italics.)
This is also true of the signs used by the deaf community: there may be some signs that are iconic and are either transparent or translucent but the majority are simply opaque:
although sometimes signs partly depict what they refer to, hardly ever are the forms of signs completely determined by what they mean. So ASL vocabulary has to be learned just like that of a spoken language (JACKENDOFF R. 1993 page 89)(Jackendoff’s italics) (For ASL read BSL or any other complete sign language)
The overhead asks the staff to look at the word chair and write down its meaning. The majority of people will write something to sit on or categorise it as a piece of furniture. But its meaning is more problematic than these definitions allow. I can sit on a table top or a stool or a friend. A table is also a piece of furniture as is a sofa, a wardrobe and a chest of drawers. Refining the definition we might say:
‘A chair is an item of furniture whose prime purpose is for sitting.’
Does this satisfy the meaning of the word chair? No! Sofa, couch, stool and settle also could be included in this definition. It might be suggested that a chair has four legs while the others have different arrangements. Of course, this is not always the case: One can think of examples of chairs with one leg, two legs and no legs. However, while a sofa and a couch can seat more than one person, a chair is not specifically designed to do so:
‘A chair is an item of furniture whose prime purpose is for seating a single person.’
That rules out some of the items from the list above but not the stool, or a pouffe. However, these items do not have backs:
‘A chair is an item of furniture with a back whose prime purpose is for seating a single person.’
Does this definition satisfy the meaning of chair? What about the chair that is supposed to aid the correct seating posture (the one with the kneeling pad - it is called a ‘back chair’) and has no back? The definition requires further modification:
‘A chair is an item of furniture, normally with a back, whose prime purpose is for seating a single person.’
Are chairs always items of furniture? Could we not conceive of a chair that is a work of art whose strength does not permit a person to sit upon it? Are there items which, when presented to a person on the street, would generate the response Athat’s a chair”? A picture of a chair, a photograph of a chair, an ashtray in the form of a chair, for example. When it is asked Awhat is this?” the response is AIt’s a chair”. No! It’s a picture of a chair, a representation of a chair, but its not a chair per se. Or is it? The word chair also exists as a verb - to chair a meeting. It also has another meaning as a noun - a chair at a university. However, ignore these two possible meanings and concentrate on the former definition.
Consider all the variations of chairs that will fit the earlier description: a one-legged gas pedestal chair for office use; a Tudor box chair; an upholstered armchair; a basket chair suspended by a chain from the ceiling. When the single word chair is uttered by a person what does it mean? It might mean the person is speaking about one or more of the infinite variety of chair forms that exist or have the potential to exist. It could mean the person is speaking about a facsimile of a chair. However, it could mean something completely different. Consider this situation:
A person is standing in a crowded room when a fight breaks out. He watches as chairs and tables are thrown through the air. Suddenly a chair comes flying through the air towards him. Another person shouts AChair!”. He ducks and the chair whizzes overhead.
What is the meaning of the word chair here? It is something akin to the phrase ALook out! There’s a chair flying through the air which is about to hit you unless you get out of the way.”
A child stands up at the dining table and knocks over his chair. He walks away uncaringly. Suddenly there is a stern voice from an adult at the table Achair!” The child returns to the table, picks up the chair, and places it carefully in its correct place.
What is the meaning of the word chair here? It means ADon’t just walk away! Put that properly back on its feet.”
There are two assertions to be made here. The first is that there is often no simple definition of a word within a language. Second is that the word spoken in isolation can have an infinite array of potential meanings.
A wise man hears one word and understands two. (Yiddish Proverb)
AWhen I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, Ait means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.” (LEWIS CARROLL L. 1872)
For a large class of cases - though not for all - in which we employ the word Ameaning” it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language. (WITTGENSTEIN L. 1953 pt. 1, sct. 43)
Words can have no single fixed meaning. Like wayward electrons, they can spin away from their initial orbit and enter a wider magnetic field. No one owns them or has a proprietary right to dictate how they will be used. (LEHMAN D. 1991)
That implies that words don’t have strict and precise definitions. You’re suggesting that everything we say is mired in dependence on context, or even that language has no determinate meaning. Surely we don’t want to be forced to such a desperate conclusion. (JACKENDOFF R. 1993 page 202)
We are the masters. Words are our servants. We can make them mean whatever we want them to mean. Humpty Dumpty had all this worked out. The only thing missing from his analysis is the social dimension. Any arbitrary meaning assigned to a word needs to be accepted by the speech community which uses the language. (KATAMBA F. 1994)
If these assertions are true then two questions arise:
C How do children learn the meaning of words? Or rather, how do children learn to associate a particular item with a particular word? What does this imply for the teaching of a words based approach to a child with a learning disability?
Parents don’t go around defining words for their children. Instead, in many cases parents point to things while naming them (AThis is a dog. Can you say ‘dog’?”). But this is not enough: words like Athought” and Afrom” don’t submit to pointing. No one says AHere’s from, Amy! Can you say ‘from’?” So how does the child learn these meanings? In fact, even a word such as Adog” presents problems to the learner - for much the same reason that a visual image of a dig doesn’t suffice to encode the thought. When the parent points to a particular dog, how is the child supposed to know that the noise Adog” stands for all kinds of other dogs that look different? What’s more, this thing the parent is pointing to is an animal and a pet as well as a dog. How is the child supposed to get the idea that the noise Adog” pertains to this things dogginess rather than its animality or pethood? (JACKENDOFF R. 1993 page 190)
C Is the word more powerful than the sentence? If the answer is in the affirmative are there any situations in which a ‘sentenced based’ approach is justified?
For the first of these, the reader may like to refer to any reasonably up-to-date work on language and language development (For example, BROWN R. 1973; DE VILLIERS J. & DE VILLIERS P. 1978; OWENS R. 1984; LANDAU B. & GLEITMAN L. 1985; REICH P. 1986; SLOBIN D. 1986; DROMI E. 1987; INGRAM D. 1989; FOSTER S. 1990; HARRIS J. 1990; TAYLOR I. & TAYLOR M. 1990; GOODLUCK H. 1991; BLOOM P. 1993; JACKENDOFF R. 1993; AITCHISON J. 1994; LEE V. & DAS GUPTA P. 1995).
The second point, however, is more directly linked with implementation. Consider the two sentences which may be part of the sentences found on a communication board:
AI am too hot”
AI would like a drink of coffee please”
When is the use of one of these sentence forms appropriate? When the person is too hot or when the person would like a drink of coffee are the obvious answers. These are specific circumstances. They may occur on a daily basis. The saliency of opportunity of any sentence is directly proportional to the frequency with which related events occur. If, for example, a person often feels thirsty and generally prefers coffee, the saliency of opportunity for the phrase AI would like a cup of coffee” is high. However, if the preferred drink is not always coffee then the saliency is lowered. Of course, it may be raised by a generic sentence:
AI would like a drink please”
but this then means the person must provide further information about the type of drink required. ‘Base Need Sentences’ are those for which the saliency of opportunity is high. Typically these are sentences similar to those listed below:
DRINK AI am thirsty” AMay I have a drink please?” AI’d like a coffee”
FOOD AI am hungry” ACan I have something to eat please?”
AI’d love some fish and chips”
BODILY AI need to go to the toilet”
FUNCTION AI am too hot” AI have a pain”
EMOTIONS AI am upset” AI am angry” AI am happy”
EXPRESSIONS
OF SUPPORT AI like it” AIt’s great”
The list is not comprehensive but it reflects the forms of basic needs sentences which may be found on many communication systems. Cannot all these basic need sentences however be expressed efficiently through a single word (holophrastic utterance)?
AI would like a drink” ADrink”
AI would like a coffee” ACoffee”
AI need to go to the toilet” AToilet”
AI am too hot” AHot”
The context in which the word is spoken provides sufficient clues as to the likely meaning of the utterance. If a person says the word ‘coffee’ while watching television it is safe to assume that a drink of coffee is required. If the person utters the same word in a supermarket we conclude that we need to purchase some coffee and not that it is time for a break for a coffee. In a situation where there are a variety of interpretations the specific meaning of a word may be ascertained with a closed question, ADo we need to get some coffee?”. A single word may express a variety of meanings within a specific situation. This makes it a very powerful tool for the AAC user. ‘Hot’ may mean ‘I am too hot’ but it may also be used to express joy on a summer’s day - AOh what a lovely hot day!”
If we return to the two original sentence forms (‘I am too hot’,’I would like a cup of coffee’) it is possible to replace these with the single words hot and coffee. We are now able to express, not only the original meanings of the sentence forms but, a wide variety of other interpretations depending upon context. We may take a further step. The two sentence forms are meaning specific and cannot be combined to form a new message:
AI am too hot. I would like a cup of coffee”
AI would like a cup of coffee. I am too hot”
both of which mean ‘I have become too hot and require a cup of coffee to quench my thirst.’ However, the words used in combination can express a unique meaning:
Acoffee hot”
Meaning that the coffee is too hot to drink. Or:
Ahot coffee” (as opposite to iced coffee)
As competent conversationalists we are also able to select utterances which, while they may be equivalent in meaning when taken out of context, have different effects when produced in a real social situation. Take for example the utterance ‘It is hot in here’. Out of context, it appears that this utterance has a clear meaning. But it can be used either to comment on the room temperature or as an indirect request for someone to open the window. This example shows that exactly the same words can have different functions depending on the context. (BEVERIDGE M. & CONTI-RAMSDEN G. 1987)
The argument for the use of single words is supported by the vocabulary development of children. Children do not begin with full grammatical sentence structures and then gradually acquire individual words. Children begin with single word utterances which then get conjoined into two, then three, then four word strings (See BLOOM P. 1993). However, as Chomsky has pointed out (CHOMSKY N. 1980), the meaning of any particular sentence is greater than the sum of its parts. The sentence ‘They are baking potatoes’ has two potential meanings depending on how it is parsed. Thus, learning any language does not simply involve putting separate lexical units together to form a string:
Language development does not proceed from learning isolated words to the discovery of progressively longer word-word combinations. (WOOD D. 1988)
The quote (referring to Chomsky’s work) would appear to refute the argument made in the paragraph above. However, the quote does not suggest that children start with actual sentences but that the single ‘words’ they use have a greater meaning:
When the child produces her first words and word combinations these should not be viewed as simple responses attached to isolated things but more like embryonic sentences. The child is communicating ideas or deep structures, albeit, in the early stages, through single words. (WOOD D. 1988)
If we are to understand the inner workings of a user’s mind in order to be better able to help them develop, then we will need to study their knowledge and use of syntax.
In the beginning was the word. But by the time the second word was added to it, there was trouble. For with it came syntax, the thing that tripped up so many people (SIMON J. 1981)
By only allowing the use of the prestored phrasal utterances (the syntax of others) we may never begin to form such an understanding or construct an intervention strategy for the development of syntactic skills. Nor will we provide a vehicle for the practice of such skills. Furthermore, and related to the need to develop syntax, the mental lexicon does not store whole phrasal units but rather words:
The mental lexicon contains whole words, which are viewed as coins with lemmas (meaning and word class) on one side and word forms (sounds) on the other. (AITCHISON J. 1994 page 232)
It is almost self-evident that, if the human mind did store whole phrasal units, then it would have to be infinitely large as the number of potential sentences a human may utter is limitless. This point is clearly argued in chapter two of Jackendoff’s (1993) book - ‘Patterns in the mind’:
And so it goes on, giving us 108 x 108 ‘ 1016 absolutely ridiculous sentences. Given that there are on the order of ten billion (1010) neurons in the brain, this divides out to 106, or one million sentences per neuron. Thus it would be impossible for us to store them all in our brains .... In short, we can’t possibly keep in memory all the sentences we are likely to encounter or want to use. (JACKENDOFF R. 1993 page 12)
Although I do not know of any evidence to support such a conjecture, I would venture that emergent literacy skills may be better supported by the use of a words-based than a sentence or phrasal paradigm (See McNAUGHTON S. & LINDSAY P. 1995 for an interesting guide to literacy and the use of graphic representational systems).
The single word, while meeting the base needs of the individual, has the potential to grow into a basic communication system of a couple of hundred words (think of a Bliss board for example). To achieve a similar versatility, the sentence format would have to contain many thousands if not hundreds of thousands of forms. The individual would then be required to sift through all the different sentence possibilities (and their encodings) to select the right form for a particular occasion. Evidence from competent users of systems shows that they do not do this.
An argument that might be raised in opposition to a words-based approach is that the sentence format models a good syntactic structure to which the individual may aspire. There are a number of flaws in this argument, it assumes:
C an individual may best develop syntactic skills through pointing to or selecting sentences;
C the individual is relating to the whole of the sentence and not to a key element (word?) within that sentence (quarrying);
C generating sentences of correct syntactic structures is sufficient for the development of similar structures by an individual with a delayed or deviant language;
C without practice with elements of a syntax an individual, who has not yet developed age appropriate syntactic skills, may gain an unconscious understanding of grammar;
C enough sentences may be encoded to give examples of syntax for the user to gain an insight;
C the presentation of full syntax (and/or literacy) to the listener is better than functional communication through a words-based approach.
None of the above can be assumed to be true (see, for example, AITCHISON J. 1989; BLOOM P. 1993; JACKENDOFF R. 1993). It may be stated by some that the sentence is easier to comprehend than the word (especially for those with a learning difficulty), that it is easier to gain a gestalt of a whole rather than individual elements. However, the conclusions that may be drawn from work with animals (apes) would not appear to support this contention (See the section entitled AIncrease other’s expectancy of potential and ability” in the earlier chapter on motivational issues for a list of references to work with apes).
