Hello!
So much has changed in our lives since I last shared with you. In the last months, we have uprooted Del from her first home wedged between Mexico, the Pacific Ocean, and vast desert, and transplanted her at the meeting place of the Great Plains and the rockin' Rocky Mountains. It's been a heck of a time, and all signs point to "yes!" we absolutely made the right choice.
And of course, in the meantime, Del has continued to grow and astound us. She's now a week shy of 18 months old, and is growing into an incredibly affectionate, silly, curious, active and LOUD child! Despite her skills with signing, this little lady LOVES to yell and make loud noises, and she definitely celebrates the wonderful and delicious (and shocked!) reactions she gets out of people when she lets loose with one of her trademark screeches.
As far as her language, all I can say is that it has absolutely exploded. Her sign vocabulary grows by two or more signs every day. Del will look for something in her environment or in a book that she doesn't yet know the sign to, and she'll ask for the sign. It only takes one exposure for her to try it out herself and to commit it to memory (see fast mapping from a previous post); she will also now watch us carefully and correct her production in some ways to more closely approximate the correct ASL sign.
As a hearing mother of a hearing child who signs, I often am asked, "does she talk?" The assumption many people have is that if she can sign, she has little motivation to use her voice. But the reality that I've witnessed with Del so far is that she is talking more than I expected at this age, and that her signing seems to encourage her to use her voice. The way I understand it, she has learned the concept of language and the power of communication with ASL. She understands that a sign represents a thing, and that if she signs that thing - "JUICE," for example - she will likely be rewarded with her desired treat. Having that knowledge with sign, she can then somewhat easily make the jump to recognize that spoken words have the same function as signs. Her mind seems to grasp the concept that more language means more ways to ask for stuff and get what she wants! Lately is seems Del tries to vocalize with most of her signs, and it's been fun trying to keep track of all the new words she's added in the last month or so.
ASL
I will probably miss quite a few, but here are most of the signs that Del knows to date. Some might be repeats from previous posts; between moving, starting new jobs, and not having a laptop to work on (until yesterday!), it's been pretty impossible for me to keep detailed logs!
in absolutely NO particular order:
towel
train
paint
ambulance
airplane
shower
ball
car
drive
bear
frog
rabbit
deer
octopus
bug
caterpillar
bee
butterfly
pig
banana
peach
plum (proto-fingerspelling)
grapes
orange
work
bread
peanut butter (first compound)
chair
sit
food
eat
hungry
tired
beer
elephant
owl
giraffe
thirsty
horse
rooster
open
pickle
ride bike
mine
time
clock
park (first proto-fingerspelling)
apple
hat
Del (her namesign)
upstairs
up
stuck
grass
moon
pants
shirt
socks
boots
diaper
change
cry
laugh
sleep
glasses
lotion
shoes
sandals
coat
sheep
rain
table
home
outside
please
penguin
cat
cold
bark
shh
washing machine
cell phone
motorcycle
goat
shy
boat
soon
pillow
potty
pee
poop
bath
pizza
spicy
hurt
squirrel
light off
light on
want
crabby
monkey
tiger
lion
zebra
snake
pasta
smoothie
spin
walk
stroller
strawberry
play
dance
music
brush
toothbrush
fork
spoon
spider
whale
elbow
flower
knee
nose
teeth
ear
mouth
cheek
chin
hands
feet
belly button
vagina
penis
hair
butt
string
heart
umbrella
ice cream
juice
give (me)
share
dress
silly
delicious
kiss-fist
SIGN COMBINATIONS
brush teeth
brush hair
airplane flying
daddy driving
mommy driving
mommy work
daddy work
mommy sit
daddy sit
you sit there
daddy sleep
mommy sleep
baby sleep
my chair
more pasta
more pizza
pizza spicy
ENGLISH
Del has added a lot of new words just in the last couple of weeks. I haven't tried to put a number to them, but she's jumped from maybe 3-5 words to over 25 in such a short amount of time! Some of her words are (in no particular order):
mama
dada
dog
ball
bike
hot
chalk
socks
pants
please
cheese
shh
motorcycle
open
up
milk
more
bear
bug
bee
beer
stuck
eye
park
juice
water
chair
pasta
spicy
Del says the "noises" for dogs, monkeys, lions and sheep. She loves to be outside in any weather, and to color and spin in circles and dance to bluegrass music. She is extremely sensitive, and will sign CRY and make a sad face when she sees an injured grasshopper and asks for tape to fix broken crayons. Her ability to communicate so much to us has opened my eyes to the vast world that is the developing mind of a young child. I am so humbled in the presence of such raw curiosity!
To bed with me. . . I will post videos and pictures this weekend, because I finally have all of my data on one trusty and backed-up computer, so no more technological excuses!
Good night to you. My thoughts and prayers are with those whose lives were affected by the events that took place on this day, September 11th, 10 short years ago.
