To be fair, he confuses people who speak 2 yr old pretty consistently -- his average sentance length is about 11 words, and he commonly uses non-standard constructions. One of today's gems "Probably it's important to take me to the bathroom right now, [name]'s bladder has something in it." The pronoun excitement is almost as bad as his tendency to specify degrees of confidence to within an inch of their lives. So is the stuttering, and the fact that he speaks completely flatly whenever he's having trouble getting words out... and the bit about equating inaudibility with politness. Oh and occasional intrusive dead language vocabulary along with more run of the mill archaisms & neologisms. I can't claim none of this is my fault. Asking if his bladder was full seemed like such a good idea at the time.... So did practicing dead language pronouns by sticking them into english sentences, and reading old poetry together.... And I really thought it would be good for him to learn "thee" and "thou" constructions while he was still in the early language window... oops.
But yeah, I think a place that can listen is important... I haven't had an experience like yours, where someone really did listen comfortably. His best two babysitters are both pretty good, but that's after practice, and the teenager is into archaisms to begin with. Despite the "normal" articulation, I think strangers typically understand maybe 10% of what he says, if that. The SLP said 90%, but that was on words she asked him to say or elicited carefully (and she remarked that it was hard to get him to use the typical toddler words... she never did get "done," but she got about 6 synonyms).
I really don't think he needs anything academic at this point. I just need time with the new baby & he needs consistent friendships, which I'm not good at supporting.
And I am a little... aware of the language thing. I think he really thrives on talk & it's really hard because his language is so atypical. It's not at all uncommon for people to assume he's not talking yet, becasue they read his long sentences as babble. The language thing isn't precicely a problem, but it's a bit isolating. Being able to express himself comfortably is one of my main concerns for an ongoing placement.
-Mich.
PS: He was trying to get out of bedtime a few minutes ago and said "I like rotating!" a lot (while rotating)... it took ME about 17 tries before I figured out what he was saying.
Last edited by Michaela; 07/15/11 08:19 PM.