I have argued that words are, in the main (see below for some exceptions to the rule), preferable to sentences and a number of others would support this stance:
.... but as long as the individual is in an early stage of language development, the use of ready made sentences is not recommended. Single words may be interpreted in more ways than a sentence and will therefore provide more communicative opportunities .... The strategies for combining signs to form sentences are also based on single words, and the use of ready-made sentences may hinder the individual’s learning of the sentence making process. (VON TETZCHNER S. & MARTINSEN H. 1992)
it is only with a word based system that conversation can become flexible enough to allow for true social interaction. (MORRIS K. & NEWMAN K. 1993 page 89)
In the field of AAC, much emphasis has been placed on the use of pre-programmed sentences to promote fast and efficient communication among nonspeaking children. However, Nelson’s (1992) information would suggest that dependence on full sentence production is not facilitating a child’s ability to understand single word meanings, word relationships, and altered meanings...... For augmented communicators, there is a place for the use of pre-stored sentences and phrases to teach children the power of communication and allow for timely interaction; however, language and lexicon development may not occur when a child’s lexicon remains exclusively or primarily sentence and phrase based. (VAN TATENHOVE G. 1993b)
Augmented communicators need to be able to create their own novel utterances. It is my personal belief that the ability to create novel utterances is as important for people with significant, cognitive impairments as it is for augmented communicators with college degrees. (CREECH R. 1995 page 12)
While, in the main, I have argued that words are preferable to sentences, there are a number of situations which may be best met by a sentence:
The single unit sentence
These are phrases or groups of words which have a specific meaning in their sentence form and function as a single unit. For example an adage (One good turn deserves another), a metaphor (put a sock in it), some social greetings (How are you?), some social comments (bloody hell!), songs (try generating ‘Daisy, Daisy’ a word at a time!)
Where speed is paramount and single words may not be sufficient:
C Conversational initiators and terminators
Can I have a word with you?
What a lovely day.
What are you doing?
I better get going or I’ll be late.
Got to go now.
Well, It’s been nice chatting with you.
C Frequently used messages
A pint of beer and a packet of peanuts please
Will you strap my arm for me please?
Will you unstrap my arm for me please?
C Comments
That’s brilliant! I didn’t know that!
That’s a surprise! Oh shut up!
What a load of rubbish! Don’t be so stupid!
C Getting the goods
Hi, I need to speak with you urgently
Yes, mine’s a Pina colada with a twist of lemon and just a dash of .....
C Just joking
Do you know any good single word jokes? Of course, it is possible (and sometimes, in the teaching situation, desirable) to tell a joke a word at a time but it may lose something in the telling.
C Long live lectures
Stephen Hawking would be at a disadvantage giving presentations word by word with his AAC system.
C Presenting, poems, and playacting
Acting in a play, presenting the scout pledge, speaking a poem.
C Typical telephone talk
Who is it? What do you want? Hi, it’s Tony here. Can I help you?
C To meet the principle of response effectiveness (MIRENDA P., 1993, page 8), especially in behaviour management where the use of a sentence serves to draw attention, establish the nature of the problem succinctly and provides an escape route from an undesirable event (as seen from both the communicator’s and the listener’s point of view). If easy access to the words or phrase that tells others I am unhappy with the present situation is not available then the unwanted behaviour is likely to continue:
For example, you decide to teach your client that, when he wants a break from work, he should point to a symbol of a stop sign instead of throwing nuts and bolts around the workshop. So you put the symbol in a communication book on page 4 and then, when he has had enough of the nuts and bolts, all he has to do is open the book, turn three pages, get your attention, and point to the symbol. Forget it - it is much easier to throw the nuts and bolts! Or, if he does manage to be patient enough to do all of that, he is told to Await 5 minutes, and then you can have a break” - again throwing nuts and bolts was much more effective. So the principles of functional equivalence and response effectiveness work together - the first tells us what communicative function to teach, and the second reminds us how to do it. Make it simple, easy, and effective. (MIRENDA P. 1993)
C To maintain an interactive flow. For example, the user may be interacting with a significant other who is reading a book. Within the book is a repeated phrase (an example would be the phrase ‘Not now Bernard’ in the book of the same name by David McKee 1980) which the augmented communicator is required to say at the appropriate time (the significant other may have to cue the user). A switch user could be set up so that a single hit on the switch would automatically say the phrase.
C Where single word utterances (or small mean length of utterance) will not suffice and where the augmented communicator and / or significant others show little patience with the composition of phrases word-by-word:
The first issue is whether to select a predominantly word-based message set or a predominantly sentence/phrase-based message set. When comparing the parameters of the flexibility of message composition with the speed of message generation, one is aware of a complex trade-off. Clearly, a word-based vocabulary allows maximum flexibility in the ability to compose novel messages, to compose messages reflecting a variety of semantic-syntactic forms, and to compose message of increasing mean length of utterance. However, in providing this flexibility, the trade-off is reduced speed of message generation. This is particularly seen as the mean length of utterance increases. When composing a message of more than three symbols, the augmented speaker tends to exhibit reduced motivation for lengthier symbol combinations and the speaking partner tends to exhibit reduced patience for waiting for message composition. (ELDER P. & GOOSSENS C. 1990 page 34)
The above list is not intended to be comprehensive but demonstrates that there are situations in which the use of a sentence may be more effective than the use of single words. Access to words and sentences is important; it does not have to be one or the other.
There are yet other arguments that would seem to favour the use of a sentence-based approach. It may be argued that sentences are more likely:
C to be perceived as communicatively competent by a communication partner;
C to guarantee a successful (and therefore more motivational) interchange.
In experiments by BEDROSIAN, HOAG, CALCULATOR, & MOLINEUX (1992) and BEDROSIAN, HOAG, JOHNSON, & CALCULATOR (1993) it was shown that, in all but one instance, the aided message length did not have a significant effect on the listener’s rating of a user’s communicative competence. The exception to this finding in both studies was when the listener was a speech and language therapist:
Based on these findings, we suggested that speech-language pathologists should be more accepting of single-word messages by these individuals in conversations .... (BEDROSIAN J. 1995)
It would appear that length of utterance is important to people professionally concerned with ability in this area. Why should this be? There are a number of possible explanations. A speech professional:
C is trained to be more aware of a user’s potential and has therefore a greater expectation of competence;
C is more likely to empathise with a user and understands that others may react negatively to utterances that are qualitatively and quantitatively different;
C may see a significant other’s reinforcement of a user as contingent upon length of utterance;
C may unconsciously see a user’s length of utterance as an indicator of their own competence:
CASE STUDY: A speech professional related an account of a case conference on a head-injured patient. Each member of the team was asked in turn to state the progress made. Each went into detailed explanation of their specialist areas with respect to the patient. The physiotherapist was able to report significant improvements in sitting unaided and in walking with a frame, for example. It came to the speech professional’s turn to comment. He said, AHe can say ‘b’ now”.
While other professionals are concentrating on perhaps more evident aspects of an individual’s disability, the speech professional is concentrating on a hidden aspect - language. They may view others as judging their professional competence on an individual’s improved ability in this area. The ‘evidence’ of such an improvement is in improved quality and quantity of speech. Do speech professionals unconsciously take on this ‘criteria’ for a judgement of professional competence and apply it to users of AAC?
C may be working with lower abilities were sentences are often seen as the most appropriate approach;
C may be new to the field of AAC. Often speech professionals begin with a sentence based approach and then incorporate words.
I am grateful to a number of speech professionals whose views are expressed above.
None of the above explanations may be true (there may be another reason for this difference of opinion) and, yet again, all may play some part. Interestingly, of the speech professionals whose views are expressed above, a few were surprised that other speech professionals familiar with AAC would rate the use of prepared sentences higher than the use of a word.
The use of sentences does not necessarily guarantee a successful conversational interchange. Rapid reinforcement of a user’s initiation is contingent upon the training, experience, and ability of the communication partner as well as the nature of the communication interaction. In the situations outlined on the previous page, however, it is more likely that a sentence rather than a word or words will be reinforced. For example, a user trying to communicate with a person passing in a corridor may not command their attention by using words to produce AHello have you got time to stop and talk to me about something?” By the time the first word is uttered the conversation partner may have responded with a cheery AHello” and be moving rapidly towards the exit at the end of the corridor. Had a full sentence been uttered ( for example, AI need to speak with you”) the conversational partner may have stopped and chatted and thus reinforced the user’s initiating remark.
It has been argued that the word is a powerful and versatile vehicle with which to express thought. It has the possibility of contextuality, unique combinations, and growth with the individual. A word’s based vocabulary should not only be seen as capable of growing with an individual but actually promoting and aiding that growth in a reciprocal relationship. However, one form alone in preference to the other is not necessarily the better solution. The word is a powerful tool in AAC but the use of pre-stored sentences also has many advantages. There is no rule which states it must be one or the other. We can use both. Allow a system to grow with an individual and an individual to grow with a system. Anything else is counterproductive and is not worthy of the name augmented communication.
Speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again.
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD from ‘The Great Gatsby’, Ch. 1 (1925)
In order to maintain some impartiality and to demonstrate there are those who may not totally agree with me I will end this section with a quote from a recent article:
In the light of this result, it is no longer tenable to claim that a prestored text approach to facilitating augmentative communication is incapable of generating appropriate (from the point of view of an observer) content in free flowing conversation on a fairly broad topic. (TODMAN J., ELDER L., & ALM N. 1995 page 233)
However, I still remain unconvinced but open-minded. Watch this space!
The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words. (DICK P. 1986)
It is often stated that sentence and phrasal forms are the best way to introduce augmented communication to a person with a severe impairment. The sentence provides a means of comprehensible, effective, fast, and versatile communication. This is not necessarily the case - the word may hold the key to successful implementation of AAC for all levels of cognition.
In the beginning was the word and the word was
(ST. JOHN Chapter 1 Verse 1)
good?
There is more to language than single words. We have to learn how to put words together to form sentences. This is a difficult lesson but once a child has learnt it he is able to express his own ideas more freely. (JEFFREE D. & McCONKEY R. 1976)
Even some of those people working with phrase-based systems acknowledge that they may not hold all the answers for free-flowing conversation:
Although the use of prestored text may be capable of increasing the output that can be achieved by an AAC user, it seems unlikely that a system that relies exclusively on prestorage of potential utterances will ever be capable of meeting all of a user’s requirements for precision of responding in a free flowing conversation. (TODMAN J., ELDER L., & ALM N. 1995 page 229)
When Baker began introducing ‘Minspeak’ (an encoding system utilised by the VOCAs produced by Prentke Romich Company) to the world (BAKER B. 1982) he believed that the approach would be phrasal:
A person using a Minspeak machine might have a sentence vocabulary (rather than a word vocabulary because Minspeak is based on the sentence) of 800 to 900 sentences (SWARTZ S. 1984)
Minspeak has a modern linguistic coding system based on general ideas underlying human communication. The coding technique uses sequence to define context, thus exploiting the human mind’s ability to process semantic information. Easy-to-use symbols on each key represent ideas. The meaning of each key changes according to the sequence in which it is hit. By combining these symbols whole spoken sentences can be generated. (BAKER B. 1984)(My italics)
He later reversed his belief and recently (BAKER B. 1993; BAKER B. 1996) moved to emphasise the power of the word. There are some important issues that correlate to the use of a words strategy (as opposed to the program of the same name Words Strategy (BAKER B. 1988) approach that need further exploration and emphasis.
Thus at the time of Minspeak’s introduction, it was described as a sentence-based system driven by individually tailored icons. As powerful as this concept seemed, its implementation led to two discoveries of crucial importance in AC. The first discovery was that individuals did not readily incorporate prestored sentences into their vocabularies. It appeared that only in highly engineered, dependent or language learning modes did individuals using communication aids typically use their prestored sentences. When asked why he didn’t use an appropriate though prestored sentence Rick Creech replied, AI can’t remember what sentences I have even though I can remember the icon code for the sentences.” AI don’t think in sentences, I think in words” was stated by many augmented communicators. (BADMAN A. & BAKER B. 1995 page 5)
Both Saussure (1916) and Wittgenstein (1953) fundamentally affected present-day thinking about language. Both were anti-nomenclaturist and both compared language to a rule governed game (notably chess). Apart from the words that are labelled onomatopoeic (for example ‘cuckoo’ and ‘buzz’) there is no connection between the letters that make the word and the item to which the word refers:
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet (SHAKESPEARE. Romeo and Juliet, II, ii)
The connection between a dog and the word dog is purely arbitrary. Indeed, in another language other letter combinations refer to the same animal form: ‘chien’, ‘canis’, ‘Hund’, etc.
