What Counts as a Word?

What counts as a word? - word approximations (“wa” for “water), animal sounds (“moo”), sound effects (“vroom vroom,” “choo choo”), phrases such as “all-done,” “bye-bye,” and “night-night” are considered one word since it is learned as a chunk

Most common early vocabulary - go, stop, more, turn, get, on, off, up, down, that, this, me, you, open, close, play, fast, slow, push, give, look, big, little, I, my, mine, need, want, read, colors, feelings, help, here, some, what, yes, no, come, it, like, make, not, now, again, all, finished, away, bad, mama, dada, eat, car, milk, hi, bye, ball, baby, jump

“80% of what we say is communicated with only the 200 most basic words” (Baker & Hill, 2000)