hi all
i have been struggling with my daughter since she was two years old. We just confirmed that she is highly gifted (WPPSI FSIQ 147). While its a relief in some ways that there is a resaon for her overall intensity, I can't find any info on the thing we are struggling with the most: baby talk that goes on for sometimes hours a day. Sometimes i think she CAN'T stop. It almost never occurs at school (but they have heard it). It started at age 2 when she already had very mature regular speech. The sad thing is that if she is doing it for attention, its working against her as it is so hard to be around her and give her the attention she needs when she is doing it. We try giving her lots of "special time" but does not seem to have any impact at all. Anyone dealt with this.. I am hoping a move to a gifted school for kindergarden will help.. any idea if it could actually make it worse???

irene

Our youngest daughter did this also, still does at six on rare occasion.

I kind of think it was done to fit in and also when she feels insecure.

I would just calmly and without any judgement ask her to stop talking like a baby. I'm pretty sure she will eventually grow out of it.

Neato

It is very typical for kids to have a phase a baby talk and baby play around age three or four. Often it coincides with the birth of a younger sibling, but our child is an only and he went through the phase too.

My suggestion would be to set a time to 100% indulge it and really get into it. Have her sit on your lap, wrap her in a blanket and rock like a baby, pretend to burp her, etc. Play it up to an extreme of gushing about your baby. You may transition this into talking about when she was a baby and your memories of that happy time. As irritating as this is, trust me there will be years when you look back and wish she was on your lap rocking and pretending to be a baby. Our experience is the more we 100% got into it and thoroughly indulged this need the less he had it. I would try that for a couple of weeks and I bet you'll see it start to fade away.

today i am going to create a behavior chart (as much as i hate them!!) and will have her work towards getting some "baby time". it really makes sense - she may just be able to come out of it if she knows she will still get it at some later point. She has control issues too.I remember feeling this way myself when i was a kid. I'll keep you guys posted. I dont' think i can take another day of "ma ma ma NUGGY NUGGY" (mom i want chicken nuggets).

irene

My 2 1/2 yr old has started to do a little of this in the last few weeks and I noticed in the last few days it is more intense. DD is a very imaginative child and always talking for her animals and having them have conversations with changing voices for each one so i was not shocked when she started becoming the animal for periods of time. She will crawl around on the floor like a puppy and bark or some other non-domestic animal. But now we have some of what you described with the baby talk. If feels like she is making up her on language because she will string together some weird syllables and about a minute later she repeats it exact. It is a little frustrating to witness since she has a massive vocabulary and I feel like we are slipping into a strange phase. And then I read this thread and a light bulb goes off in my head ... we could possibly be headed down this path. Time will tell but thanks for posting the topic.

My dd was doing that and it really got "old" fast, so we picked out accents for her to listen to and we all tried to talk like that too. English, Irish, Long Island, Bostonian, etc. She is almost 8yo now and can mimic most of them proficiently! DD is now working on cartoon and environmental noises. This too can get annoying but most often it is hilarious!!! (and the baby talk has been a thing of the past!)

DS5 didn't have a baby talk phase, but he did go through an irritating whiny voice phase. We went with the old "we can't understand you when you talk like that" and ignored him until he spoke in a nonwhiny voice.

I'd skip the chart because to make it a reward says that baby talk is a highly valued activity. And, making her act grown up in order to earn the baby time may reinforce the ambivalence she's already feeling about being big. If what she's looking for is that feeling of complete indulgence babies get, if make her earn it or only give in begrudgingly she may not really get that feelings she's looking for. In other words, I think it could backfire and increase the behavior. So, instead I'd treat baby talk as a play activity you will fully indulge as a separate activity from normal conversation. "Oh yes, I'd like to play baby with you just as soon as we are finished with lunch, but right now I need to hear your regular voice so I can understand you."

If it is more that she's whining, I would role play the difference between a whiny voice and a regular voice. Practice together and have fun doing exaggerated versions. Then in the moment with the nuggets you are in your rights to ask her to "try again in a regular voice."

if i go with that approach (the one from passtheotatoes, thanks!), do you think i should discuss with her at the get-go that i've changed my feelings about her baby talk. She definitely knows at this point that i want her to not do it (not that it makes her stop)..She is very very perceptive.. this is where her "giftedness" seems to show the most. She still talks about when she was 2 years old and what the teachers would "say about the kids" when they were supposed to be napping at day care. more than academic smarts.Also i don't think i mentioned that she also had a period of 1 year where she "shut down" her smarts at school. This is showing much improvement now, but i think its related to the baby talk.

thanks all

irene

I really like passthepotatoes' advice.

The role playing part is still letting her know that you would prefer that she speak more often in her *regular* voice.

Curious about the shutting down intelligence and baby talk, my DD showed a very similar pattern in K. We resolved it by having her work at home(this year) at demonstrated academic level for part of the day and sending her to school for a few hours to do lunch, gym, specials, recess, etc.
Interesting, now that I think about it, the baby talk died down tremendously around that time. Hmmmm.....

Sometimes it's hard to remember how little they are because of how smart they are. Somethings, you just shouldn't *reason* with them, IMO. Better to just take control of the situation and manage it like PTP suggests.

As disturbing as the babytalk is, it's very likely that she will grow out of it and it's just a phase.

Neato

If you sense that she's actually losing language skills then I would take her post-haste to the pediatrician and get a speech assessment or an assessment for ASD.

Don't mean to diagnose - just when someone says their child's language skills changed in a regressive way when they were a toddler, my ASD antennae quiver.