A linguistic sign is not a link between a thing and a name, but between a concept and a sound pattern. The sound pattern is not actually a sound; for a sound is something physical. A sound pattern is the hearer’s psychological impression of a sound, as given to him by evidence of his senses. This sound pattern may be called a ‘material’ element only in that it is the representation of our sensory impressions. The sound pattern may thus be distinguished from the other element associated with it in a linguistic sign. This other element is generally of a more abstract kind: the concept (DE SAUSSURE F. 1912 pp 98)
Words Wittgenstein now insisted, cannot be understood outside the context of the non-linguistic human activities into which the use of the language is interwoven .... the way to understand the meaning of a word is to study it in the language-game to which it belongs, to see how it contributes to the communal activity of a group of language-users. In general, the meaning of a word is not an object for which it stands, but rather its use in a language. (KENNY A. 1973 page 14)
It’s only for a small minority of words that we can give definitions without these fuzzy edges. Until recently, the metre was officially defined as the distance between two particular scratches on a particular metal bar kept in a particular vault in Paris, and, if you wanted to know if your metre stick was a metre long or not, all you had to do was to take it to Paris and lay it alongside that bar. This works pretty well for metre, but it wouldn’t work for most other words: we could hardly keep a standard dog in a vault to compare against candidate dogs, or a standard chair, or a standard smile. (TRASK R. 1995 Page 50. Trask’s italics.)
This is also true of the signs used by the deaf community: there may be some signs that are iconic and are either transparent or translucent but the majority are simply opaque:
although sometimes signs partly depict what they refer to, hardly ever are the forms of signs completely determined by what they mean. So ASL vocabulary has to be learned just like that of a spoken language (JACKENDOFF R. 1993 page 89)(Jackendoff’s italics) (For ASL read BSL or any other complete sign language)
The overhead asks the staff to look at the word chair and write down its meaning. The majority of people will write something to sit on or categorise it as a piece of furniture. But its meaning is more problematic than these definitions allow. I can sit on a table top or a stool or a friend. A table is also a piece of furniture as is a sofa, a wardrobe and a chest of drawers. Refining the definition we might say:
‘A chair is an item of furniture whose prime purpose is for sitting.’
Does this satisfy the meaning of the word chair? No! Sofa, couch, stool and settle also could be included in this definition. It might be suggested that a chair has four legs while the others have different arrangements. Of course, this is not always the case: One can think of examples of chairs with one leg, two legs and no legs. However, while a sofa and a couch can seat more than one person, a chair is not specifically designed to do so:
‘A chair is an item of furniture whose prime purpose is for seating a single person.’
That rules out some of the items from the list above but not the stool, or a pouffe. However, these items do not have backs:
‘A chair is an item of furniture with a back whose prime purpose is for seating a single person.’
Does this definition satisfy the meaning of chair? What about the chair that is supposed to aid the correct seating posture (the one with the kneeling pad - it is called a ‘back chair’) and has no back? The definition requires further modification:
‘A chair is an item of furniture, normally with a back, whose prime purpose is for seating a single person.’
Are chairs always items of furniture? Could we not conceive of a chair that is a work of art whose strength does not permit a person to sit upon it? Are there items which, when presented to a person on the street, would generate the response Athat’s a chair”? A picture of a chair, a photograph of a chair, an ashtray in the form of a chair, for example. When it is asked Awhat is this?” the response is AIt’s a chair”. No! It’s a picture of a chair, a representation of a chair, but its not a chair per se. Or is it? The word chair also exists as a verb - to chair a meeting. It also has another meaning as a noun - a chair at a university. However, ignore these two possible meanings and concentrate on the former definition.
Consider all the variations of chairs that will fit the earlier description: a one-legged gas pedestal chair for office use; a Tudor box chair; an upholstered armchair; a basket chair suspended by a chain from the ceiling. When the single word chair is uttered by a person what does it mean? It might mean the person is speaking about one or more of the infinite variety of chair forms that exist or have the potential to exist. It could mean the person is speaking about a facsimile of a chair. However, it could mean something completely different. Consider this situation:
A person is standing in a crowded room when a fight breaks out. He watches as chairs and tables are thrown through the air. Suddenly a chair comes flying through the air towards him. Another person shouts AChair!”. He ducks and the chair whizzes overhead.
What is the meaning of the word chair here? It is something akin to the phrase ALook out! There’s a chair flying through the air which is about to hit you unless you get out of the way.”
A child stands up at the dining table and knocks over his chair. He walks away uncaringly. Suddenly there is a stern voice from an adult at the table Achair!” The child returns to the table, picks up the chair, and places it carefully in its correct place.
What is the meaning of the word chair here? It means ADon’t just walk away! Put that properly back on its feet.”
There are two assertions to be made here. The first is that there is often no simple definition of a word within a language. Second is that the word spoken in isolation can have an infinite array of potential meanings.
A wise man hears one word and understands two. (Yiddish Proverb)
AWhen I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, Ait means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.” (LEWIS CARROLL L. 1872)
For a large class of cases - though not for all - in which we employ the word Ameaning” it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language. (WITTGENSTEIN L. 1953 pt. 1, sct. 43)
Words can have no single fixed meaning. Like wayward electrons, they can spin away from their initial orbit and enter a wider magnetic field. No one owns them or has a proprietary right to dictate how they will be used. (LEHMAN D. 1991)
That implies that words don’t have strict and precise definitions. You’re suggesting that everything we say is mired in dependence on context, or even that language has no determinate meaning. Surely we don’t want to be forced to such a desperate conclusion. (JACKENDOFF R. 1993 page 202)
We are the masters. Words are our servants. We can make them mean whatever we want them to mean. Humpty Dumpty had all this worked out. The only thing missing from his analysis is the social dimension. Any arbitrary meaning assigned to a word needs to be accepted by the speech community which uses the language. (KATAMBA F. 1994)
If these assertions are true then two questions arise:
C How do children learn the meaning of words? Or rather, how do children learn to associate a particular item with a particular word? What does this imply for the teaching of a words based approach to a child with a learning disability?
Parents don’t go around defining words for their children. Instead, in many cases parents point to things while naming them (AThis is a dog. Can you say ‘dog’?”). But this is not enough: words like Athought” and Afrom” don’t submit to pointing. No one says AHere’s from, Amy! Can you say ‘from’?” So how does the child learn these meanings? In fact, even a word such as Adog” presents problems to the learner - for much the same reason that a visual image of a dig doesn’t suffice to encode the thought. When the parent points to a particular dog, how is the child supposed to know that the noise Adog” stands for all kinds of other dogs that look different? What’s more, this thing the parent is pointing to is an animal and a pet as well as a dog. How is the child supposed to get the idea that the noise Adog” pertains to this things dogginess rather than its animality or pethood? (JACKENDOFF R. 1993 page 190)
C Is the word more powerful than the sentence? If the answer is in the affirmative are there any situations in which a ‘sentenced based’ approach is justified?
For the first of these, the reader may like to refer to any reasonably up-to-date work on language and language development (For example, BROWN R. 1973; DE VILLIERS J. & DE VILLIERS P. 1978; OWENS R. 1984; LANDAU B. & GLEITMAN L. 1985; REICH P. 1986; SLOBIN D. 1986; DROMI E. 1987; INGRAM D. 1989; FOSTER S. 1990; HARRIS J. 1990; TAYLOR I. & TAYLOR M. 1990; GOODLUCK H. 1991; BLOOM P. 1993; JACKENDOFF R. 1993; AITCHISON J. 1994; LEE V. & DAS GUPTA P. 1995).
The second point, however, is more directly linked with implementation. Consider the two sentences which may be part of the sentences found on a communication board:
AI am too hot”
AI would like a drink of coffee please”
When is the use of one of these sentence forms appropriate? When the person is too hot or when the person would like a drink of coffee are the obvious answers. These are specific circumstances. They may occur on a daily basis. The saliency of opportunity of any sentence is directly proportional to the frequency with which related events occur. If, for example, a person often feels thirsty and generally prefers coffee, the saliency of opportunity for the phrase AI would like a cup of coffee” is high. However, if the preferred drink is not always coffee then the saliency is lowered. Of course, it may be raised by a generic sentence:
AI would like a drink please”
but this then means the person must provide further information about the type of drink required. ‘Base Need Sentences’ are those for which the saliency of opportunity is high. Typically these are sentences similar to those listed below:
DRINK AI am thirsty” AMay I have a drink please?” AI’d like a coffee”
FOOD AI am hungry” ACan I have something to eat please?”
AI’d love some fish and chips”
BODILY AI need to go to the toilet”
FUNCTION AI am too hot” AI have a pain”
EMOTIONS AI am upset” AI am angry” AI am happy”
EXPRESSIONS
OF SUPPORT AI like it” AIt’s great”
The list is not comprehensive but it reflects the forms of basic needs sentences which may be found on many communication systems. Cannot all these basic need sentences however be expressed efficiently through a single word (holophrastic utterance)?
AI would like a drink” ADrink”
AI would like a coffee” ACoffee”
AI need to go to the toilet” AToilet”
AI am too hot” AHot”
The context in which the word is spoken provides sufficient clues as to the likely meaning of the utterance. If a person says the word ‘coffee’ while watching television it is safe to assume that a drink of coffee is required. If the person utters the same word in a supermarket we conclude that we need to purchase some coffee and not that it is time for a break for a coffee. In a situation where there are a variety of interpretations the specific meaning of a word may be ascertained with a closed question, ADo we need to get some coffee?”. A single word may express a variety of meanings within a specific situation. This makes it a very powerful tool for the AAC user. ‘Hot’ may mean ‘I am too hot’ but it may also be used to express joy on a summer’s day - AOh what a lovely hot day!”
If we return to the two original sentence forms (‘I am too hot’,’I would like a cup of coffee’) it is possible to replace these with the single words hot and coffee. We are now able to express, not only the original meanings of the sentence forms but, a wide variety of other interpretations depending upon context. We may take a further step. The two sentence forms are meaning specific and cannot be combined to form a new message:
AI am too hot. I would like a cup of coffee”
AI would like a cup of coffee. I am too hot”
both of which mean ‘I have become too hot and require a cup of coffee to quench my thirst.’ However, the words used in combination can express a unique meaning:
Acoffee hot”
Meaning that the coffee is too hot to drink. Or:
Ahot coffee” (as opposite to iced coffee)
As competent conversationalists we are also able to select utterances which, while they may be equivalent in meaning when taken out of context, have different effects when produced in a real social situation. Take for example the utterance ‘It is hot in here’. Out of context, it appears that this utterance has a clear meaning. But it can be used either to comment on the room temperature or as an indirect request for someone to open the window. This example shows that exactly the same words can have different functions depending on the context. (BEVERIDGE M. & CONTI-RAMSDEN G. 1987)
The argument for the use of single words is supported by the vocabulary development of children. Children do not begin with full grammatical sentence structures and then gradually acquire individual words. Children begin with single word utterances which then get conjoined into two, then three, then four word strings (See BLOOM P. 1993). However, as Chomsky has pointed out (CHOMSKY N. 1980), the meaning of any particular sentence is greater than the sum of its parts. The sentence ‘They are baking potatoes’ has two potential meanings depending on how it is parsed. Thus, learning any language does not simply involve putting separate lexical units together to form a string:
Language development does not proceed from learning isolated words to the discovery of progressively longer word-word combinations. (WOOD D. 1988)
The quote (referring to Chomsky’s work) would appear to refute the argument made in the paragraph above. However, the quote does not suggest that children start with actual sentences but that the single ‘words’ they use have a greater meaning:
When the child produces her first words and word combinations these should not be viewed as simple responses attached to isolated things but more like embryonic sentences. The child is communicating ideas or deep structures, albeit, in the early stages, through single words. (WOOD D. 1988)
If we are to understand the inner workings of a user’s mind in order to be better able to help them develop, then we will need to study their knowledge and use of syntax.
In the beginning was the word. But by the time the second word was added to it, there was trouble. For with it came syntax, the thing that tripped up so many people (SIMON J. 1981)
By only allowing the use of the prestored phrasal utterances (the syntax of others) we may never begin to form such an understanding or construct an intervention strategy for the development of syntactic skills. Nor will we provide a vehicle for the practice of such skills. Furthermore, and related to the need to develop syntax, the mental lexicon does not store whole phrasal units but rather words:
The mental lexicon contains whole words, which are viewed as coins with lemmas (meaning and word class) on one side and word forms (sounds) on the other. (AITCHISON J. 1994 page 232)
It is almost self-evident that, if the human mind did store whole phrasal units, then it would have to be infinitely large as the number of potential sentences a human may utter is limitless. This point is clearly argued in chapter two of Jackendoff’s (1993) book - ‘Patterns in the mind’:
And so it goes on, giving us 108 x 108 ‘ 1016 absolutely ridiculous sentences. Given that there are on the order of ten billion (1010) neurons in the brain, this divides out to 106, or one million sentences per neuron. Thus it would be impossible for us to store them all in our brains .... In short, we can’t possibly keep in memory all the sentences we are likely to encounter or want to use. (JACKENDOFF R. 1993 page 12)
Although I do not know of any evidence to support such a conjecture, I would venture that emergent literacy skills may be better supported by the use of a words-based than a sentence or phrasal paradigm (See McNAUGHTON S. & LINDSAY P. 1995 for an interesting guide to literacy and the use of graphic representational systems).
The single word, while meeting the base needs of the individual, has the potential to grow into a basic communication system of a couple of hundred words (think of a Bliss board for example). To achieve a similar versatility, the sentence format would have to contain many thousands if not hundreds of thousands of forms. The individual would then be required to sift through all the different sentence possibilities (and their encodings) to select the right form for a particular occasion. Evidence from competent users of systems shows that they do not do this.
