Language Acquisition

I've been meaning to return to posting thoughts in this blog, but I just kind of coasted over break instead.

One thing I've really enjoyed lately is my 19-month old daughter is going through a language explosion. She is learning and using so many more words right now than she did just 2 weeks ago. It's interesting to see which words she decides to learn and use. Now, I know she knows many more words than she actually says, but you have to wonder what goes through her head when she decides this is a word she should try out loud. One of her favorites right now is "scratch." She has a scratch or "ow-ie" on her hand right now, so I don't know if she just likes having a word for this mysterious thing that is on her hand or if she likes the sound of "scratch" or something else entirely.

I'm really pleased that Ellie has started saying "Thank you" now. Well, her version of it anyway. She says something that resembles "taaaaaaaaaaaaanks" with a barely perceptible "n" in it. She has also started singing the ABC song. I can recognize the A-B-C part as actual A's, B's and C's. The rest is a little hit or miss. It goes into jibber jabber for a little while and then returns at LMNO (which most kids see as one letter transaction, not 4 distinct letters), and then she gets into singing really high pitched at the QRS time (just as me and her brother Nathan do and which my husband thinks is just wrong).

It's also funny to see the differences between my two kids in language acquisition. My daughter is very deliberate about her words. She likes to point to things and get us to label them for her and then she eventually points and labels them on her own. My son would point to things and say, "zis?" with a cute little high-pitched i in it. "Zis" stood for "What's this?" But he was more interested in the question-asking than he was the answer. His early language use was really about sound. He used words he liked the sound of. Even after he learned the basic words of his everyday baby/toddler world, he just liked to repeat words that sounded cool. He went through a "nacho" phase. He was 22 months old and really enjoyed hearing Spanish words. He had no idea what an enchilada was, but if we said that or chimichanga or anything like that, we could have him in fits of giggles. Ellie isn't interested in word sounds the same way. She's like a girl on a mission. She wants to know what she can call things and be understood. So she knows the words that are most important to her, which include fairly standard things like: mama, milk, more, mine, etc. (As a first child, my son didn't learn "mine" until much later.) But she also knows words for her favorite things, which are unfortunately: baby, shoes, toothbrush.

Why oh why are my kids obsessed with toothbrushes? It could be much worse, I suppose. I just wish they weren't also attracted to my toothbrushes.

Their language acquisition fits their personalities. Nathan has always been very easy going. He would know what he preferred to do, but was easily swayed to go on to something else (and had a short attention span). Elizabeth wants what she wants when she wants it and she wants it right now and stubbornly insists upon doing it her way. Nathan's early inquisitiveness has not faded one bit. He loves asking questions. In fact, his grandpa taught him at an early age to say, "I'm inquisitive." He still likes sounds and has to have sound effects for every activity and also makes up songs to go along with his activities (which he gets from his mother). It makes me wonder what Elizabeth will be like in 2 years.

I'm really enjoying watching her develop as an 18-24 month old. Check back in a month to see if I'm still enjoying it. Everyone talks about the terrible twos. She went through part of that at 12-16 months with the "mine" and "I can't do it myself" and "I want that" attitudes appearing early. I'm hoping that means I am relatively safe until she gets into the climbing into anything and everything and coloring on walls stage that happens between 2-3 years of age.