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Core words: the list, and why it matters

A few hundred words do most of the work in everyday speech. Choosing them well — and putting them somewhere they never move — is the single biggest decision in an AAC system. Here is the core vocabulary SayThrough ships, and the reasoning behind it.

What are core words?

Core words are the high-frequency words that work in almost any situation: want, go, more, stop, help, I, you, not, it, that. Studies of everyday language have consistently found that a set of roughly 200–400 of them accounts for around 80% of what people actually say. Their opposite is fringe vocabulary — nouns like banana, trampoline or dinosaur — which is enormous, deeply personal, and useful only in the one situation it names.

Why core words come first

It is tempting to fill a board with photographs of favourite foods and toys, because those are easy to make and easy to test. Core vocabulary is the better investment, for three reasons:

• It goes further. More works at dinner, in the park, in the bath and in an argument about a film. Banana works at breakfast.
• It builds sentences. Nouns alone produce labelling. Verbs, pronouns and little words produce I want that, go outside, stop it, not now — real language, with grammar in it.
• It rewards motor learning. Because core words are used constantly and never move, their location becomes automatic — found by muscle memory rather than searched for. That is why SayThrough never reflows a board: raising the vocabulary level reveals words in place instead of rearranging them.

The SayThrough core word list

Below is the actual core vocabulary in SayThrough's expanded board — 310 core words in total: the always-on words that stay on screen wherever you are, plus the core pages behind them. This list is generated from the same data the app boots from, so it cannot drift from what you will see in the product.

Colours follow the Fitzgerald Key, the convention most AAC systems share: yellow pronouns, green verbs, blue question words, orange little words, purple describing words, pink social words.

Three sizes, one motor plan

The same vocabulary is authored at three grid sizes — a 26-word starter board, a 196-word standard board, and the 513-word expanded board whose core is listed above. You choose the size once, at setup, because changing a grid moves every word and destroys the motor plan. Within a size, the vocabulary level controls which words are visible: raising it reveals more words exactly where they were always going to be, so nothing a learner already knows ever moves.

How to start with core words

1. Pick five, not fifty. More, go, stop, want and help will carry a week comfortably.
2. Model them yourself. Tap the words on the device as you speak. This is called aided language stimulation, and it is the single most effective thing a communication partner does.
3. Use them in real moments. Core words earn their keep during snacks, transitions and play — not in a drill at a table.
4. Don't test. Resist asking “what's this?”. Comment, offer a choice, and wait. Communication is not an exam.