An argument that might be raised in opposition to a words-based approach is that the sentence format models a good syntactic structure to which the individual may aspire. There are a number of flaws in this argument, it assumes:
C an individual may best develop syntactic skills through pointing to or selecting sentences;
C the individual is relating to the whole of the sentence and not to a key element (word?) within that sentence (quarrying);
C generating sentences of correct syntactic structures is sufficient for the development of similar structures by an individual with a delayed or deviant language;
C without practice with elements of a syntax an individual, who has not yet developed age appropriate syntactic skills, may gain an unconscious understanding of grammar;
C enough sentences may be encoded to give examples of syntax for the user to gain an insight;
C the presentation of full syntax (and/or literacy) to the listener is better than functional communication through a words-based approach.
None of the above can be assumed to be true (see, for example, AITCHISON J. 1989; BLOOM P. 1993; JACKENDOFF R. 1993). It may be stated by some that the sentence is easier to comprehend than the word (especially for those with a learning difficulty), that it is easier to gain a gestalt of a whole rather than individual elements. However, the conclusions that may be drawn from work with animals (apes) would not appear to support this contention (See the section entitled AIncrease other’s expectancy of potential and ability” in the earlier chapter on motivational issues for a list of references to work with apes).
I have argued that words are, in the main (see below for some exceptions to the rule), preferable to sentences and a number of others would support this stance:
.... but as long as the individual is in an early stage of language development, the use of ready made sentences is not recommended. Single words may be interpreted in more ways than a sentence and will therefore provide more communicative opportunities .... The strategies for combining signs to form sentences are also based on single words, and the use of ready-made sentences may hinder the individual’s learning of the sentence making process. (VON TETZCHNER S. & MARTINSEN H. 1992)
it is only with a word based system that conversation can become flexible enough to allow for true social interaction. (MORRIS K. & NEWMAN K. 1993 page 89)
In the field of AAC, much emphasis has been placed on the use of pre-programmed sentences to promote fast and efficient communication among nonspeaking children. However, Nelson’s (1992) information would suggest that dependence on full sentence production is not facilitating a child’s ability to understand single word meanings, word relationships, and altered meanings...... For augmented communicators, there is a place for the use of pre-stored sentences and phrases to teach children the power of communication and allow for timely interaction; however, language and lexicon development may not occur when a child’s lexicon remains exclusively or primarily sentence and phrase based. (VAN TATENHOVE G. 1993b)
Augmented communicators need to be able to create their own novel utterances. It is my personal belief that the ability to create novel utterances is as important for people with significant, cognitive impairments as it is for augmented communicators with college degrees. (CREECH R. 1995 page 12)
While, in the main, I have argued that words are preferable to sentences, there are a number of situations which may be best met by a sentence:
The single unit sentence
These are phrases or groups of words which have a specific meaning in their sentence form and function as a single unit. For example an adage (One good turn deserves another), a metaphor (put a sock in it), some social greetings (How are you?), some social comments (bloody hell!), songs (try generating ‘Daisy, Daisy’ a word at a time!)
Where speed is paramount and single words may not be sufficient:
C Conversational initiators and terminators
Can I have a word with you?
What a lovely day.
What are you doing?
I better get going or I’ll be late.
Got to go now.
Well, It’s been nice chatting with you.
C Frequently used messages
A pint of beer and a packet of peanuts please
Will you strap my arm for me please?
Will you unstrap my arm for me please?
C Comments
That’s brilliant! I didn’t know that!
That’s a surprise! Oh shut up!
What a load of rubbish! Don’t be so stupid!
C Getting the goods
Hi, I need to speak with you urgently
Yes, mine’s a Pina colada with a twist of lemon and just a dash of .....
C Just joking
Do you know any good single word jokes? Of course, it is possible (and sometimes, in the teaching situation, desirable) to tell a joke a word at a time but it may lose something in the telling.
C Long live lectures
Stephen Hawking would be at a disadvantage giving presentations word by word with his AAC system.
C Presenting, poems, and playacting
Acting in a play, presenting the scout pledge, speaking a poem.
C Typical telephone talk
Who is it? What do you want? Hi, it’s Tony here. Can I help you?
C To meet the principle of response effectiveness (MIRENDA P., 1993, page 8), especially in behaviour management where the use of a sentence serves to draw attention, establish the nature of the problem succinctly and provides an escape route from an undesirable event (as seen from both the communicator’s and the listener’s point of view). If easy access to the words or phrase that tells others I am unhappy with the present situation is not available then the unwanted behaviour is likely to continue:
For example, you decide to teach your client that, when he wants a break from work, he should point to a symbol of a stop sign instead of throwing nuts and bolts around the workshop. So you put the symbol in a communication book on page 4 and then, when he has had enough of the nuts and bolts, all he has to do is open the book, turn three pages, get your attention, and point to the symbol. Forget it - it is much easier to throw the nuts and bolts! Or, if he does manage to be patient enough to do all of that, he is told to Await 5 minutes, and then you can have a break” - again throwing nuts and bolts was much more effective. So the principles of functional equivalence and response effectiveness work together - the first tells us what communicative function to teach, and the second reminds us how to do it. Make it simple, easy, and effective. (MIRENDA P. 1993)
C To maintain an interactive flow. For example, the user may be interacting with a significant other who is reading a book. Within the book is a repeated phrase (an example would be the phrase ‘Not now Bernard’ in the book of the same name by David McKee 1980) which the augmented communicator is required to say at the appropriate time (the significant other may have to cue the user). A switch user could be set up so that a single hit on the switch would automatically say the phrase.
C Where single word utterances (or small mean length of utterance) will not suffice and where the augmented communicator and / or significant others show little patience with the composition of phrases word-by-word:
The first issue is whether to select a predominantly word-based message set or a predominantly sentence/phrase-based message set. When comparing the parameters of the flexibility of message composition with the speed of message generation, one is aware of a complex trade-off. Clearly, a word-based vocabulary allows maximum flexibility in the ability to compose novel messages, to compose messages reflecting a variety of semantic-syntactic forms, and to compose message of increasing mean length of utterance. However, in providing this flexibility, the trade-off is reduced speed of message generation. This is particularly seen as the mean length of utterance increases. When composing a message of more than three symbols, the augmented speaker tends to exhibit reduced motivation for lengthier symbol combinations and the speaking partner tends to exhibit reduced patience for waiting for message composition. (ELDER P. & GOOSSENS C. 1990 page 34)
The above list is not intended to be comprehensive but demonstrates that there are situations in which the use of a sentence may be more effective than the use of single words. Access to words and sentences is important; it does not have to be one or the other.
There are yet other arguments that would seem to favour the use of a sentence-based approach. It may be argued that sentences are more likely:
C to be perceived as communicatively competent by a communication partner;
C to guarantee a successful (and therefore more motivational) interchange.
In experiments by BEDROSIAN, HOAG, CALCULATOR, & MOLINEUX (1992) and BEDROSIAN, HOAG, JOHNSON, & CALCULATOR (1993) it was shown that, in all but one instance, the aided message length did not have a significant effect on the listener’s rating of a user’s communicative competence. The exception to this finding in both studies was when the listener was a speech and language therapist:
Based on these findings, we suggested that speech-language pathologists should be more accepting of single-word messages by these individuals in conversations .... (BEDROSIAN J. 1995)
It would appear that length of utterance is important to people professionally concerned with ability in this area. Why should this be? There are a number of possible explanations. A speech professional:
C is trained to be more aware of a user’s potential and has therefore a greater expectation of competence;
C is more likely to empathise with a user and understands that others may react negatively to utterances that are qualitatively and quantitatively different;
C may see a significant other’s reinforcement of a user as contingent upon length of utterance;
C may unconsciously see a user’s length of utterance as an indicator of their own competence:
CASE STUDY: A speech professional related an account of a case conference on a head-injured patient. Each member of the team was asked in turn to state the progress made. Each went into detailed explanation of their specialist areas with respect to the patient. The physiotherapist was able to report significant improvements in sitting unaided and in walking with a frame, for example. It came to the speech professional’s turn to comment. He said, AHe can say ‘b’ now”.
While other professionals are concentrating on perhaps more evident aspects of an individual’s disability, the speech professional is concentrating on a hidden aspect - language. They may view others as judging their professional competence on an individual’s improved ability in this area. The ‘evidence’ of such an improvement is in improved quality and quantity of speech. Do speech professionals unconsciously take on this ‘criteria’ for a judgement of professional competence and apply it to users of AAC?
C may be working with lower abilities were sentences are often seen as the most appropriate approach;
C may be new to the field of AAC. Often speech professionals begin with a sentence based approach and then incorporate words.
I am grateful to a number of speech professionals whose views are expressed above.
None of the above explanations may be true (there may be another reason for this difference of opinion) and, yet again, all may play some part. Interestingly, of the speech professionals whose views are expressed above, a few were surprised that other speech professionals familiar with AAC would rate the use of prepared sentences higher than the use of a word.
The use of sentences does not necessarily guarantee a successful conversational interchange. Rapid reinforcement of a user’s initiation is contingent upon the training, experience, and ability of the communication partner as well as the nature of the communication interaction. In the situations outlined on the previous page, however, it is more likely that a sentence rather than a word or words will be reinforced. For example, a user trying to communicate with a person passing in a corridor may not command their attention by using words to produce AHello have you got time to stop and talk to me about something?” By the time the first word is uttered the conversation partner may have responded with a cheery AHello” and be moving rapidly towards the exit at the end of the corridor. Had a full sentence been uttered ( for example, AI need to speak with you”) the conversational partner may have stopped and chatted and thus reinforced the user’s initiating remark.
It has been argued that the word is a powerful and versatile vehicle with which to express thought. It has the possibility of contextuality, unique combinations, and growth with the individual. A word’s based vocabulary should not only be seen as capable of growing with an individual but actually promoting and aiding that growth in a reciprocal relationship. However, one form alone in preference to the other is not necessarily the better solution. The word is a powerful tool in AAC but the use of pre-stored sentences also has many advantages. There is no rule which states it must be one or the other. We can use both. Allow a system to grow with an individual and an individual to grow with a system. Anything else is counterproductive and is not worthy of the name augmented communication.
Speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again.
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD from ‘The Great Gatsby’, Ch. 1 (1925)
In order to maintain some impartiality and to demonstrate there are those who may not totally agree with me I will end this section with a quote from a recent article:
In the light of this result, it is no longer tenable to claim that a prestored text approach to facilitating augmentative communication is incapable of generating appropriate (from the point of view of an observer) content in free flowing conversation on a fairly broad topic. (TODMAN J., ELDER L., & ALM N. 1995 page 233)
However, I still remain unconvinced but open-minded. Watch this space!
VOCABULARY 4 - Negative statements
Isn’t the right to freedom of speech seen as a fundamental human right in the majority of all democratic nations? (In the United States, for example, this is safeguarded by the 1st Amendment to the Constitution.) It has even been suggested that chimpanzees are able to swear in sign (See - LINDEN E. 1975 page 8). Why should people be denied their freedom of speech because of a disability? It is not uncommon to hear people say that a particular word or phrase (or song) should be removed from a system because it is offensive, undesirable, unnecessary, unimportant, disruptive, or because it ‘may be used inappropriately’. As Voltaire is supposed to have said:
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it (Attributed to VOLTAIRE - See TALLENTYRE S. 1907)
The cartoon shows a VOCA programmed with positive phrases. No negative statements or expletives here. This device can cause no trouble and no offence.
If a system contains the phrase ‘Yes I would like to do that’ then it should also contain the opposite phrase ‘I don’t want to do that’. What if a user should say it? What if their vocal peer should say it? Respond in exactly the same manner. The response should be both identical and appropriate:
C identical to a verbal peer who uttered a similar remark;
C appropriate to the situation.
If a user were to swear, the response would depend on the age of the user, the situation, and the presence of others. What is acceptable over a drink in a pub might not be acceptable from a junior in a classroom. A comment made in passing may help:
ATim I don’t like to hear you use those words. That word (say the word) is swearing (as the user may not know, its meaning might be made explicit) and it should only be used with care and thought. Some people would be offended by it. Do you understand what I am saying to you? This is not the time or the place to use that word.”
If Tim continued to use the word the response would be slightly stronger in tone and would become even stronger if this was ignored. At no time would I consider the removal of the word from the system.
I have no desire to see any child utter profanities but I know what I would say if I dropped a housebrick on my finger!
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it (Attributed to VOLTAIRE - See TALLENTYRE S. 1907)
The cartoon shows a VOCA programmed with positive phrases. No negative statements or expletives here. This device can cause no trouble and no offence.
If a system contains the phrase ‘Yes I would like to do that’ then it should also contain the opposite phrase ‘I don’t want to do that’. What if a user should say it? What if their vocal peer should say it? Respond in exactly the same manner. The response should be both identical and appropriate:
C identical to a verbal peer who uttered a similar remark;
C appropriate to the situation.
If a user were to swear, the response would depend on the age of the user, the situation, and the presence of others. What is acceptable over a drink in a pub might not be acceptable from a junior in a classroom. A comment made in passing may help:
ATim I don’t like to hear you use those words. That word (say the word) is swearing (as the user may not know, its meaning might be made explicit) and it should only be used with care and thought. Some people would be offended by it. Do you understand what I am saying to you? This is not the time or the place to use that word.”
If Tim continued to use the word the response would be slightly stronger in tone and would become even stronger if this was ignored. At no time would I consider the removal of the word from the system.
I have no desire to see any child utter profanities but I know what I would say if I dropped a housebrick on my finger!
VOCABULARY 5 - Enablement will inevitably mean self-advocacy
The cartoon represents a real life event.