So much has changed in our lives since I last shared with you. In the last months, we have uprooted Del from her first home wedged between Mexico, the Pacific Ocean, and vast desert, and transplanted her at the meeting place of the Great Plains and the rockin' Rocky Mountains. It's been a heck of a time, and all signs point to "yes!" we absolutely made the right choice.
And of course, in the meantime, Del has continued to grow and astound us. She's now a week shy of 18 months old, and is growing into an incredibly affectionate, silly, curious, active and LOUD child! Despite her skills with signing, this little lady LOVES to yell and make loud noises, and she definitely celebrates the wonderful and delicious (and shocked!) reactions she gets out of people when she lets loose with one of her trademark screeches.
As far as her language, all I can say is that it has absolutely exploded. Her sign vocabulary grows by two or more signs every day. Del will look for something in her environment or in a book that she doesn't yet know the sign to, and she'll ask for the sign. It only takes one exposure for her to try it out herself and to commit it to memory (see fast mapping from a previous post); she will also now watch us carefully and correct her production in some ways to more closely approximate the correct ASL sign.
As a hearing mother of a hearing child who signs, I often am asked, "does she talk?" The assumption many people have is that if she can sign, she has little motivation to use her voice. But the reality that I've witnessed with Del so far is that she is talking more than I expected at this age, and that her signing seems to encourage her to use her voice. The way I understand it, she has learned the concept of language and the power of communication with ASL. She understands that a sign represents a thing, and that if she signs that thing - "JUICE," for example - she will likely be rewarded with her desired treat. Having that knowledge with sign, she can then somewhat easily make the jump to recognize that spoken words have the same function as signs. Her mind seems to grasp the concept that more language means more ways to ask for stuff and get what she wants! Lately is seems Del tries to vocalize with most of her signs, and it's been fun trying to keep track of all the new words she's added in the last month or so.
ASL
I will probably miss quite a few, but here are most of the signs that Del knows to date. Some might be repeats from previous posts; between moving, starting new jobs, and not having a laptop to work on (until yesterday!), it's been pretty impossible for me to keep detailed logs!
in absolutely NO particular order:
towel
train
paint
ambulance
airplane
shower
ball
car
drive
bear
frog
rabbit
deer
octopus
bug
caterpillar
bee
butterfly
pig
banana
peach
plum (proto-fingerspelling)
grapes
orange
work
bread
peanut butter (first compound)
chair
sit
food
eat
hungry
tired
beer
elephant
owl
giraffe
thirsty
horse
rooster
open
pickle
ride bike
mine
time
clock
park (first proto-fingerspelling)
apple
hat
Del (her namesign)
upstairs
up
stuck
grass
moon
pants
shirt
socks
boots
diaper
change
cry
laugh
sleep
glasses
lotion
shoes
sandals
coat
sheep
rain
table
home
outside
please
penguin
cat
cold
bark
shh
washing machine
cell phone
motorcycle
goat
shy
boat
soon
pillow
potty
pee
poop
bath
pizza
spicy
hurt
squirrel
light off
light on
want
crabby
monkey
tiger
lion
zebra
snake
pasta
smoothie
spin
walk
stroller
strawberry
play
dance
music
brush
toothbrush
fork
spoon
spider
whale
elbow
flower
knee
nose
teeth
ear
mouth
cheek
chin
hands
feet
belly button
vagina
penis
hair
butt
string
heart
umbrella
ice cream
juice
give (me)
share
dress
silly
delicious
kiss-fist
SIGN COMBINATIONS
brush teeth
brush hair
airplane flying
daddy driving
mommy driving
mommy work
daddy work
mommy sit
daddy sit
you sit there
daddy sleep
mommy sleep
baby sleep
my chair
more pasta
more pizza
pizza spicy
ENGLISH
Del has added a lot of new words just in the last couple of weeks. I haven't tried to put a number to them, but she's jumped from maybe 3-5 words to over 25 in such a short amount of time! Some of her words are (in no particular order):
mama
dada
dog
ball
bike
hot
chalk
socks
pants
please
cheese
shh
motorcycle
open
up
milk
more
bear
bug
bee
beer
stuck
eye
park
juice
water
chair
pasta
spicy
Del says the "noises" for dogs, monkeys, lions and sheep. She loves to be outside in any weather, and to color and spin in circles and dance to bluegrass music. She is extremely sensitive, and will sign CRY and make a sad face when she sees an injured grasshopper and asks for tape to fix broken crayons. Her ability to communicate so much to us has opened my eyes to the vast world that is the developing mind of a young child. I am so humbled in the presence of such raw curiosity!
To bed with me. . . I will post videos and pictures this weekend, because I finally have all of my data on one trusty and backed-up computer, so no more technological excuses!
Good night to you. My thoughts and prayers are with those whose lives were affected by the events that took place on this day, September 11th, 10 short years ago.
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