The MyCore Project
MyCore is the name of a German voca. It is one part of a multimodal communication concept based on the Cologne Vocabulary. As with the Cologne Communication Boards and Binder one aim is to provide a communication aid that makes the combination of core and fringe vocabulary as easy as possible. The high frequency words are always provided as a frame around the topic pages. In this way core vocabulary is always visible and accessible.
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MyCore |
Cologne
Communication Board |
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With a similar structure of the paper and the electronic version it is very easy for the AAC user but also for their communication partners to start communicating with these aids. It also helps with transferring one's knowledge from one aid to the other and with learning to use both communication modes.
The other aim of the Communication materials based on the Cologne Vocabulary is to support language development. Some features within MyCore are e.g.
- symbol based visualization of all the (complicated) German grammar endings,
- the possibility to just substitute endings without having to use ‘delete'-functions and this way to decide whether it's the form one wanted based on the auditory feedback,
- word formation functions to build compounds and to use some prefixes and suffixes,
- topic boards with different wordclasses (see Sturm 2005) instead of wordclass-based categories,
- the option to reduce grammar forms like cases, tenses or comparison degrees,
- the option to reduce vocabulary.
From the beginning there were two versions available: A full version with approx. 2.000 words and a reduced version with just 800 words. Unique with the reduced version is that the ‘missing' words and grammar functions are just invisible. This way the vocabulary can grow with the abilities of the AAC user and the team has significantly less work expanding the vocabulary and functions - it's often just one click and a new word, symbol etc. are available. There is another advantage with this file: Because there is no need to swap files or update to the full version, one keeps the individual vocabulary and messages that were added over time.
The development of the MyCore voca was made possible through funding from: 
Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi), Central SME* Innovation Programme (Zentrales Innovationsprogramm Mittelstand, ZIM)