Oh, he does speak numbers, just not often, and he can't count 1-2-3-4 etc out loud (he seems to do it in his head, since he ids numbers higher than most people can count by geshtalt). But he'll hand you 5 of something and say "five" often enough it's not a fluke. I don't think he's gone higher than 9 or so. He can wait for the exact number of balls (in the ball run at the science center) to make the basket tip (the largest there is 7), but I did point that out to him when he was getting interested in really working out the sequence of events (he remembers sequences just fine, that was one of the milestones that stuck out at me, I HAVE to tell him the plan for the whole day or he gets upset, and he'll construct a "Pian" that has many steps). He'll keep looking until he finds x animals if you tell him there are x still needing to by tidied, or if he's taken some downstairs or whatever.
He totally can't say "three" -- he's been trying. It's hilarious. Once when he was working on it I said "once, twice, thrice" about something, and he stopped what he was doing and gave me this "You're not serious" look which was a total copy of one of my not-so-great habits. He's really pretty cute.
I have reason to believe there could be some good number genes floaing about, but... Maybe I'm just facilitating in some wierd way? It really seems to me most kids "get" numbers pretty well pretty young... They pretty much all get the "three times, no more" thing by 2.
I have no idea what he's *consistent* about, really. I don't quiz him or anything, well, ok,not much.
-Mich
