An early Spanish vocabulary for children who use AAC: developmental and linguistic considerations

For children with complex communication needs in the early stages of language development, access to appropriate vocabulary provides a means for social interaction and participation, and the foundation for the acquisition of grammar and other language related skills. While numerous resources are available to support decision making for speakers of English, there is a pressing need to rapidly expand such resources for other languages. Spanish is the official language in 20 countries, and in other countries (e.g., United States) Spanish-speaking communities represent a substantial proportion of the population. The aim of this study was to produce a developmentally-relevant word list for use by Spanish-speaking children in the early stages of language development. The list was developed from an analysis of overlap between published and validated lists of words produced by young Spanish speaking children with typical development. The list includes a wide range of word classes and semantic categories and is proposed as a tool to assist professionals, families and software developers in the process of selecting an initial lexicon for children who require AAC and are learning Spanish. Implications of our findings for vocabulary selection and future research directions are discussed.