Extended Core Word Concepts
Our Bliss Tactile Symbol are comprised of 242 core words. We call them the “Extended Core Words for Students with Intellectual Disabilities”. This extended word list includes all 36 Project Core – Universal Core Words, all words in Gail Van Tatenhove’s Core Vocabulary List for Students with Intellectual Disabilities, plus additional words/concepts to support the Bliss puzzles and additional words to complete the concepts in the two initial sets. For example the word “answer” is included to complete concept of “question”. You are free to extend these concepts further if you need to.
We provide three documents in support of our core concepts. All three documents are provided in PDF and DOCX/XLSX formats. The latter document formats mean that you can modify the documents to add additional symbols that are not in the extended core word set.
The first document, called “Blissymbols by Word Class” (DOCX, PDF), shows all concepts in our extended core word set organized by and color coded by word class:
The second document , called “Core Words” (XSLX, PDF) is a spreadsheet, sorted alphabetically, containing all the words in the extended set along with their word class, Blissymbol, associated core word set, and description. The description provides a rational for the design of the symbol. For example, the “father” symbol is described as the “man” symbol overlaid with the “protection” symbol. The description can be useful when determining how to teach the symbol to a student or client. Finally, it calls out each of the supporting files used in creation of that symbol and word(s) recorded in Spanish for the Voice It.
Basic Shapes
Blissymbols are composed of a small number of simple shapes: dots, lines, curves, squares, circles, and triangles. The first step in perceiving and cognitively processing Blissymbols is to gain experience in tactilely exploring these basic shapes.
The third document is a starting set of Basic Shapes called “basic shapes” (DOCX, PDF), and has the following content:
These shapes are used in creating explorers and challenge tiles sets.
Creating a Chart
You can always create your own chart using the free “.png” Blissymbol files provided by Blissymbolics Communication International and a document editor like Microsoft Word but you can also construct charts (and get other benefits) by creating an account at the Bliss Online website.
For example, here’s a Project Core Universal Core Bliss Concepts chart in a layout similar to the Universal Core Word format provided by Project Core.