I found my notes from when my son was between 14 and 17 months. I stopped writing down all the words he could say at 150. He was saying two and three word sentences like "sorry spit" when he spit out his milk and "go get it" when he wanted something. He had a mild disability that affected him physically and had gross and fine motor delays that had nothing to do with intelligence. His manual dexterity was affected by this disability. He could not walk until he was 18 1/2 months old because his muscles seemed weak. I carried him around a lot so he could look at whatever he wanted to look at and answer his questions.
He was saying "is dat?" at 12 months about everything and he learned a lot that way. He was a happy kid and got so excited when he learned new things.
He wanted me to read at least 20 books a day to him. He recognized some letters at 12 and 13 months and would count to four because he watched a show called Teletubbies and heard the numbers.
He did some computer games where he had to identify letters when he was two and at three he was doing Reader Rabbit first grade and it did include some math. At 2 1/2 he could not only read some words but also identify words that were spelled out for him. At 4 he memorized a 300 word script and could read his Alice in Wonderland Lines that were about 5th grade level.
When he was seven an educational psychologist that gave him an achievement test and brief intelligence test. He thought he was probably highly gifted but would need a full scale IQ test to confirm and we could not afford it. My son's friends at the time were three and four years older and we were told this was fine since his mental age was higher than average.
He always had trouble sleeping.
Hi Lori, thanks for seeking out your notes and posting about your son's development! That's very kind of your to go to the trouble on my behalf.
It sounds like our sons are similarly verbally inclined. My son seems to develop in rapid bursts with long (~3-4 weeks+) fallow periods in the intervening time. He started out the gate at 5.5 months with couplets (e.g. "read book", "yellow lemon") and phrases (e.g. "I love you", "That right there"), and has since populated his vocabulary with new words in bursts.
To be honest, from 6-9 months was relatively silent as he began walking. I worried a bit about hearing loss, but was reassured by our paediatrician. Sure enough, once he started walking, he resumed with more sentences. Spoken vocabulary--full words clearly enunciated, only-- has proceeded like this:
6 months: ~ 15 words
12 months: ~ 50-60 words
13 months: ~ 90 words
14 months: Lost count. ~175-200 words. Receptive vocabulary seems much higher-- he understands EVERYTHING! Some days I hear a dozen or more new words.
Sometimes he's quiet and says nothing, other times he's a chatterbox. He doesn't talk gratuitously. The other day, he finished a sound puzzle, flipped it over, turned off the sound switch and announced, "I done now."
We're big readers. If my son has his way, we'll read 40 books a day, often for an hour or more at a time while moving. Thank God for the library around the corner!
Thanks again for sharing your experience, Lori!