CASE STUDY: A speech professional had programmed pupil X’s communicator with a phrase similar to ‘You are a fat cow’. When X went home she started calling grandma ‘a fat cow’! Mum was on the phone to the speech professional straight away -
AHow dare you put such language into X’s system”
AWhy - what’s the matter?”
AIt’s X. She’s calling grandma a fat cow!”
AX! Wow that’s wonderful. Isn’t that wonderful?!”
ANo it’s not! I’ve taken the system from her and hidden it in the cupboard and she’s trying to get at it to call her grandmother names!”
AAre we talking about X? Wow! Isn’t that fantastic. She has never initiated before. Wow! This is fantastic. Isn’t it fantastic?!”
AYes..... err.... yes ... it is isn’t it?”
AYes! Give her the system back!”
Enablement through AAC will inevitably mean the development of self-advocacy skills. The child or the adult will be able to say things they may have only been able to think before. It is very likely the learner will say the wrong things in the wrong place from time to time. Pragmatic skills are not innate, they are learnt through experience. The novice user will be lacking experience. Responding appropriately to the remarks a novice may make will help speed development.
CASE STUDY: Y is a seven-year-old girl. She was adopted when she was six. Her new parents love her very much. They saw another person using an AAC system and decided that Y should have one. They worked with the speech professional involved and got an assessment for a particular system. This was very successful. The parents started fund raising straight away. When they finally raised the funds Y was presented with her new AAC system. She was a whiz! She learnt fast and began to communicate. After a short time the parents turned up with the system. They said that Y did not need it any more. They told the speech professional to give the communication aid to another child who could benefit from it. The speech professional was astounded:
AWhy? When she is doing so well?”asked the speech professional.
AWe want our daughter back”, was the reply.
CASE STUDY: A speech professional had programmed pupil X’s communicator with a phrase similar to ‘You are a fat cow’. When X went home she started calling grandma ‘a fat cow’! Mum was on the phone to the speech professional straight away -
AHow dare you put such language into X’s system”
AWhy - what’s the matter?”
AIt’s X. She’s calling grandma a fat cow!”
AX! Wow that’s wonderful. Isn’t that wonderful?!”
ANo it’s not! I’ve taken the system from her and hidden it in the cupboard and she’s trying to get at it to call her grandmother names!”
AAre we talking about X? Wow! Isn’t that fantastic. She has never initiated before. Wow! This is fantastic. Isn’t it fantastic?!”
AYes..... err.... yes ... it is isn’t it?”
AYes! Give her the system back!”
Enablement through AAC will inevitably mean the development of self-advocacy skills. The child or the adult will be able to say things they may have only been able to think before. It is very likely the learner will say the wrong things in the wrong place from time to time. Pragmatic skills are not innate, they are learnt through experience. The novice user will be lacking experience. Responding appropriately to the remarks a novice may make will help speed development.
CASE STUDY: Y is a seven-year-old girl. She was adopted when she was six. Her new parents love her very much. They saw another person using an AAC system and decided that Y should have one. They worked with the speech professional involved and got an assessment for a particular system. This was very successful. The parents started fund raising straight away. When they finally raised the funds Y was presented with her new AAC system. She was a whiz! She learnt fast and began to communicate. After a short time the parents turned up with the system. They said that Y did not need it any more. They told the speech professional to give the communication aid to another child who could benefit from it. The speech professional was astounded:
AWhy? When she is doing so well?”asked the speech professional.
AWe want our daughter back”, was the reply.
VOCABULARY 6 - Targeting small relevant areas
The vocabulary that is relevant to a 6-year-old child is unlikely to be the same vocabulary that is relevant to a 16-year-old adolescent. Indeed the vocabulary for a 16 year old may be different to the vocabulary suited to another person of the same age. We all have different tastes, experiences, daily routines, knowledge, and command of language. We should expect differing vocabularies. That is not to say we cannot or should not teach the same vocabulary to groups of individuals. However, the vocabulary should be specifically targeted for the particular group in question.
The cartoon depicts this issue. Mr Lukforjob has decided to teach his group the entire range of drinks, even though alcoholic beverages are not, as yet, relevant to his six-year-old class. If a child’s mother and father have a sherry or a glass of wine with every meal, these drinks are relevant to the child.
How do we discover what vocabulary is relevant to a particular user? There are a number of techniques:
C Shadowing: Shadowing involves following a user through an average day recording all activities and communication interactions. This will generate lots of information and many ideas for vocabulary tuition but it is a very tiring process for one person to undertake. If the task can be broken down into stages, such that several people take it in turns throughout the day, the tasks is made less arduous. More heads are better than one and the vocabulary list developed may more accurately reflect the needs of the individual. There is a danger that the day chosen for shadowing the individual is not a particularly active one. Had the next day been selected, the team might have seen the person interacting at the youth club. Parents too should be involved in the shadowing process. The task should not be made arduous. Ask the parents to record (either verbally into a micro-recorder or by writing onto prepared sheets) what their son or daughter is doing on the hour, every hour, through a typical weekend.
It should be stressed that this is a one-off event. They will not be asked to do this every weekend. Typical is highlighted because there is a temptation to do something special such as taking a trip to Disney Land. What is required is typical vocabulary. It is inevitable that some parents will record reams and others little. Working through the recorded notes with them will clarify matters and expand on any recordings that are rather sparse.
This means that time must be spent assessing the environment and finding situations where communication can be used functionally and that are also suitable for training purposes. (VON TETZCHNER S. & MARTINSEN H. 1992)
C Profiles: Profiles are another way of gathering information on a user to select the vocabulary that will be introduced early in tuition. They also help to discover more about a person. A profile is a questionnaire. Questions can cover all aspects of an individual’s life: Family and friends; favourite items; likes and dislikes; schools, clubs, and events attended; etc.
What are John’s favourite drinks?
What does Susan like to do in the evening?
What are Sam’s favourite TV programmes?
What clubs does Kathy attend?
What is Susan’s taste in music?
Profile questionnaires may be developed for staff as well as parents:
What topic is Sam currently studying?
What vocabulary would help Susan to join in with your lesson?
C Notebooks: Notebooks record the vocabulary a user wishes to say but has no means of making explicit. We have all experienced the twenty-questions session in which a non-vocal person wants to make a point but others are unable to grasp his or her meaning. It is to be hoped that, at the end of the twenty question routine, the person’s intent will have been established. This vocabulary should be recorded. A notebook attached to the back of a wheelchair, or in a pocket on the back of a communication board (be creative) allows the recording of new vocabulary - which may be neglected otherwise. It is difficult to think of an individual’s vocabulary needs on the spot. It is likely, as particular situations arise, people will think of new items of vocabulary not included in the user’s original list. The notebook should be the responsibility of one member of the team who should add the new vocabulary and liaise with tutors for a decision on introducing new symbol(s) to the user.
C Monitoring Communication: The user is already likely to have an augmented communication system. For example, a person being introduced to a VOCA may have a Bliss board. A person being introduced to Bliss may use gesture or body language or perhaps may sign a little. It should be possible to monitor the vocabulary used on this system. This will give an idea of what words and phrases the person wants to use. These words can then be incorporated into the new system and may be among the first to be taught.
Some people may have developed a personal set of body language signs with significant others. These signs would be unrecognisable to those unfamiliar with the individual but transparent to those in daily contact.
CASE STUDY: A 13-year-old boy developed an idiosyncratic signing set with his parents. When he was a young child, pictures and words had been put up on the living room wall. The boy would look at a particular image to make a request (the picture of the cup for a drink for example). When the parents redecorated, the boy continued to look in the direction of the now non-existent images on the wall . His parents could still tell what he was talking about by the direction of his gaze. It no longer mattered that they were in the pictured living room because together they created a virtual room wherever they went.
These signs could be among the first to be taught in the new symbol set. Teaching already acquired signs and symbol sets is somewhat controversial. Von Tetzchner and Martinsen (VON TETZCHNER S. & MARTINSEN H. 1992) argue that already acquired personal (pages 129 and 144) signs should not be among the first to be taught because:
learning signs to express things the individual is already capable of communicating in other ways may lead to a confusion about their purpose, and it is more expedient to begin with teaching other signs (VON TETZCHNER S. & MARTINSEN H. 1992)
They give the example (page 144) of a boy who smacks his lips to communicate the word raisin. They argue that, if this is one of the first words chosen to teach the boy, he has to unlearn the already acquired personal sign in favour of the new method of communicating the same thing. This would rob him of some of the communication skill he has already gained. However, they go on to state that:
In terms of sign or speech teaching, it is similarly easiest to begin with learning signs or words in known situations, where the function of the signs or words is known (p. 148)
This is not a contradictory statement but how do we know that an individual knows the function of the signs or words? Perhaps the individual has made it clear by pointing and not by a specific if personal or idiosyncratic sign.
Do we incorporate already acquired signs into teaching the new symbol set or not? The answer must account for the ability of the individual. Some individuals may cope easily with two ways of expressing the same idea.
There is a further consideration. Suppose a person continues to use an earlier acquired idiosyncratic sign and not the new symbol(s). If the people to whom the person is talking understand the idiosyncratic sign, surely the individual has communicated effectively and this must be accepted. If the people are strangers what then? It is assumed the individual cannot differentiate between those that do understand the idiosyncratic sign and those that do not. The individual is unable to make a conscious decision between the two alternatives. The sign which has a greater recognition value (a word generated on a voice synthesiser for example would be recognised by more people than a word which was signed in ASL, BSL, Makaton, Paget-Gorman, or other) gives the individual a greater potential for independence. It should eventually replace or happily co-exist with the idiosyncratic sign. However, the replacements for idiosyncratic signs need not be among the first to be taught. If the user is likely to be confused by learning a symbol (set) for an already acquired sign or symbol, it is better to begin with training with other words until the new system naturally takes priority. If the user is not likely to be confused, then teaching already acquired signs and symbols in the new form is acceptable.
The use of an already acquired signing system with the new is not to be discouraged. Indeed, having both (for example) a low-tech Bliss board and a high-tech VOCA (which may also use Bliss) has many benefits:
C when the VOCA breaks down there is a back up system;
C should the VOCA be unavailable (It may be that the individual can only access the VOCA while seated upright in a wheelchair) the low tech system may be used;
C the individual has a choice of communication mode;
C vocabulary not in one system may be available in the other;
C a pre-literate individual may be able to communicate by letter with another user of the same low-tech symbol system;
C one system may be used to teach new concepts in the other;
C if communication breaks down with one system the other may resolve the problem;
C accessing methods on each of the systems may vary. If a person is temporarily unable to access one system (because of injury or illness) the other system is a fail safe;
C the low-tech system may go to places where the high-tech system would fail (a swimming pool is one situation where, with a waterproof low-tech board, the individual may continue to communicate);
C the opposite is equally true, the high tech system may be able to perform tasks of which the low tech system is not capable; such as singing.
The already acquired system should not be stopped or inhibited, even though it has been decided that the introduction of a high-tech system will benefit the individual. This leads into yet a more controversial area of concern. To give precedence to one form of communication temporarily and creatively to inhibit the use of a previously acquired system to teach the new symbol set. This point has been covered in the TECHNIQUES section (See - The Pointer). It is not the purpose of this work to lay down absolute rules. Its purpose is to present some of the issues and ideas concerning them. There is no suggestion that the already acquired channel of communication be scrapped. The opposite is true. A Debonian PICK analysis may be helpful. Make a list of the:
C Pros The things in favour;
C Interesting The interesting items which are neither pros or cons;
C Cons The things against;
C Knowledge What is factually known about the system and the user of the system;
and then decide.
The cartoon depicts this issue. Mr Lukforjob has decided to teach his group the entire range of drinks, even though alcoholic beverages are not, as yet, relevant to his six-year-old class. If a child’s mother and father have a sherry or a glass of wine with every meal, these drinks are relevant to the child.
How do we discover what vocabulary is relevant to a particular user? There are a number of techniques:
C Shadowing: Shadowing involves following a user through an average day recording all activities and communication interactions. This will generate lots of information and many ideas for vocabulary tuition but it is a very tiring process for one person to undertake. If the task can be broken down into stages, such that several people take it in turns throughout the day, the tasks is made less arduous. More heads are better than one and the vocabulary list developed may more accurately reflect the needs of the individual. There is a danger that the day chosen for shadowing the individual is not a particularly active one. Had the next day been selected, the team might have seen the person interacting at the youth club. Parents too should be involved in the shadowing process. The task should not be made arduous. Ask the parents to record (either verbally into a micro-recorder or by writing onto prepared sheets) what their son or daughter is doing on the hour, every hour, through a typical weekend.
It should be stressed that this is a one-off event. They will not be asked to do this every weekend. Typical is highlighted because there is a temptation to do something special such as taking a trip to Disney Land. What is required is typical vocabulary. It is inevitable that some parents will record reams and others little. Working through the recorded notes with them will clarify matters and expand on any recordings that are rather sparse.
This means that time must be spent assessing the environment and finding situations where communication can be used functionally and that are also suitable for training purposes. (VON TETZCHNER S. & MARTINSEN H. 1992)
C Profiles: Profiles are another way of gathering information on a user to select the vocabulary that will be introduced early in tuition. They also help to discover more about a person. A profile is a questionnaire. Questions can cover all aspects of an individual’s life: Family and friends; favourite items; likes and dislikes; schools, clubs, and events attended; etc.
What are John’s favourite drinks?
