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

Our DD started a Montessori toddler program at 18 months. Shortly thereafter, she started singing a song, the only word that I thought I could understand was "tractor". When I asked her teacher about the "tractor" song, the teacher had no idea what I was talking about. Soon we figured it out:

"the more we get together, the happier we'll be"

together sounded like "tractor" at 18-19 months. Unsurprising, really.

Even (to this very day-wink) I have to say to DS13:

Say it again a different way.

It does get frustrating, and these kids express their frustration very colorfully!

Grinity

Yeah, speaking of colorfully, I just picked up DD4 from her first day back to preschool from Winter Break. She was in the middle of a meltdown and apparently had been very sensitive/ touchy all day at school. I'm guessing she needs to get used to being back at school a couple days a week and away from Mommy, but she didn't even do that on her very first day of school. Sigh -- I have this feeling that I have the drama queen of the class.

Maryann, DD19mo says "computer" but it sounds more like "cuh-mer." I can see where "together" would sound like "tractor!"

"GO LIE DOWN!"

My son's new favourite thing to say to our dogs.

He won't call me mommy (he doesn't call me anything) but he puts our dogs in their places! He also tells them to sit or lay down & will reward them when they've done what he wants. Of course half they time they don't understand him either!!

Lucas (DS20mo) has always been very advanced in his understanding of speech but is only NOW becoming more clear so we can actually understand what he's been trying to say all this time. He'll say things like "my cup is empty" but it comes out like "(gibberish) cup (gibberish) epti" or "the juice is all gone" comes out "jus (gibberish) all gon" or "daddy is outside" (at work) and it comes out like "dada us ousie!" and sometimes he just stands in the middle of the room and screams non-sense at you . Most of the time I get one or two words out, and his stories usually relate to the dogs, but most of the time you just have to smile & nod then try to answer him (or he gets VERY upset!).

I used to try to teach him to pronounce things properly and it ended up in him running around the house obsessively trying to get words right "C... C... C... TraCtor..." etc. So I stopped doing that & we're just waiting until he gets things right on his own time .

I have the feeling once he does get started it's never going to stop...

I joke all the time now, he's like living with the Swedish Chef form the muppets. He's fully convinced he's talking (and probably is) and also expects you to understand him but at the end of the day most of it is still gibberish!

Yeppers. DD has been saying, "I did it!" since 12 months.

At 16 months she ran away from me at the store, looking at me, saying, "I'll be right back!" The shopowner and shoppers laughed out loud.

It's a fun time to find out what they're thinking.

This made me chuckle, because we felt the same way about our first son (now 6), who was reading aloud the numbers on speed limit signs when he was 15 mos, and chapter books when he was 4. He was an early communicator, signing at about 9 months and talking very clearly from about a year on. For a while we just thought that's how all kids are; then we were blown away when we started comparing him to the "normal" developmental milestones.

Our youngest son, now 22 mos, has showed the same early talking (but not decoding of letters/numbers yet). He has problems pronouncing some consonants (G, K and R), so sometimes others can't understand him (in fact sometimes even I have to get DS6 to translate ). But he was using 3-5 word phrases at about 17 mos and is talking in full-blown sentences now. It's been really fun to see his language blossom so rapidly.

Toddlers understand A LOT... way before they can say it, they can understand what you're saying to them. So if you have a bright one, I have no doubt your child is absorbing whole phrases and learning the appropriate places to use them. You're not imagining things!

And the old trick where the adults in the room would simply spell out any words they didn't want the children to understand? Well -- it stopped working for us a few months after he turned three.

LOL I understand that one. We use ridiculously complicated ways of saying things instead, but we have to change them frequently. For example: Crimson Crustacean was Red Lobster for awhile (favorite restaurant), Frozen dairy confection = ice cream, outdoor recreation facility = park, etc...

DS9mo uses "bub" (usually with a schwa of some description on the end) to mean "yay," as well as boob. This started about the same time as "mama" started to mean me, rather than "I'm angry, fix it."

He's all over the map, linguistically. I heard what may have been a phrase recently, and he regularly has "breakthrough" words, which are clear, in context, and kinda cool. But at the same time, he's got a thread of totally standard development, including the slow evolution of "mama," "dada," "hi," and so on.

Actually, he seems generally to follow a pattern like that with everything. It's as if he's reading ahead or something, trying out things from the end od the chapter while consolidating the beginning.

hmmmm.... now I have a question... but that's [robably for anothr thread...

Ah yes, this has been our experience as well. My only issue now is trying to remember what secret code is for what!