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Home > AAC Features > Selection Set > Vocabulary Size 1. Vocabulary SizeVendors and manufacturers often advertise the overall capacity for a device, but this does not have clinical relevance for an AAC user if the individual cannot access all of that vocabulary. We are more interested in the functional vocabulary size, the vocabulary (words/phrases/messages) available to the individual. As you will see, that is often much smaller than the overall capacity of the device. We will use some rather arbitrary categories in describing this feature. We describe a "tiny" vocabulary as a selection set with fewer than 15 items available to the user. A "small" vocabulary is anything between 15 and 99 items. A "midrange" vocabulary has between 100 - 250 items, while a "substantial" vocabulary has more than 250 items in the selection set. Remember, speaking individuals have vocabularies of many hundreds of thousands of words; AAC vocabularies are very limiting under the best of circumstances.
Tiny Vocabulary (<15 items)There are many, many devices on the market that provide only a tiny vocabulary for the user and new devices are coming on the market in this category at an amazing rate. Here are some devices that have a tiny vocabulary unless the user is able to change the symbol set himself.
Small Vocabulary (16 - 99 items)There are fewer devices with this vocabulary capacity. Many of the advertisements for these devices highlight the total capacity of the system counting vocabulary that can be downloaded from a tape or other source. In general, these are the devices that have very few vocabulary items available to the user unless he or she can change overlays and download vocabulary. Of course, many users are unable to do this, making their device functionally far smaller in vocabulary size. Here are a few such devices:
Midrange Vocabulary (100 - 249 items)There are a number of devices that make a larger vocabulary available to the AAC user. Some of these devices, however, have a small screen that limits the functional usefulness of the device. The Hand Held Voice below, for example, can have only 9 symbols per page. Imagine how many pages there would have to be for 180 item vocabulary! A small screen means more pages are necessary, but too many pages results in the individual getting lost. Have YOU ever gotten lost while browsing the web?
Extensive Vocabulary (>250)This category has a vocabulary size of more than 250 items. These devices use dynamic displays [G] or icon encoding [G] to permit the user to retrieve extensive vocabulary. You'll learn more about those features in another part of this website.
Go on to Symbol Types
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