The other elbow. . .

So I'm going to just skip the fact that it's been almost three months since my last post, and get right down to it.


Del's language is out of control! Things change so much and so quickly, that I find myself marveling at something she just said or signed several times each day. She is an active and regular participant in all household conversations, and has demonstrated time and again that she has a very clear idea of who in the household can hear, and who cannot. Allow me to illustrate:


I was on the stairs putting my shoes on yesterday, and I saw her try to get her (deaf) grandma's attention from across the room by waving her hand. When grandma didn't notice her, Del got closer and waved her hand again. When that didn't work, Del walked right up to her and tapped her on the knee, then started signing to her as soon as grandma's eyes were all hers. Del did not "turn on" her voice once during this entire exchange, nor did she notice me watching. Shortly thereafter (so grandma tells me), Del was asked to summon me from the bathroom (behind a closed, locked door, where the other deaf members of the household couldn't communicate with me). From inside the bathroom, I heard a loud and clear tiny-lady voice call out "Abada! Abada!" as Del shouted my name (yes, my name, not "Mommy," has become her favorite of late). 


She is also a proficient lip-reader; when Grandma was mouthing a sentence without voice or signing that involved the word "cookie," Del managed to catch the word in a fast and long sentence with her attention mostly on her art work, and immediately pointed to the tin with Grandma's special Italian "cookies" (really, anise biscotti), and requested one with the signs "cookie. that. cookie. italian cookie. want." Are you shocked that she got one?


Del is constantly hungry for words and language, and will incorporate a new word or sign into her daily communication upon first exposure. She signs and talks to herself as she falls asleep, usually practicing a new sound or sequence of signs. Her latest favorite sign phrases are "Hmm. . . .idea!" and "Happy New Year." Her new favorite words are "Amanda (abada)" and "Love you to the moon (Loomanoo!)." And now for some more detail. . .


English
Receptively, Del is able to follow complex conversation, multi-step directions, and picks up on subtle humor and teasing. She is able to take a general inferred comment, and fill in the blanks easily on her own to solve a perceived problem. For example, if I'm cleaning up around the lunch table, I might say, "Yucky! Big pieces of gooey noodle all over the floor!" and Del will pick up some pieces and head straight for the garbage pail. Expressively, she now says the English word for most of the signs she uses, and she started combining two words into phrases about a month ago (~20 months).


The "typical" two-word phrases seen early in English language development include:

• Attributive: 'big house'
• Agent-Action: 'Daddy hit'
• Action-Object: 'hit ball'
• Agent-Object: 'Daddy ball'
• Nominative: 'that ball'
• Demonstrative: 'there ball'
• Recurrence: 'more ball'
• non-existence: 'all-gone ball'
• Possessive: 'Daddy chair'
• Entity + Locative: 'book table'
• Action + Locative: 'go store'

Del has used all of these combinations in some way or another with ASL, and because she is now usually voicing while she signs (unless mommy isn't home), I hear her saying these phrases as well. I think her favorite category is "possessive." She loves to label whose chair, cup, food, clothes, and shoes belong to whom. She thinks that by knowing how to sign "mine," she will magically be provided with each and every thing she desires. Fortunately we are doing our best to prevent her from running amok with her behavior just because she thinks she's clever!


My favorite recent example of her constantly amusing language growth is from the other night, after Del had bathed and I was getting her ready for bed. She wanted to put on her own lotion, so I let her do it herself while I put away laundry. She was talking herself through the routine: "Arm (aaam), hand (haaan), elbow (ebow), other elbow (uduh ebow)." Other elbow? Seriously Del? I'm pretty sure that's how I responded. Of course with a big grin on my face. She is just too much sometimes!


I sincerely believe that Del wouldn't be talking as much and as well as she is if she didn't also sign. It's not something I can prove, but simply watching how the lightbulb goes off when she makes a linguistic connection and seeing how that lightbulb moment directly impacts the signs and words she uses - it amazes me to no end! 


I have a lot of great videos to share, which I will post soon with more updates on her ASL. Toodle-oo! 

Animal Noises!

(many thanks  to Sandra Boyton for writing one of our favorite books: Moo, Baa, La La La).

And a mad sprint to catch all of us up to the present!

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.

Signing in the Park and Moon

Hi there. Here are the videos I am always promising! 

