PARENT

Core Vocabulary
What is Core Vocabulary?
Core vocabulary is one of the many approaches used to treat children with speech sound
disorders. Specifically, this approach focuses on teaching whole-words to establish
consistent productions. Individuals closest to the child come together to determine 70
functional vocabulary words for the child. These 70 words will be targeted over the
course of therapy in order to improve consistency in their productions. Ideally, the child
will produce correct productions or productions with developmentally appropriate errors
as a result of this approach.

Will your child benefit from Core Vocabulary?

This approach is used with children who are two years and older. Your child may benefit
from this approach if he or she has multiple sound production errors. In addition, this
approach is especially beneficial to children with Inconsistent Speech Sound Disorder
(ISSD), meaning that they have inconsistent productions of their speech sounds.
Individuals with Inconsistent Speech Sound may be more resistant to traditional
approaches to treating speech sound disorders.

What does a speech therapy session look like?

Depending on the setting, your child will most likely be seen for two 30-minute sessions
each week. During the initial session, the clinician will determine the best production of
10 of the 70 target words that will be the initial focus in therapy. The clinician may
request the child to imitate the words sound-by-sound and provide cues as to the
appropriate position of the mouth. During the following sessions, the clinician will use
games in order to promote practice of the target words. The words will be targeted in a
hierarchical nature sounds, words, short sentences, and spontaneous speech. Every
fourth session, the clinician will monitor for change and generalization by asking the
child to pronounce 10 of the untreated words. This cycle will be used to target all 70 of
the chosen vocabulary words for the child.

How can I promote carryover at home?

The Speech Language Pathologist is the professional trained to implement this therapy.
Parents and/or teachers or other professionals may be informed on techniques to
implement carryover of the approach while they are interacting with the child. Many
clinicians will send carryover activities home at the finish of each therapy session in
order to help promote carryover. Parents are encouraged to use the vocabulary words
repeatedly throughout the day in order to prompt spontaneous production from the child.
Do not ask your child to imitate the word, rather come up with ways to promote them to
produce them in spontaneous speech.

Meghan Gallagher
Karissa Nesbitt
2017
 PARENT

What does mastery look like?

In the Core Vocabulary approach, mastery can be defined as a consistent production of
a word. Once the child has achieved mastery using the Core Vocabulary approach,
meaning they have consistent productions of all 70 of their targeted words, the clinician
may select to move on to another treatment to target remaining speech sound production
errors. Based on current research, a level of mastery may be achieved in as little as
eight weeks, but it is not uncommon for it to take longer for some children.

What materials are used to implement this treatment?

The materials used during therapy and carryover activities will be dependent on the
specific vocabulary words chosen by the individual and caretakers. For example, one
child may use a core vocabulary approach to target the following words because of his
love of cars: car, truck, race, drive, beep, etc. In that case, materials used would include
racecars, a racetrack, a board game involving cars, etc. On the other hand, a second child
may be using this approach to target drink, eat, sleep, more, all done, hungry, thirsty
because of the functionality of those words in the childs day to day routine, as
determined by a caretaker. In the second example, a baby doll, bottle, pretend food, and
a bed may be used to promote productions during therapy.

Research Behind Core Vocabulary

Compared to some of the other speech sound disorder therapy approaches, there has not
been a ton of research done looking at Core Vocabulary approach. However, the research
that has been done provides consistent findings among researchers. One study found that
children who made inconsistent speech sound errors received the greatest benefit from
this approach (Dodd & Bradford, 2000). They also note that, once consistency was
achieved, it was necessary to move to a different approach in order to keep obtaining
benefit.

Dodd, B., & Bradford, A. (2000). A comparison of three therapy methods for children
with different types of developmental phonological disorder. International
Journal of Language & Communication Disorders,35(2), 189-209.
doi:10.1080/136828200247142

Speech Sound Disorders: Articulation and Phonology: Treatment. (n.d.). Retrieved

October 13, 2017, from
https://www.asha.org/PRPSpecificTopic.aspx?folderid=8589935321ion=Treatm
ent

Meghan Gallagher
Karissa Nesbitt
2017