

They learn that dads, teachers, and sisters are also types of people. They learn that moms are a type of people. Over time, through interaction and experience with words and others, children learn how things can be put in groups. Learning about words is a process of associating many ideas and characteristics with that concept. In a way, even common simple words (like mom and dog) are a category because they represent a general concept. After all, a baby is small, but compared to a puppy, it is big! A dog can be big, but compared to a house, it is small. They are also searching for these patterns to apply context, such as knowing when something is big vs. Their words show us how they are searching for patterns and commonalities to understand word meanings, such as when a 4-legged creature is a dog vs. The words children use reflect what they know about the words themselves. They might under-generalize, by focusing only on specific characteristics, such as only recognizing dogs if they are walking on a leash. They might overgeneralize, calling all animals with 4 legs dog or all women mom. Over time, their understanding grows from specific to more general as they try to figure out what all moms or all dogs have in common. Children first learn mom as their mom and dog as their dog or one particular dog. Part of that process is learning what groups the word might belong to.įor example, some common first words are mom and dog. Learning words and developing language is a process of learning what a word means and what it doesn’t. Learning wordsĬhildren learn the concept of categories as they learn new words. This article describes how children learn categories and how you can use Proloquo to teach them. Fortunately, Proloquo is explicitly designed to help children learn both words and categories. For example, they may know the word dog but not yet understand that a dog is an animal.

However, many emergent AAC users do not yet understand the concept of categories. For example, common first words like dog and mom are sorted into categories (folders) like Animals and People. It is also serves as a great motivator due to the reward system as the student meets achievement levels.Proloquo has a robust vocabulary that sorts fringe words into categories.

This easily accessible program offers the benefit of collecting data following the student usage to provide information for the teacher about how well the student interacted with the program. Hearbuilder is yet another example of this. I have learned so much from the presentations and how many programs are available to help us support students in various ways. Hearbuilder is a program introduced to help support the student and can be used in school or at home. I had not heard of this method of teaching before and I can see how beneficial it would be for students and would also serve as an engaging activity. Barrier games were discussed to support the student and help to improve the communication and following multi-step directions. This student has difficulty with communication and following directions. He is on an IPP for Literacy, Math and Language Skills. She focused her presentation on a particular student who is in grade 3. Sherry Anne: Sherry Anne is a resource and reading recovery teacher.