Oddities of speech that seem "out of her control" should be taken seriously in my opinion. I think some of the suggestions offered have been really good ones and you should try them but if they don't work it may be time to consider alternative explanations.

You know your daughter's personality and what works with her better. In general I find with our child more honest information is better.

"I found out something interesting - it is actually really common for four year olds to like to play that they are younger and talk like they are younger. Being four can be a time of feeling both big and small at the same time and that can be kind of confusing to sort out. What kind of things can you do now that you are four that you couldn't do when you were a baby?... I realized that what might work well is for us to compromise a bit...." Then, practice a bit the difference between the way babies talk and using a preschooler voice (or whatever you want to call it) and say that you are going to be more open to playing baby some of the time and sometimes you are going to ask for her to use her strong voice (or whatever you are calling it). We talked about compromise with our preschooler and it was something he could understand.

For us it seems if we've put that time into having a real discussion often it makes the in the moment stuff easier. If you've already talked about it and agreed on a way to describe the voice, you'll be ready to just give her a small reminder and not get into a big discussion.

Good luck and tell yourself enthusiastic baby play will make it go away sooner. Also, this is a really obvious thing but if she doesn't already have a baby doll and accessories that might be a good purchase. You could even play twins where she's one baby and the doll is another. If the doll prop is there she may transition to the mom role sometimes too, but I wouldn't push that, it'll happen eventually.

rlsnights ... you are absolutely right about the regression in speech linked to ASD but I really think what is being described is more of a phase for attention then anything else. Now things to be on the look out for is words that she used in the past disappearing from her vocabulary and new words in the place of those... such as the nugget example... if she could always say nuggets and reverts to a baby word and only uses that or similar words to ask for the nuggets and has lost the word nugget altogether than yes it is a red flag for possible ASD. But as it has been described she seems to be play acting in a baby state and uses the baby talk during that time period and if that is how she is behaving it really is more about a phase. Has there been any thing big and new in her life? Might be a new school or a close friend to her has moved away and of course a new addition to the family and again it can just be as PTP and Neato described about the age and realizing they are becoming a 'big' girl/boy and exploring the 'little' girl/boy category.

hey all
thank you for being conerned about ASD. But what i was describing was more about regressing in school, not real language regression, which remains remarkably astute for her age. When she is not doing baby talk she's fantastic (i actually googled split personality i am so conerned). The school she goes to is MOntessori so it is easy for her (during the regression period i noted) to sit in the "pracical life" corner with the three year olds.She was getting a lot of attention for her advanced reading skills and was trying to blend in more with the others. After a teacher change that problem is resolved and she quickly moved back to the "Top" of the class.

and katelynsmom- really no changes in her life, its been going on since she was only two so its almost three years now, ebbing at times, but coming on really strong lately. My gut is that its a fear of growing up and she's been feeling it for so long because internally she has been "grown up" earlier than she should have been.

Tomorrow we have first session wiht a child psychologist. I will keep you posted what he says.


irene

You may want to try tracking the behavior and see if you can identify a pattern to it or a trigger of some kind. Given your further description, it certainly sounds like it could be an expression of anxiety. So finding the trigger(s) or pattern might be very helpful.

I hope the child psych you're going to see is familiar with gifted kids and their special needs/issues. If you're not sure, you may want to get very specific in asking about his qualifications in that area - how many gifted or 2E children has he treated, any special training or education he has in that area. Even if you know this person, you may want to find out exactly what kinds of services he provides (treatment only, testing/assessment too or what?), if he only does treatment, who does he refer families to when he feels testing is needed and what child psychiatrists he works with when he feels a child needs a referral for medication or more complex diagnosis. You may never need this information but it's not a bad idea to get it ahead of time.

Our DD6 went through this too. I think it was definitely linked to her realizing that she could speak better than everyone else at her preschool. In fact, she could imitate all of the other students with their particular accents too! (We were living overseas at the time). We went to speaking in these other accents as an alternative to her baby talk. It helped some, but didn't compeltely make it go away. Even now she does it sometimes, but if she notices I'm getting irritated with her she will say "I suppose I should probably stop talking like a baby now so you don't go crazy, right Mom?"

kerry
come to think of it, the baby talk escalated last summer when she started coming home from summer camp and was constantly imitating the "cute" speech impediment of one of the girls in her camp group. Her group was called tHe "Wish Bears" and she would say it without the "R"..I am wondering now if she is also seeking that type of "aww she's cute" reaction that she never gets. Her actual big girl voice sometimes makes adults uncomfortable as they are expecting a little girl and she actually sounds much older. The psych estimated her social skills and language at 7 to 8 years and she is only 4. I get the feeling, even from her preschool teachers (which is why we moved her) that she might not be liked as much as the other children, tends to question them, gives them a hard time, and tells us when they have "off-line" conversations amongst themeselves in class when they think the kids aren't listening. So that might all play into this.


we did change our attitute yesterday and feel we are out of the baby talk "war" - told her its ok and we'll do it as a fun activity. She asked for it twice yesterday and in general i think it increased a bit overall for the day (testing us?) but this morning she was great and did not even ask... holding my breath what happens later on when i pick her up.
irene

Sounds like you have a good beat on what's going on. Hopefully it is just a stage and what you describe seems to be pretty normal, especially for HG(+) girls who want to fit in. At least that's been my experience. I would be more concerned if she's still doing it at 7 or 8. At that age, I'm thinking the baby talk will NOT be accepted by peers, if she's still doing it and possibly even getting teased for it, I'd definitely look further into it.