Among phonological non-contrastive approaches, which is used to emphasize high-frequency vocabulary and functional words?

• A. Cycles approach
• B. Complexity approach
• C. Core vocabulary
• D. Maximal oppositions

Answer: (C)

Focusing on high-frequency, functional words makes the most sense when you want phonological work to lift everyday intelligibility without stressing phoneme contrasts. The core vocabulary approach selects a set of words the child uses most often—pronouns, prepositions, common verbs and nouns—so practice boosts real, day-to-day communication. Because these words appear frequently, the child gets lots of repeated, stable practice in natural contexts, which helps generalize beyond the therapy tasks.

Other approaches aren’t centered on this idea. Cycles targets processing different phonological patterns in rotation, not specifically the everyday vocabulary the child needs most. The complexity approach emphasizes more advanced targets to drive generalization, still not anchored to high-frequency words. Maximal oppositions uses contrasts between sounds, which is a contrastive technique rather than a non-contrastive focus on everyday words.