What does Susan like to do in the evening?
What are Sam’s favourite TV programmes?
What clubs does Kathy attend?
What is Susan’s taste in music?
Profile questionnaires may be developed for staff as well as parents:
What topic is Sam currently studying?
What vocabulary would help Susan to join in with your lesson?
C Notebooks: Notebooks record the vocabulary a user wishes to say but has no means of making explicit. We have all experienced the twenty-questions session in which a non-vocal person wants to make a point but others are unable to grasp his or her meaning. It is to be hoped that, at the end of the twenty question routine, the person’s intent will have been established. This vocabulary should be recorded. A notebook attached to the back of a wheelchair, or in a pocket on the back of a communication board (be creative) allows the recording of new vocabulary - which may be neglected otherwise. It is difficult to think of an individual’s vocabulary needs on the spot. It is likely, as particular situations arise, people will think of new items of vocabulary not included in the user’s original list. The notebook should be the responsibility of one member of the team who should add the new vocabulary and liaise with tutors for a decision on introducing new symbol(s) to the user.
C Monitoring Communication: The user is already likely to have an augmented communication system. For example, a person being introduced to a VOCA may have a Bliss board. A person being introduced to Bliss may use gesture or body language or perhaps may sign a little. It should be possible to monitor the vocabulary used on this system. This will give an idea of what words and phrases the person wants to use. These words can then be incorporated into the new system and may be among the first to be taught.
Some people may have developed a personal set of body language signs with significant others. These signs would be unrecognisable to those unfamiliar with the individual but transparent to those in daily contact.
CASE STUDY: A 13-year-old boy developed an idiosyncratic signing set with his parents. When he was a young child, pictures and words had been put up on the living room wall. The boy would look at a particular image to make a request (the picture of the cup for a drink for example). When the parents redecorated, the boy continued to look in the direction of the now non-existent images on the wall . His parents could still tell what he was talking about by the direction of his gaze. It no longer mattered that they were in the pictured living room because together they created a virtual room wherever they went.
These signs could be among the first to be taught in the new symbol set. Teaching already acquired signs and symbol sets is somewhat controversial. Von Tetzchner and Martinsen (VON TETZCHNER S. & MARTINSEN H. 1992) argue that already acquired personal (pages 129 and 144) signs should not be among the first to be taught because:
learning signs to express things the individual is already capable of communicating in other ways may lead to a confusion about their purpose, and it is more expedient to begin with teaching other signs (VON TETZCHNER S. & MARTINSEN H. 1992)
They give the example (page 144) of a boy who smacks his lips to communicate the word raisin. They argue that, if this is one of the first words chosen to teach the boy, he has to unlearn the already acquired personal sign in favour of the new method of communicating the same thing. This would rob him of some of the communication skill he has already gained. However, they go on to state that:
In terms of sign or speech teaching, it is similarly easiest to begin with learning signs or words in known situations, where the function of the signs or words is known (p. 148)
This is not a contradictory statement but how do we know that an individual knows the function of the signs or words? Perhaps the individual has made it clear by pointing and not by a specific if personal or idiosyncratic sign.
Do we incorporate already acquired signs into teaching the new symbol set or not? The answer must account for the ability of the individual. Some individuals may cope easily with two ways of expressing the same idea.
There is a further consideration. Suppose a person continues to use an earlier acquired idiosyncratic sign and not the new symbol(s). If the people to whom the person is talking understand the idiosyncratic sign, surely the individual has communicated effectively and this must be accepted. If the people are strangers what then? It is assumed the individual cannot differentiate between those that do understand the idiosyncratic sign and those that do not. The individual is unable to make a conscious decision between the two alternatives. The sign which has a greater recognition value (a word generated on a voice synthesiser for example would be recognised by more people than a word which was signed in ASL, BSL, Makaton, Paget-Gorman, or other) gives the individual a greater potential for independence. It should eventually replace or happily co-exist with the idiosyncratic sign. However, the replacements for idiosyncratic signs need not be among the first to be taught. If the user is likely to be confused by learning a symbol (set) for an already acquired sign or symbol, it is better to begin with training with other words until the new system naturally takes priority. If the user is not likely to be confused, then teaching already acquired signs and symbols in the new form is acceptable.
The use of an already acquired signing system with the new is not to be discouraged. Indeed, having both (for example) a low-tech Bliss board and a high-tech VOCA (which may also use Bliss) has many benefits:
C when the VOCA breaks down there is a back up system;
C should the VOCA be unavailable (It may be that the individual can only access the VOCA while seated upright in a wheelchair) the low tech system may be used;
C the individual has a choice of communication mode;
C vocabulary not in one system may be available in the other;
C a pre-literate individual may be able to communicate by letter with another user of the same low-tech symbol system;
C one system may be used to teach new concepts in the other;
C if communication breaks down with one system the other may resolve the problem;
C accessing methods on each of the systems may vary. If a person is temporarily unable to access one system (because of injury or illness) the other system is a fail safe;
C the low-tech system may go to places where the high-tech system would fail (a swimming pool is one situation where, with a waterproof low-tech board, the individual may continue to communicate);
C the opposite is equally true, the high tech system may be able to perform tasks of which the low tech system is not capable; such as singing.
The already acquired system should not be stopped or inhibited, even though it has been decided that the introduction of a high-tech system will benefit the individual. This leads into yet a more controversial area of concern. To give precedence to one form of communication temporarily and creatively to inhibit the use of a previously acquired system to teach the new symbol set. This point has been covered in the TECHNIQUES section (See - The Pointer). It is not the purpose of this work to lay down absolute rules. Its purpose is to present some of the issues and ideas concerning them. There is no suggestion that the already acquired channel of communication be scrapped. The opposite is true. A Debonian PICK analysis may be helpful. Make a list of the:
C Pros The things in favour;
C Interesting The interesting items which are neither pros or cons;
C Cons The things against;
C Knowledge What is factually known about the system and the user of the system;
and then decide.
VOCABULARY 7 - Small sub-vocabulary
The cartoon is based on a real life event. At least three people have taught vocabulary this way. Starting with all the A words, B words, C words, and so on. Although it appeared to be working for those concerned, it is not recommended.
Tuition must start somewhere, perhaps with a word or a phrase. The word or phrase chosen will depend on the techniques used and the people taught. A small sub-vocabulary is selected from all the words that may be taught, based on research of the individual’s needs and structured so that it begins with the concrete and moves slowly towards the abstract.
Vocabulary selection is a continuing process; the vocabulary that is relevant to a four- year-old will not, without modifications and additions, continue to be relevant to the child at eight. Selecting vocabulary should not therefore be seen as a once-and-for-all event but rather as ongoing:
Vocabulary and symbol selection are on-going processes (BURKHART L. 1990 page 10)
One method for organising a small sub-vocabulary is to construct a Concentric Circles Chart........
Tuition must start somewhere, perhaps with a word or a phrase. The word or phrase chosen will depend on the techniques used and the people taught. A small sub-vocabulary is selected from all the words that may be taught, based on research of the individual’s needs and structured so that it begins with the concrete and moves slowly towards the abstract.
Vocabulary selection is a continuing process; the vocabulary that is relevant to a four- year-old will not, without modifications and additions, continue to be relevant to the child at eight. Selecting vocabulary should not therefore be seen as a once-and-for-all event but rather as ongoing:
Vocabulary and symbol selection are on-going processes (BURKHART L. 1990 page 10)
One method for organising a small sub-vocabulary is to construct a Concentric Circles Chart........
VOCABULARY 8 - Concentric Circles Chart
A child, when learning to speak, does not first learn all the nouns and then all the verbs (See PERERA K. 1984, AITCHISON J. 1989, SHORROCKS D. 1989, BLOOM P. 1993). Nor does a child learn all the nomenclature under any one superordinate concept (for example apple, banana, cherry, date, fig, .... under the category of fruit) in one session. Why then, should a facilitator progress as though this were the reality? Why, for example, should all the fruits be taught at one sitting? Fundamental to many of the approaches to the physical management of the disabled is a passage through normal developmental stages (See LEVITT S. 1982). Shouldn’t any user’s language and communication skills be developed with at least some reference to the normal pattern of acquisition of vocabulary, while taking into account chronological and cognitive ages and abilities?
In order for such intervention to succeed, it has to work in harmony with the natural sequence of language acquisition, since simply to teach some aspect of language without knowing whether the child is at an appropriate age to respond to it is to invite failure for the pupil and disillusion for the teacher (PERERA K. 1984)
AAC systems should support children’s developing language knowledge and skill. The topics, words, and phrases selected for use in children’s AAC systems must not only reflect current language abilities but also allow children to learn and use language forms that reflect their evolving cognitive, semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic development. (MARVIN C., BEUKELMAN D., BROCKHAUS J., & KAST L. 1994)
Start with a group of words that:
C represent the current needs of the user;
C are functional and met daily by the user (frequency of encounter and of use);
C allow the user to meet the vocabulary required by current objectives;
C are within the linguistic and cognitive abilities;
C will be rewarding and, therefore motivating;
C allow work to begin on syntactic structure and pragmatics of language;
C provide a firm foundation on which subsequent (and more taxing) work can build;
C allow the user to begin in known territory with, in the main, known words (Words already being used on an alternate system, for example. With the reservations outlined above. See Vocabulary 6);
C make teaching practical. Words from disparate categories will not be as easy to teach as words that have been setted or grouped. Do not choose one drink but work on five or six of the user’s favourite drinks;
C demonstrate a logical progression from one vocabulary aspect to another (for example, items of clothes may be followed with vocabulary from the colour category).
Any decision regarding the starter set of vocabulary is best made as a result of a multi‑disciplinary meeting of all significant others and not by a single person:
To ensure that the assessment process results in a true picture of the client’s functional communication and that the goals set for the clinical intervention are relevant to the client’s needs, the clinician needs to consider the client’s typical communication skills within his/her natural environment. To ensure that the goals are viable within the client’s environment, it is essential that the client’s facilitators are involved throughout the assessment process and particularly within the goal setting component (LIGHT J., McNAUGHTON D., & PARNES P. 1986)
The set of words emanating from these criteria form a Base, Foundation, or Core Vocabulary. Consider a Core Vocabulary as the centre ring of a set of concentric circles divided radially, as a dartboard. Each sector represents a particular area of syntax (see figure 1) or a particular aspect of the user’s day (getting ready, getting dressed, meal times, travel to school/college/work, greeting friends, meeting people, answering the phone, talking to family, leisure time; etc.).
In figure 1, the sectors of the circle are given standard syntax labels but could have been divided in other ways (aspects of a person's day, for example). The words within each of the cognitive circles are deliberately unreadable. If they were, they would not model a standard pattern that is suitable for all users. Facilitators should decide on their own vocabulary for each of the circles.
A multi-disciplinary team will have little difficulty in identifying a large number of words and phrases suitable for a particular user. However, when this vocabulary is divided amongst the concentric circles, no one circle should exceed ten words or phrases. Keeping each circle thus restricted has at least five advantages:
C the task is kept simple for the facilitator and the user;
C progress is swift;
C it may be used as a reporting system;
C significant others keep pace with progression and aid in tuition;
C as the words will suggest families of related concepts each circle will probably be expanded by a factor of approximately five.
Words and phrases forming the Core Vocabulary are the first to be taught to transparency. When the user demonstrates cognisance of this vocabulary, progress is made to the next concentric circle (moving outwards from the centre). All vocabulary within this circle is taught. This includes the previously taught Core Vocabulary. No previously taught vocabulary is allowed to extinguish from the user’s memory. This reflects a movement from functional one or two word utterances towards grammatical utterances of greater sentence lengths. This also supports the user’s retention of symbols and symbol sequences, as frequently used words are the first to be taught.
As a vocabulary expands beyond that which can be encoded in unique symbols on a single board or overlay, so it will move towards categorisation. In order to teach a category based system, it is necessary to familiarise the user with the idea of the superordinate concept. While it may be possible to teach ten words from each concentric circle, it is unlikely that this is an ideal methodology for use with a person with a learning difficulty. This is because it is probable the words will be from distinct categories. The problem of teaching categorisation is not helped if each word is from a disparate category. It will be necessary to include other words to expand the categories to make teaching practical. Rate the words from the current concentric circle in order of importance. Assume, that the first word is the drink tea, for example. If no other drinks are present in the current circle, move out to the next circle and include any drink detailed there. Repeat this process until five or six drinks have been identified. If there are no other drinks in the concentric circles, try to identify more drinks appropriate to the individual. However, what if this person only drinks tea and nothing else? Tea comprises two other drinks - water and milk. There are now three drinks on the list. To increase the list further, ascertain what the user’s family like to drink. In this way, it should be possible, even with the fussiest of drinkers, to generate a list of five or six drinks which will form the first vocabulary unit taught. The initial Core Vocabulary of ten words has now expanded to fifty or sixty. Each word generating five or six others to form practical teaching categories. This new word list should now be split into different rings in a new Concentric Circles Chart so the centre circle represents one or two categories of words to be taught to transparency.
It is likely that an expanded category of words will suggest related vocabulary for tuition. For example, the drinks set may suggest associated words such as straw, cup, glass, hot, cold, etc. These words are not elements in the set of all drinks and thus raise some problems. The VOCA user working with categorised vocabulary, may be confused by the addition of these words at this time. If this is likely then avoid their introduction until later when new multi-word utterances can be created: hot milk; cup tea; milk straw; etc. If the new words themselves form a category (the category of containers: cup; glass; mug; etc) then this category could be added to the concentric circles chart and be the next to be introduced. For the user of a single symbol board, however, these new words do not pose such problems and may be easily added. Further, pages in a symbol book, although categorised, may also include related vocabulary and items can be incorporated without too much concern.