 

Time Warp

Good afternoon! From where I sit, there are two fluffy white clouds floating in a picture-book blue sky, with a few rooftops, palm and eucalyptus trees scattered about. I can't see the traffic on the busy street two houses away, but i can hear buses and cars passing, as well as the ubiquitous sirens off in the distance of downtown. Inside it's quiet; both Del and Daddy F are napping. Boxes and random "to-be-packed" items crowd the room in which I sit. It's an interesting feeling, living in limbo. There is a buzzing of excitement about all the new and unknown heading our way, while concurrently we are busy and exhausted packing our lives away and attempting to see "everything" before we depart. There is never, ever enough time to do it all. But that is okay. It provides me the opportunity to re-evaluate my priorities. I strive to strike a balance that will indeed get us through this massive transition, but with less stress, fewer meltdowns (mine, not Del's), and more adventure.

Speaking of adventure, what could be more adventurous than a blog about language!? Let's get down to it, shall we?

ENGLISH
For the "official" record, Del is 15 months tomorrow. All of the new information has been acquired since my last post on May 30th. What this translates to for me is astonishment that there is far too much to share here from the few short weeks since I last wrote. The speed at which the earth turns round the sun while watching your child grow, lordy! And I digress (as usual). . .

Del still babbles in conversational style, and lately engages in a lot of mimicry. She likes to copy me as I play around with different consonant and vowel combinations, and she loves to sing. She really enjoys the velar sounds /k/ and /g/ lately, and discovered /p/ a few days ago as we popped bubbles in the bath. She still greets the world with her exuberant "hi!" and she approximates the name of Neighbor Baby and has said a word that sounds very close to "cow" several times while playing with her magnet barnyard animals. She follows two step commands consistently, and sometimes follows three-step commands (without me also simultaneously signing) such as "Del, go over to the couch, get Grinch, and bring him to Daddy." She can identify over fifty animals and objects in English, which she shows by pointing to pictures or signing what I say. Her receptive skills in English seem to have caught up to her ASL, but her expressive skills in ASL blow the few verbal words she has out of the park. Let's talk more about that.

ASL
I believe Del has entered what some people refer to as the fast-mapping part of her ASL acquisition. A theory of cognitive psychology, fast-mapping describes when a child needs only one receptive exposure to a symbol (be it a word or a sign) to memorize it, integrate it, and then use it expressively. It has happened countless times in the last week or two when Del signs something (such as "clock" or "walrus") that neither of us recall overtly teaching to her. She is picking up on so much and storing the information so quickly, that when she uses signs to show us what she knows, she's already five steps ahead of us! This theory of fast-mapping applies to language acquisition in young native speakers of any language, and generally tries to account for the massive explosion of vocabulary in children as they learn to communicate. For spoken languages, this tends to occur roughly between 18 months and somewhere between 2-3 years of age (see here for information and research on fast mapping).

Signs added in the last couple of weeks:
 - cell phone: open B hand to ear with "ba ba ba" vocalizations
 - watermelon: one hand tapped on opposite back of hand
 - shhh: one finger aside the nose
 - girl: open B against chin repeatedly
 - caterpillar: alternate between one and X finger (correct production)
 - sirens: open/close all fingers on both hands (correct production)
 - pizza: open B against mouth
 - outside: open/close all fingers one hand (correct production)
 - work: S hand on opposite wrist (correct production)
 - time: one hand on opposite wrist (correct production)
 - pasta sauce: one hand twisted against cheek (same sign as for applesauce!)
 - walrus: two open B hands, fingers against mouth then away
 - hot: open 5 hand at mouth then away
 - show me: one hand with finger in middle of opposite palm, both hands coming towards body

Del's signs for "mom" and "dad" are now signed correctly, with open 5 hands at the chin and forehead, respectively. She mouths "mom" when she signs it, but doesn't yet say it consistently.

Caught in the act

Well hello there.

Today is Memorial Day and a day of perfectly American contradictions. The celebration of a day free from work and obligation, and families gathering for picnics under the sun is supposed to be about a day of remembrance for all the soldiers lost and injured in the wars of our country. Even here, in our heavily militarized and armed-forces-supporting city of San Diego, Memorial Day is called the "unofficial start of summer," when hordes of people start their yearly pilgrimage to our famous beaches. Hardly the grandiose remembrance our fallen soldiers likely imagined receiving.

