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Jane: [bird] I hear a bird!
Me: [bird] "Yes, I hear a bird, too!"
Jane: [swimming] I see the swimming pool!
Me: [swimming, fun] "Yes, swimming is fun, don't you think?"
Jane: [fun?] What does that mean?
Me: [fun] "Fun, ha-ha-ha!"
(She sees me drinking some orange juice)
Jane: [water? water? water?] Hey, is that water? I want some!!
Me: [juice] "No, this is is juice."
Jane: [juice! juice! juice!] Hey! That's juice? I want some!!
Me: [please] "Okay, I will give you some. But what do you say? Can you say 'please'?"
Jane: [please] Please?
Me: [juice] "Yes, I will give you some juice!"
Jane: [juice] I just drank some juice!
Jane: [some unrecognizable sign]
Me: [grape, raisin, cracker] "Do you want something else? Do you want a grape, a raisin or a cracker?"
(long pause)
Jane: [cracker] I want a cracker!
Me: [please] "What do you say? Can you say 'please'?"
Jane: [please] Please?
So, as you can see, the conversations are not exactly mind blowing or earth shattering, but it's sure a lot nicer than a bunch of grunting and arm waving. Here are the signs she knows right now, that I can think of, that she can do:
Good job! Hooray!
mommy/daddy (she can't differentiate between the two)
car (gah!)
balloon (bmm!)
bear
fan
thunder
diaper (da-da-da)
potty
book
please
clothes
socks (gah!)
shoes
milk
water
juice (jess!)
cracker
grapes
raisins
banana
cookie (just learned that this morning!)
orange juice
kiss (kss!)
apple
boat (goh!)
cat
dog (DAH!)
goat
swimming
duck (same sign as bird, but she says "duh!")
bird
Jesus (jss-ess)
baby
eat
music (interestingly, she only does the sign for music with certain kinds of music, like primary songs or latin music!)
phone
Pain or owwy!
Rain
Window
Jewelry (ring)
Star
Nose (well, she just points to my noise. I don't even know the sign)
Flower/Rose
All Done
Hot
So, that's about a vocabulary of 50 words. Pretty impressive, no? According to this website, an 18 month year old will have a vocabulary of 5-20 words. Jane is six months younger and has more than twice the amount if you count her signs as words. If you count the utterances that she makes that are recognizable (to me, her mom, who is around her all day - probably not to other people!), she has about 10. If you only count the words that would be clearly recognizable to anyone, she's already at 2 ("jess" for juice and "dah!" for dog). I think she's doing really great!
That same website described a thing called "echolalia." Jane has a bad case of this! Don't worry, it just means she repeats words and sounds I make. She is very, very verbal. It sounds like she is carrying on a conversation with "dugha dugha dugha" and other sounds. I can tell her mood by her voice's inflection. I've read that she can understand voice inflections, too. That's pretty amazing. I'm so proud.
Signs we are working on (well, the short list of the ones that come to mind):
nap time/sleep
thank you
bath
Stop
Careful
Sun
House
big
little
Dancing
Egg
Horse
Elephant
Help
Happy
Funny
Share
Spaghetti
wow! that is seriously impressive. the only thing ollie says is "hi" sometimes "mama" and "go go go!" i know boys tend to be behind girls, but having had briggy with a speech delay, i dont really know what to expect with ollie. he hasnt caught on to any signs either--other than milk!
ReplyDeletetoo bad you weren't closer. ollie could use jane's good example!
*youre a great mom!*
love,
kelly