The speed at which any person will move through the concentric circles depends on a number of factors:
C cognitive level;
C the learner’s motivation;
C the motivation of significant others;
C the time available;
C the quality of the tuition;
C the quality and quantity of support the user receives outside the communication classroom;
C the frequency of use of the taught words;
C the frequency of user encounter with the taught words.
While some people may step through a concentric circle level in a day others may take many weeks. There is no conflict between, ‘Small is beautiful’ (SCHUMACHER E. 1973) and ‘The magic of thinking big’ (SCHWARTZ D. 1982). Start small but set goals high. Once the foundation level vocabulary has been taught to transparency, and the ‘triad of skills’ (see JONES A.P. 1994) fulfilled within a limited vocabulary field, the words forming the next concentric circle can be added. This includes the Core Vocabulary, as all words within the present circle are used.
The Core Vocabulary reflects words and phrases important to the early user of the AAC system. Reference has been made to user objectives in the decision making process in building the Core Vocabulary. In essence, the multi-disciplinary team (MDT) is seeking answers to:
C Why has this person been provided with this communication system?
C What do we hope to achieve?
C What are the early objectives for the user and this system?
C What vocabulary will be necessary to enable the user to meet these objectives?
It is crucial that the facilitator ensures the MDT and significant others understand the user has been provided with a communication system for a reason. The reason should not be left at a nebulous ‘in order to communicate’. The user was communicating before, if not by another form of AAC then by pointing, gesturing, body language, etc. The MDT should consider what the present system offers that could not be achieved by use of the previous form of communication - why has this person been given this device? A discussion may highlight the issues raised in all areas of this manual: the nature of the curriculum; establishment philosophy; the attitudes of all who live, attend or work within the establishment; etc.
It is important that early objectives for a user working with an AAC system are made explicit. All significant others need to be aware of the objectives so that there is a co-ordinated team approach in the effort to achieve them. Further, the objectives will help to define the vocabulary and the vocabulary helps to define the objectives in a reciprocal relationship.
In order for such intervention to succeed, it has to work in harmony with the natural sequence of language acquisition, since simply to teach some aspect of language without knowing whether the child is at an appropriate age to respond to it is to invite failure for the pupil and disillusion for the teacher (PERERA K. 1984)
AAC systems should support children’s developing language knowledge and skill. The topics, words, and phrases selected for use in children’s AAC systems must not only reflect current language abilities but also allow children to learn and use language forms that reflect their evolving cognitive, semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic development. (MARVIN C., BEUKELMAN D., BROCKHAUS J., & KAST L. 1994)
Start with a group of words that:
C represent the current needs of the user;
C are functional and met daily by the user (frequency of encounter and of use);
C allow the user to meet the vocabulary required by current objectives;
C are within the linguistic and cognitive abilities;
C will be rewarding and, therefore motivating;
C allow work to begin on syntactic structure and pragmatics of language;
C provide a firm foundation on which subsequent (and more taxing) work can build;
C allow the user to begin in known territory with, in the main, known words (Words already being used on an alternate system, for example. With the reservations outlined above. See Vocabulary 6);
C make teaching practical. Words from disparate categories will not be as easy to teach as words that have been setted or grouped. Do not choose one drink but work on five or six of the user’s favourite drinks;
C demonstrate a logical progression from one vocabulary aspect to another (for example, items of clothes may be followed with vocabulary from the colour category).
Any decision regarding the starter set of vocabulary is best made as a result of a multi‑disciplinary meeting of all significant others and not by a single person:
To ensure that the assessment process results in a true picture of the client’s functional communication and that the goals set for the clinical intervention are relevant to the client’s needs, the clinician needs to consider the client’s typical communication skills within his/her natural environment. To ensure that the goals are viable within the client’s environment, it is essential that the client’s facilitators are involved throughout the assessment process and particularly within the goal setting component (LIGHT J., McNAUGHTON D., & PARNES P. 1986)
The set of words emanating from these criteria form a Base, Foundation, or Core Vocabulary. Consider a Core Vocabulary as the centre ring of a set of concentric circles divided radially, as a dartboard. Each sector represents a particular area of syntax (see figure 1) or a particular aspect of the user’s day (getting ready, getting dressed, meal times, travel to school/college/work, greeting friends, meeting people, answering the phone, talking to family, leisure time; etc.).
In figure 1, the sectors of the circle are given standard syntax labels but could have been divided in other ways (aspects of a person's day, for example). The words within each of the cognitive circles are deliberately unreadable. If they were, they would not model a standard pattern that is suitable for all users. Facilitators should decide on their own vocabulary for each of the circles.
A multi-disciplinary team will have little difficulty in identifying a large number of words and phrases suitable for a particular user. However, when this vocabulary is divided amongst the concentric circles, no one circle should exceed ten words or phrases. Keeping each circle thus restricted has at least five advantages:
C the task is kept simple for the facilitator and the user;
C progress is swift;
C it may be used as a reporting system;
C significant others keep pace with progression and aid in tuition;
C as the words will suggest families of related concepts each circle will probably be expanded by a factor of approximately five.
Words and phrases forming the Core Vocabulary are the first to be taught to transparency. When the user demonstrates cognisance of this vocabulary, progress is made to the next concentric circle (moving outwards from the centre). All vocabulary within this circle is taught. This includes the previously taught Core Vocabulary. No previously taught vocabulary is allowed to extinguish from the user’s memory. This reflects a movement from functional one or two word utterances towards grammatical utterances of greater sentence lengths. This also supports the user’s retention of symbols and symbol sequences, as frequently used words are the first to be taught.
As a vocabulary expands beyond that which can be encoded in unique symbols on a single board or overlay, so it will move towards categorisation. In order to teach a category based system, it is necessary to familiarise the user with the idea of the superordinate concept. While it may be possible to teach ten words from each concentric circle, it is unlikely that this is an ideal methodology for use with a person with a learning difficulty. This is because it is probable the words will be from distinct categories. The problem of teaching categorisation is not helped if each word is from a disparate category. It will be necessary to include other words to expand the categories to make teaching practical. Rate the words from the current concentric circle in order of importance. Assume, that the first word is the drink tea, for example. If no other drinks are present in the current circle, move out to the next circle and include any drink detailed there. Repeat this process until five or six drinks have been identified. If there are no other drinks in the concentric circles, try to identify more drinks appropriate to the individual. However, what if this person only drinks tea and nothing else? Tea comprises two other drinks - water and milk. There are now three drinks on the list. To increase the list further, ascertain what the user’s family like to drink. In this way, it should be possible, even with the fussiest of drinkers, to generate a list of five or six drinks which will form the first vocabulary unit taught. The initial Core Vocabulary of ten words has now expanded to fifty or sixty. Each word generating five or six others to form practical teaching categories. This new word list should now be split into different rings in a new Concentric Circles Chart so the centre circle represents one or two categories of words to be taught to transparency.
It is likely that an expanded category of words will suggest related vocabulary for tuition. For example, the drinks set may suggest associated words such as straw, cup, glass, hot, cold, etc. These words are not elements in the set of all drinks and thus raise some problems. The VOCA user working with categorised vocabulary, may be confused by the addition of these words at this time. If this is likely then avoid their introduction until later when new multi-word utterances can be created: hot milk; cup tea; milk straw; etc. If the new words themselves form a category (the category of containers: cup; glass; mug; etc) then this category could be added to the concentric circles chart and be the next to be introduced. For the user of a single symbol board, however, these new words do not pose such problems and may be easily added. Further, pages in a symbol book, although categorised, may also include related vocabulary and items can be incorporated without too much concern.
The speed at which any person will move through the concentric circles depends on a number of factors:
C cognitive level;
C the learner’s motivation;
C the motivation of significant others;
C the time available;
C the quality of the tuition;
C the quality and quantity of support the user receives outside the communication classroom;
C the frequency of use of the taught words;
C the frequency of user encounter with the taught words.
While some people may step through a concentric circle level in a day others may take many weeks. There is no conflict between, ‘Small is beautiful’ (SCHUMACHER E. 1973) and ‘The magic of thinking big’ (SCHWARTZ D. 1982). Start small but set goals high. Once the foundation level vocabulary has been taught to transparency, and the ‘triad of skills’ (see JONES A.P. 1994) fulfilled within a limited vocabulary field, the words forming the next concentric circle can be added. This includes the Core Vocabulary, as all words within the present circle are used.
The Core Vocabulary reflects words and phrases important to the early user of the AAC system. Reference has been made to user objectives in the decision making process in building the Core Vocabulary. In essence, the multi-disciplinary team (MDT) is seeking answers to:
C Why has this person been provided with this communication system?
C What do we hope to achieve?
C What are the early objectives for the user and this system?
C What vocabulary will be necessary to enable the user to meet these objectives?
It is crucial that the facilitator ensures the MDT and significant others understand the user has been provided with a communication system for a reason. The reason should not be left at a nebulous ‘in order to communicate’. The user was communicating before, if not by another form of AAC then by pointing, gesturing, body language, etc. The MDT should consider what the present system offers that could not be achieved by use of the previous form of communication - why has this person been given this device? A discussion may highlight the issues raised in all areas of this manual: the nature of the curriculum; establishment philosophy; the attitudes of all who live, attend or work within the establishment; etc.
It is important that early objectives for a user working with an AAC system are made explicit. All significant others need to be aware of the objectives so that there is a co-ordinated team approach in the effort to achieve them. Further, the objectives will help to define the vocabulary and the vocabulary helps to define the objectives in a reciprocal relationship.
VOCABULARY 9 - Choosing core vocabulary
Some ideas for the selection of words and phrases to be included in the Core Vocabulary are detailed below. Decide on a group of words that:
C Realistically represent the current needs of the user of the AAC system.
The needs of different individuals are diverse and their vocabularies will be unique although there may be much overlap especially within any one frame of reference in any one particular setting. Teaching abstract and non-functional vocabularies is likely to result in frustration for the user, a lack of motivation, poor system use, and ultimate failure. The vocabulary chosen must be functional and taught in a functional manner:
For example, matching or naming color cards has little practical impact on the daily living needs and experiences of a severely developmentally delayed 16-year-old student. However, learning to appropriately match the colors of a shirt and pants he intends to wear to school will have an impact on his social competence. It is of equal importance that functionally relevant communication training must become the standard in intervention programs for AAC users who are developmentally delayed. (ELDER P. & GOOSSENS C. 1993 page 34)
C Are functional and met daily by the user.
Frequency of encounter and of use is important (For frequency & familiarity studies see - HOWES D. & SOLOMAN R. 1951; GOLDIAMOND I. & HAWKINS W. 1958; FORSTER K. & CHAMBERS S. 1973; WHALEY C. 1978; MORTON J. 1979; GERNSBACHER M. 1984; BRADLEY D. & FORSTER K. 1987). Words that are only used once a week (or less frequently) which might be motivating are less useful than words used every day. We tend to remember those which we encounter and use on a daily basis (see references above). The iconic or symbolic sequences for words and phrases that will be used frequently will be remembered. Indeed, it is likely that their selection will become automatic. Select high frequency words which are functionally important to the user and leave others to later if possible. Some words and phrases are important but will not be needed each day - words like doctor and nurse for example. These are functionally important but may not have a high frequency rating. However there is no hard and fast rule which states you cannot introduce low frequency functionally important vocabulary items early in training. Perhaps creative environmental engineering can turn a low frequency functionally important vocabulary item into a temporarily high frequency functionally important vocabulary item. This does not mean injuring a user! However, role playing a visit to a doctor, a theme of medicine, asking the nurse to make a daily appearance for a week, and other such creative ideas may help a user to work with this vocabulary.
C Are within the linguistic and cognitive abilities of the user.
Begin teaching words that are simple for the user to grasp and to work with. Words that are relevant to the user’s needs. The easier these are for the user to understand, the greater the chance of success with the new system.
C Will be rewarding and motivating for the user.
Vocabulary that is motivating to significant others is not necessarily motivating for the user. That is not to say this vocabulary should be ignored in the early stages. However, within the Core Vocabulary, there should be more than a sprinkling of words and phrases that are highly motivating to the user.
There is also a tendency to select words which are seen as pragmatic within residential situations or those which involve care or nursing. Be wary of this vocabulary because it may not be very motivating for the user:
However in many instances too much emphasis is given to signs for care, nursing, etc., despite the fact that the individuals themselves seldom talk of these things..... The individuals need signs that can be used in a large variety of situations, signs that reflect their interests and make it possible for them to converse about a great number of subjects. (VON TETZCHNER S. & MARTINSEN H. 1992)
C Allow work to begin on the syntactic and pragmatic structures of language use.
Inevitably, the core vocabulary will be mostly nouns. First words tend to be the names of things. As soon as is feasible other words should be introduced so that work may begin on syntactic structures and aspects of pragmatics.
C Allows the user to work in known territory with, in the main, known words.
If the user already is communicating using another form of AAC, or uses unaided communication to make his or her wishes known (pointing at a drink for example), these items can be monitored such that the vocabulary-in-use forms the basis for the introduction of a new system. This does not imply the replacement of the old system. The new system will likely be complementary to the user’s existing system. If a user is already using a set of signs or symbols and will be confused by having two symbol sets for the same vocabulary, the choice of teaching new symbols for existing words should be avoided in favour of other concepts (See VOCABULARY 6).
