Top important 20 words for my 3 years old to learn

[Anonymous]

We are paying for weekly private speech therapy, and she asks me top 20 words that we want her especially to work on as one of the goal.

We want some important and most used/functionality words, any suggestions?

We are out of wits, and our 3 year old can speak below words as far as I can recall. She still talks one word 95%.

water, hungry, snack, key, shopping, playground, mommy, daddy, dog, cat, why, what happen, car, fly, airplane, swing, slide, chair, eat, drink, food, ice cream, candy, cracker, cookie, lollipop, chocolate, dirty, book, pee,, poo, diaper, pant,, rainbow,, clean, wash, sleepy. Blankie, backpack, book, play, monkey, some body parts, number 1-5, pink, red, cup, me, mine, fork, spoon, juice, apple, orange, yogurt, gummy, bear, yummy, yucky, napkin, boogie, pretty, no, yes, hi, bye, hot, cold, hurt, bandage, doctor, help, horse, iPad, power, yeah, jacket.

[Anonymous]

I’d suggest more focus on body parts, the word fire, and getting sentences going.

[Anonymous]

Can she say her name? I’d make sure that is definitely on the list.

Others: please, thank you, potty, love, hug, sick, want. And agree with more body parts, more colors, more numbers, more animals, more foods, and more types of clothing.

[Anonymous]

Most of those words are nouns. I'd focus on relational words/adverbs and the like: go, outside, up, down, there. These should help her start to form two word sentences.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most of those words are nouns. I'd focus on relational words/adverbs and the like: go, outside, up, down, there. These should help her start to form two word sentences.

+1

And this was the advice of our speech therapist.

My kid learned “cup” and “down” the same week. Down was SO much more useful because it’s useful in a ton of contexts.

I’d add:

help
Please
More
Again
Stop

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most of those words are nouns. I'd focus on relational words/adverbs and the like: go, outside, up, down, there. These should help her start to form two word sentences.

+1

And this was the advice of our speech therapist.

My kid learned “cup” and “down” the same week. Down was SO much more useful because it’s useful in a ton of contexts.

I’d add:

help
Please
More
Again
Stop

Thank you, and this is an interesting observation that most words I list are nouns. I think they are mostly nouns due to I often use those baby picture books to teach her words.

[Anonymous]

Shouldn’t the speech therapist have some ideas?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most of those words are nouns. I'd focus on relational words/adverbs and the like: go, outside, up, down, there. These should help her start to form two word sentences.

+1

And this was the advice of our speech therapist.

My kid learned “cup” and “down” the same week. Down was SO much more useful because it’s useful in a ton of contexts.

I’d add:

help
Please
More
Again
Stop

Thank you, and this is an interesting observation that most words I list are nouns. I think they are mostly nouns due to I often use those baby picture books to teach her words.

Nouns are more like trivia at this age. If she calls a car a truck, who cares? Does she need a word for water and for milk, or can she say “more” and wave a cup or point? Consider words to help her express her needs/wants, like “more,” “stop,” “all done.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Shouldn’t the speech therapist have some ideas?

My three year old is also in speech and I am wondering the same thing. I think this is well intended but I’d push back on the SLP. Verbs have been important for him. Rooting for you and your kiddo.

[Anonymous]

https://babysignlanguage.com/dictionary/

This lists the top 30 words for baby sign language.. I think this would correlate well to the top useful words to speak.

[Anonymous]

I agree focus on verbs. With verbs, you can start getting 2 word combos like "go play", "want milk" etc

Go, want, stop, no, more are good ones.

[Anonymous]

Choose words that are relevant to your situation and would make it easier for them to communicate their needs to you. The goal right now is getting them to request items in their environment. Do they often want a certain drink and point to it instead of ask for it? There’s a word for you. Try taking a step back and looking at it through your child’s eyes as to things they may need throughout the day. They like going outside? Make outside or out a word. Like car rides? Make ride a word Special toy? Jumping on trampoline? You get the point. Definitely focus on items that can be requested, developmentally this comes first, it also increases the opportunities they have to use words throughout the day. Avoid general words like eat, play, drink, more etc and focus on specific items. They like juice? Instead of saying drink they should say juice. And make them request everything multiple times per day. Like hundreds of times per day. No seriously, hundreds of requests throughout a day. Have your therapist teach you the mand protocol and use it constantly.

[Anonymous]

Maybe look for another therapist with verbal behavior training or research it and implement it yourself. Not all speech therapists, unfortunately, focus on this aspect. Some are more focused on pronunciation rather than functional use of language.

[Anonymous]

We are also in speech therapy but through county at 2.5. Verbs and adverbs and some adjectives are key. Up, down, to, from, go, run, sit, jump, quietly, loudly, gently. Its easier to learn nouns but many and from books are not as useful early on to every day life.
Drink, sleep, read, turn on light, hot, cold, blow, turn off etc.
we started with 1 word communications and learned to stretch to two. So cup is now blue cup or drink cup. And currently stretching to 3 words.
Play simon says for verb skills and flash card pictures with actions pulled out of a hat.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe look for another therapist with verbal behavior training or research it and implement it yourself. Not all speech therapists, unfortunately, focus on this aspect. Some are more focused on pronunciation rather than functional use of language.

Also this. For the littlest ones its about context for their world and to make it easier for parents and kid to communicate and want to continue to communicate.