​Post #4: Current Approaches: Core Vocabulary Part 2

Jennifer Kent-Walsh & Cathy Binger

9/27/2016 4:27 AM

Which aspects of normal development are addressed with core vocabulary?

• Pragmatics: The child can convey a full range of pragmatic functions using core vocabulary: requesting, rejecting, commenting, greeting, etc.
• Semantics: One major positive semantic aspect to this approach is that the child is taught to use a variety of word classes early on; that is, not just nouns, but also articles, prepositions, and commonly used verbs and adjectives. This is what happens in normal language development as well.
• Syntax: The major syntactic advantage with this approach is that the child is encouraged to create sentences – that is, not to just use single nouns to communicate, as can occur in some other approaches.
• Morphology: Morphological markers are likely available, depending on the particular symbol system being used.

Which aspects are not fully addressed with core vocabulary?

• Pragmatics: Pragmatic skills are not limited by the core vocabulary approach.
• Semantics: One major drawback is that although this approach stresses the need for diverse parts of speech, only a limited vocabulary set is stressed. Keeping pace with developmental norms – for example, having ~1,000 words expressively by age 3, for a child with normal receptive language – is not part of this approach. Only the most frequently used words are stressed (plus some important fringe vocabulary, such the names of family and friends). Children are often encouraged to use the words they have at their disposal in flexible ways, rather than increasing the size of their vocabularies. But for typically developing children, part of the joy of early childhood can come from playing with language, describing the world in ever-more-precise terms. This aspect of semantic development is not supported by the core vocabulary approach.
• Syntax: Although the child is encouraged to speak in sentences, building toward ever-increasing syntactic complexity is not necessarily a focus.
• Morphology: The use of grammatical morphemes is not typically stressed with this approach.

Summary of pros and cons:

This popular, influential approach has some definite strengths that help language learners move beyond single word messages and strives to help children achieve independent communication. However, this approach does not follow a model of normal language development in several respects: semantic growth is limited when compared with normal development; children are often encouraged to use the core vocabulary they have, rather than increasing their lexicons as typical language learners do. Also, focus on language form is somewhat limited. Children are encouraged to build sentences, but focus on full linguistic complexity may not be stressed.

In the next post, we’ll begin to examine taxonomic approaches.

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