C Provides a firm foundation on which subsequent and more taxing work can build.
Vocabulary should build, concept upon concept, word upon word, phrase upon phrase. Teaching vocabulary in any order without thought about its conceptual nature will make the task extremely difficult. Teaching aspects of money, for example, to a person who is not yet numerate would appear a seemingly pointless exercise. This is equally true of other subjects.
Any decision regarding the starter set of vocabulary is best made as a result of a meeting of a multi-disciplinary meeting of all significant others and not by a single person.
C Realistically represent the current needs of the user of the AAC system.
The needs of different individuals are diverse and their vocabularies will be unique although there may be much overlap especially within any one frame of reference in any one particular setting. Teaching abstract and non-functional vocabularies is likely to result in frustration for the user, a lack of motivation, poor system use, and ultimate failure. The vocabulary chosen must be functional and taught in a functional manner:
For example, matching or naming color cards has little practical impact on the daily living needs and experiences of a severely developmentally delayed 16-year-old student. However, learning to appropriately match the colors of a shirt and pants he intends to wear to school will have an impact on his social competence. It is of equal importance that functionally relevant communication training must become the standard in intervention programs for AAC users who are developmentally delayed. (ELDER P. & GOOSSENS C. 1993 page 34)
C Are functional and met daily by the user.
Frequency of encounter and of use is important (For frequency & familiarity studies see - HOWES D. & SOLOMAN R. 1951; GOLDIAMOND I. & HAWKINS W. 1958; FORSTER K. & CHAMBERS S. 1973; WHALEY C. 1978; MORTON J. 1979; GERNSBACHER M. 1984; BRADLEY D. & FORSTER K. 1987). Words that are only used once a week (or less frequently) which might be motivating are less useful than words used every day. We tend to remember those which we encounter and use on a daily basis (see references above). The iconic or symbolic sequences for words and phrases that will be used frequently will be remembered. Indeed, it is likely that their selection will become automatic. Select high frequency words which are functionally important to the user and leave others to later if possible. Some words and phrases are important but will not be needed each day - words like doctor and nurse for example. These are functionally important but may not have a high frequency rating. However there is no hard and fast rule which states you cannot introduce low frequency functionally important vocabulary items early in training. Perhaps creative environmental engineering can turn a low frequency functionally important vocabulary item into a temporarily high frequency functionally important vocabulary item. This does not mean injuring a user! However, role playing a visit to a doctor, a theme of medicine, asking the nurse to make a daily appearance for a week, and other such creative ideas may help a user to work with this vocabulary.
C Are within the linguistic and cognitive abilities of the user.
Begin teaching words that are simple for the user to grasp and to work with. Words that are relevant to the user’s needs. The easier these are for the user to understand, the greater the chance of success with the new system.
C Will be rewarding and motivating for the user.
Vocabulary that is motivating to significant others is not necessarily motivating for the user. That is not to say this vocabulary should be ignored in the early stages. However, within the Core Vocabulary, there should be more than a sprinkling of words and phrases that are highly motivating to the user.
There is also a tendency to select words which are seen as pragmatic within residential situations or those which involve care or nursing. Be wary of this vocabulary because it may not be very motivating for the user:
However in many instances too much emphasis is given to signs for care, nursing, etc., despite the fact that the individuals themselves seldom talk of these things..... The individuals need signs that can be used in a large variety of situations, signs that reflect their interests and make it possible for them to converse about a great number of subjects. (VON TETZCHNER S. & MARTINSEN H. 1992)
C Allow work to begin on the syntactic and pragmatic structures of language use.
Inevitably, the core vocabulary will be mostly nouns. First words tend to be the names of things. As soon as is feasible other words should be introduced so that work may begin on syntactic structures and aspects of pragmatics.
C Allows the user to work in known territory with, in the main, known words.
If the user already is communicating using another form of AAC, or uses unaided communication to make his or her wishes known (pointing at a drink for example), these items can be monitored such that the vocabulary-in-use forms the basis for the introduction of a new system. This does not imply the replacement of the old system. The new system will likely be complementary to the user’s existing system. If a user is already using a set of signs or symbols and will be confused by having two symbol sets for the same vocabulary, the choice of teaching new symbols for existing words should be avoided in favour of other concepts (See VOCABULARY 6).
C Provides a firm foundation on which subsequent and more taxing work can build.
Vocabulary should build, concept upon concept, word upon word, phrase upon phrase. Teaching vocabulary in any order without thought about its conceptual nature will make the task extremely difficult. Teaching aspects of money, for example, to a person who is not yet numerate would appear a seemingly pointless exercise. This is equally true of other subjects.
Any decision regarding the starter set of vocabulary is best made as a result of a meeting of a multi-disciplinary meeting of all significant others and not by a single person.
VOCABULARY 10 - You have no concept!
In all educational establishments it is important that communication is not seen as the sole responsibility of the speech and language therapy department. It is the responsibility of every member of staff. Awareness of the Core Vocabulary is essential so lessons may be structured to allow the augmented communicator to participate. Differing curricula require differing specialist vocabularies. There are words and phrases that are more likely to occur in a science lesson than in home economics. Each teacher should take on the responsibility for the specific vocabularies needed in addition to the core. Analysis of the lesson plans should reveal the words and phrases that are ‘key concepts’. As an example take orientation in space. The key concepts might be ‘North’, ‘South’, ‘East’, ‘West’, ‘Right angle’, ‘Clockwise’, ‘Anti-clockwise’, etc. None of these words are likely to be in a student’s core vocabulary. They are the key concepts for a particular set of lessons in a specific subject. The teacher responsible for this area is the best person to teach these concepts linking the concept to the word and the word to the symbol or symbol set. There needs to be very close liaison between the teacher and the facilitator to keep a record of vocabulary up-to-date and to ensure the user does not suffer from information overload. Too great an expectation, too soon, before a person is cognitively ready will have counter-productive results.
In the cartoon the teacher is asking the pupil a question. But the pupil:
C has not got the vocabulary to answer;
C does not understand the question;
C is cognitively unaware of the concepts involved.
In the cartoon the teacher is asking the pupil a question. But the pupil:
C has not got the vocabulary to answer;
C does not understand the question;
C is cognitively unaware of the concepts involved.
VOCABULARY 11 - Temporarily Restricted Vocabulary
The second vocabulary and language barrier relates to Averbal” classroom participation. All students, at all grade levels, are asked questions, ask questions of others, take oral examinations, and are called upon to recite information. In some classrooms, even shy students who speak cannot get a word in edgewise. For augmented communicators, the possibilities of well timed speaking is even more remote. The pace of verbal exchanges is too fast to allow even the most efficient student using AAC to participate. (VAN TATENHOVE G. & VERTZ S. 1993 page 129)
A TRV (Temporarily Restricted Vocabulary)(pronounced TREV) is a small subset of the vocabulary contained within any person’s AAC system. It allows a beginner to be involved in an activity on an equal footing with peers.
A TRV vocabulary may be set up to include phrases:
AThat’s right!” AThat’s wrong!” AI need to think about it” AI don’t know”
The class are told that they must use one of these phrases in response to the teacher’s questions in the session that will follow. For example, the maths teacher might say:
AIf I am facing South and I turn two right angles clockwise I am now facing North.”
The pupil has to respond with one of the messages. People using an AAC system can usually access one of the responses in real time on a level footing with their verbal peers. There is a further benefit. The messages are a useful addition to the user’s vocabulary. They may be used in other lessons and other situations they may encounter:
AJane you’re 14 now , aren’t you?” AThat’s right”
Other TRV’s might include:
‘I agree’‘I don’t agree’ ‘I’m not sure’ ‘I don’t know’
‘True’ ‘False ‘Sometimes’
TRV’s can be noun sets. For example, a set of materials:
‘wood’ ‘Metal’ ‘glass’ ‘paper’ ‘plastic’
In this instance, the response required is one of the given materials:
AWhich material is transparent?”
AWhich material is used to make books?”
AWhich material is made from sand?”
AWhich material is not man-made?”
The material set is taught and reinforced in this way.
In the cartoon the TRV is not valid. TRVs should always be a minimum of two words or phrases. If a person is tested for comprehension, the larger the TRV the less opportunity of obtaining a right answer by chance alone. At the other extreme, there is a limit to the size of any TRV. Too big a set becomes a sub-vocabulary or a category in its own right and does not allow a user to interact with peers on an equal footing in a classroom interchange. Ideally, a TRV is more than one but less than seven.
A TRV could be set up to give directions to a staff member in a treasure trail game or a game of hide and seek. For example:
‘Right’, ‘Left’, ‘Forward’, ‘Backwards’, ‘Stop’
‘Up’, ‘Down’, ‘Right’, ‘Left’
TRVs are ideal for games:
Each player starts with one point. Using a pack of cards the user has to state whether the next card is ‘higher’ or ‘lower’ or ‘red’ or ‘black’ for a doubling of their points total - OR - ‘hearts’, ‘spades’, ‘clubs’, or ‘diamonds’ to treble their points total. The user may stop at any time by saying ‘stop’. The person with the highest points at the end is the winner.
The TRVs give control to the augmented communicator with minimum effort and without the need for many hours of vocabulary instruction. Temporarily Restricted Vocabularies:
C allow augmented communicators to participate in lessons on an equal footing with peers;
C may be easily spoken in real time; the class is not made to wait for long periods while a user generates a response;
C can ease the pressure felt when asked a question;
C ensure users are not singled out as special - everyone is the same;
C are easy to set up; vocabulary may be quickly programmed into some systems by the tutor involved;
C involve subject tutors in the tuition of new vocabulary;
C do not require many hours of vocabulary tuition before their use;
C may be themed, paged, setted, or categorised for the ease of a scanning user;
C speed access to vocabulary for switch users;
C allow symbols to be displayed at a larger size to ease selection. Later these can be added to a user's symbol board at the standard size;
C may be used to teach and test key concepts;
C are best used with all pupils or students in a class or group;
C are always $ 2 but typically # 6.
A TRV (Temporarily Restricted Vocabulary)(pronounced TREV) is a small subset of the vocabulary contained within any person’s AAC system. It allows a beginner to be involved in an activity on an equal footing with peers.
A TRV vocabulary may be set up to include phrases:
AThat’s right!” AThat’s wrong!” AI need to think about it” AI don’t know”
The class are told that they must use one of these phrases in response to the teacher’s questions in the session that will follow. For example, the maths teacher might say:
AIf I am facing South and I turn two right angles clockwise I am now facing North.”
The pupil has to respond with one of the messages. People using an AAC system can usually access one of the responses in real time on a level footing with their verbal peers. There is a further benefit. The messages are a useful addition to the user’s vocabulary. They may be used in other lessons and other situations they may encounter:
AJane you’re 14 now , aren’t you?” AThat’s right”
Other TRV’s might include:
‘I agree’‘I don’t agree’ ‘I’m not sure’ ‘I don’t know’
‘True’ ‘False ‘Sometimes’
TRV’s can be noun sets. For example, a set of materials:
‘wood’ ‘Metal’ ‘glass’ ‘paper’ ‘plastic’
In this instance, the response required is one of the given materials:
AWhich material is transparent?”
AWhich material is used to make books?”
AWhich material is made from sand?”
AWhich material is not man-made?”
The material set is taught and reinforced in this way.
In the cartoon the TRV is not valid. TRVs should always be a minimum of two words or phrases. If a person is tested for comprehension, the larger the TRV the less opportunity of obtaining a right answer by chance alone. At the other extreme, there is a limit to the size of any TRV. Too big a set becomes a sub-vocabulary or a category in its own right and does not allow a user to interact with peers on an equal footing in a classroom interchange. Ideally, a TRV is more than one but less than seven.
A TRV could be set up to give directions to a staff member in a treasure trail game or a game of hide and seek. For example:
‘Right’, ‘Left’, ‘Forward’, ‘Backwards’, ‘Stop’
‘Up’, ‘Down’, ‘Right’, ‘Left’
TRVs are ideal for games:
Each player starts with one point. Using a pack of cards the user has to state whether the next card is ‘higher’ or ‘lower’ or ‘red’ or ‘black’ for a doubling of their points total - OR - ‘hearts’, ‘spades’, ‘clubs’, or ‘diamonds’ to treble their points total. The user may stop at any time by saying ‘stop’. The person with the highest points at the end is the winner.
The TRVs give control to the augmented communicator with minimum effort and without the need for many hours of vocabulary instruction. Temporarily Restricted Vocabularies:
C allow augmented communicators to participate in lessons on an equal footing with peers;
C may be easily spoken in real time; the class is not made to wait for long periods while a user generates a response;
C can ease the pressure felt when asked a question;
C ensure users are not singled out as special - everyone is the same;
C are easy to set up; vocabulary may be quickly programmed into some systems by the tutor involved;
C involve subject tutors in the tuition of new vocabulary;
C do not require many hours of vocabulary tuition before their use;
C may be themed, paged, setted, or categorised for the ease of a scanning user;
C speed access to vocabulary for switch users;
C allow symbols to be displayed at a larger size to ease selection. Later these can be added to a user's symbol board at the standard size;
C may be used to teach and test key concepts;
C are best used with all pupils or students in a class or group;
C are always $ 2 but typically # 6.