5516V - Stakeholder Validation of a Sepedi Core Vocabulary List for Augmentative and Alternative Communication

In this session, the results of a study aimed at validating a Sepedi core vocabulary list as a resource for vocabulary selection will be discussed. Stakeholders (N=75) rated the importance of including on an AAC system the most frequently used words from a child corpus. All words were rated as important or very important. However, there was a statistically significant inverse relationship between the average frequency of occurrence of words belonging to a specific category and the average importance rating that stakeholders assigned to words in that category. The most frequent words are therefore not always those deemed important by stakeholders. The merits of including core words in AAC vocabularies will be discussed in the light of this finding.