Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school A toddler question about verbal behavior

This question isn't about a preschooler, but this was the closest I could find to a young toddler, so bear with me!

I have two DD's, DD4 and DD19mo. I know that my youngest DD will do things faster than her sister because DD19mo has someone to watch and model after. But lately I get the feeling that DD19mo has been saying 3- and 4-word sentences. A lot of the words are garbled, but we do understand what she's saying. And sometimes she has words for something that I cannot quite make out. Has anyone else felt this way? DD4 wouldn't speak many words until she could pronounce everything darn near perfectly, so this is unfamiliar territory for me.

As an example, I asked DD19mo if she was done eating and she said, "No, not yet." It wasn't super clear, but I could have swore that's what she said. Then I think maybe I'm just imagining it, so I've been asking DH his opinion and he agrees (and DH is naturally skeptical about everything). Of course since I'm trying to think of other examples, my mind is blank right now!


Has anyone else out there had the feeling that their young toddler is saying much more than she should be able to, but it's not super clear?

Oh yeah! I always say our daughters first words were "Dudtydidit" translated to: "Dusty did it". She was at least 3 before most people could understand her but she spoke in sentances from the time she began speaking. Our son is 32 months older, so when she was about 2 and he was about 5, he called her 'Cousin It' from the Addams Family because of how she babbled.

Oh, all the time! And I thought I heard dd (13 months now) saying stuff at a young age. One example was at about 11 months: I was giving something to her sister and asked "you got it?" and baby dd goes "got it". I thought I was hearing things until older dd goes "she just said 'got it'".

She babbles her ABCs and anything she hears on Dora - she tries to say "backpack" during the backpack song and the "dee-dee-dee-dee-Dora".

Yes! There was a stage when I was convinced he was saying long sentences beginning "I", months before he had even a handful of definitely clear single words. A bit later DH and I both heard him say "Oh dear, I did a poo" at a time when he was at the single-word stage otherwise. It was weird, and I wondered at one point whether he'd just get clearer and clearer with sentence-length utterances, but in the end he did (albeit very rapidly) go through single word, two-word phrase and telegraphic utterances stages, as per normal; in particular, he had a brief stage of using his own name to start sentences about himself, not "I". I don't know what to think of it now. He was a late talker, but somehow he could always make himself understood - was that really partly because of the sounds he produced, or not? Dunno. I tend to think I probably imagined a lot of his early speech, in the sense that he probably wasn't really intending to say sentences beginning "I" when I was hearing them, didn't really say a 6 word sentence when he was otherwise at the single word stage, etc. We humans are very, very good at interpreting sequences of sounds as speech - we have to be, or babies couldn't ever learn to talk! Not surprising if this ability is sometimes overactive.

Yes, our ds did seem to be making very long not-so-distinct sentences early on. Also, I usually got most of what he was saying although others would not.

You'll probably be getting an earful of really cute & serious statements from her!

Our dd was really different, before 1 year she said something like "I need water!" very distinctly, and hasn't stopped demanding things since.

I'm glad to hear that I'm not completely crazy! I kept thinking maybe I was just filling in the gaps to DD19mo's speech and that she really didn't just say, "There you go." She also seems to understand WAY more than I think a 19mo-old should, like two-step commands and whatnot. After learning that DD4 is ahead of the curve in the smarts department, we kind of expected our second child to be that way, but not necessarily. DH is definitely HG+ or PG, and I'm somewhere on the GT spectrum as well... so simple genetics would suggest our children will also be that way. It seems as though DD19mo has blossomed in the speech and understanding area lately (despite her ongoing battle with chronic ear infections). Not sure if she's GT or not... probably... I guess time will tell. I guess I felt the need to write that out because I'm still in the GT-denial phase at times with DD4 (Can't all 4-year-olds read?).

My DS13 once described to me the feeling of what it was like when he was very young, understood plenty of words, was able to hold the sound of a word in his mind, and yet, not quite able to make the sounds come out properly. He said that he would hear the sound and be so disappointed, and try to reshape his mouth and try again, but that the process was painstaking.

I wonder if the perfectionism/frustration starts that early?

I think that main thing is to enjoy your baby, and if she 'utters' something and you take your best guess, and she seems happy with the result, then you all win.

Smiles,
Grinity

I have been having similar thoughts about our DD 23months for a few months now.
DD6 was verbal very very early. (complete jaw dropping sentences at 12 months ) so when DD23mths wasn't we were sure there was something wrong. Well, when this school year started and DD6 was away at school all day everyday again, DD then 18mths just blossomed. Like yours, not everyone can understand what she is saying all of the time, but today in the car for example, she was consistently saying 9-12 word sentences and questions, sometimes 2 or three sentences in a row!
She often also changes tense and person (he/she/her/him) properly. I think it just took some time on her own to develop her voice.
We are constantly amazed at how both our DDs develop, but especially the 2nd one since we have another one to compare to.

I don't think your nuts. DD was a very VERY early talker. Said 'hi' at two weeks and thank goodness I had a witness around for that one! Right before her 3 month birthday she said 'elephant' and had been working on each syllable for days. By 6 months she was talking in complete sentences; mostly questioning what things were with "What's this?" and "What's that?" which I'm convinced was her way of building her vocabulary but other times she would answer a question with a sentence. And at 15 months our real estate agent freaked out when he overheard her say "Can we go downstairs now?". He still talks about it today and DD is 3 yrs old. By 18 months she was talking in complicated 10+ word sentences. At that point I stopped counting the length of the sentence. DD is also a child that you can read to from a book once or twice and recite it back verbatim. I wish I had that skill! Love when a toddler corrects you because you didn't recite the passage right during one of her many games. :P

So yes ... I fully believe (how could I not) that a baby is capable of trying to put sentences together and skipping the whole one word at a time phase.

Grinity, we are definitely enjoying DD19mo's verbal games and sounds -- probably more than her big sister's since we are done having children and I know this is my last baby. I try to write down as much as possible as I did with DD4 because I enjoy going back to see what funny things they used to say (i.e. at 18mo or so, DD4 couldn't say "blueberry" so she said "booby" which always made me laugh in my head -- or sometimes out loud!).

It can be frustrating at times when I don't quite understand what DD19mo wants when she's asking for something so fervently, even saying "peeeasse!" But at the same time, I'm trying to soak it all in now before it's gone forever.