I feel a tide of change coming fast and strong in our family, and we are doing our best to prepare little by little, day by day. Soon we will head to the mountains and claim a new home for ourselves; it seems yet another birthday of mine is rife with the major changes that are peppered throughout my life. I've spent two birthdays on airplanes (one coming home from months in Ghana), and another in Buenos Aires, two days before boarding a plane back stateside after five months abroad. Change is inevitable. Change is good. Change is what keeps our lives exciting and alive. But change is a lot of work, especially with a curious, fast, and impish toddler imprinting the process with her gigantic presence.

Speaking of that toddler, here are a few recent-ish videos of Del signing. I've combined them together for a quick montage, and. . .(drum roll please) I finally figured out a simple way to add text to the videos! For someone as technologically challenged as myself, I'm pretty proud of this accomplishment. To view them, you need a browser that is NOT Firefox, and you will need to watch the video in YouTube instead of imbedded here.

Along the lines of the videos, Del has added yet more words to her ASL vocabulary. In a nutshell, here are what I recall off the top of my head: baby, horse, sheep, deer, cow, frog, cool, strawberry, brush, fish, airplane, car, dance/music, hear

My current favorite sign is for "flower," which she produces with a "1" handshape, fingertip firmly INSIDE of her nose, and with a rotation of the wrist. She makes location and handshape errors sometimes, and still gets some categories a little confused. She's trying to make sense of the subtle differences between dogs and cats, and continues to insist that chihuahuas are cats, no matter how many times we tell her otherwise.

In English, Del now has four words and one animal sound. She says "hi," "dada," "mama," (rare) "bye bye" and "oooo" (moo). She says "oooo" for horses and cows so we still have some kinks to work out. She understands most two step commands in English as well as ASL now, and continues to surprise me with the depth of her comprehension. I love how her ASL usage gives me better insight into her understanding of what goes on around her, and reinforces the idea that children are much, MUCH smarter than most of us tend to give them credit for.

Enjoy the videos, and as always, I openly encourage you to share your thoughts!

Del adds "mama" to BOTH her languages!

Hallelujah! At long last "mama" has crossed the lips of my dear child, and a sign has emerged to refer to me that does not look exactly like "milk." The sign came a few days ago in the form of a "1" sign produced around the cheek/jaw area. Del said "mama" for the first time just today ("today" was April 27th) while holding her arms for me to pick her up. I started celebrating like a fool but couldn't help it; there's just something magical about your baby calling you mama for the very first time.

I've gone through and made some lists and organized things a bit so they make more sense from a developmental point of view. I've categorized Del's ASL signs to date by handshape as much as possible so that it's easier to see the correlation between her fine motor development and her manual language bursts. Typically, the first handshape babies use when learning ASL is the "open hand" or "5 hand." This handshape can be manipulated as soon as the child is able to extend the fingers open from the palm.

Although it's not clear if motor development always drives language development or vice versa with respect to manual language learners (although I'm inclined to believe it works both ways, as with most things in this world), it's pretty simple to see that when babies start to use their hands to talk, the (proto-)signs used do not require a great deal of skill. As the signing child improves her nonlinguistic dexterity (for example, extending an index finger from a closed fist to perhaps pick a nostril), the handshapes that start to emerge for signing are naturally derived from these new and more complex physical abilities.

In that line of thinking, something that I am very curious about is whether children who sign tend to have accelerated fine motor development. For example, I wonder if children who are born into signing families master a motor milestone such as the pincer grasp sooner than children who learn only spoken languages. For a signing child, the motivation for such developments is doubled, meaning: the pincer grasp, in addition to being an excellent blueberry-nabbing tool, is also a linguistic handshape for many useful signs in ASL (a.k.a. the "G" handshape).

Now, back to the matter "at hand" (so to speak). . .

Del's ASL as of April 27th, 2011 (13 months, 11 days)

"5"

"hi" "please" "tree" "cheese" "more(2)" "thank you" "bye-bye" "want(1)" "finish (all done)" "don't want" "sleep(2)" "high-five!"

"Open A"

"milk"

"1"

"daddy" "mommy" "water" "where?" "what's that? (pointing)" "sleep(1)" "more(1)"

"G"

"more(3)" "birdie" "pick up" 

 "Curved Hand"

"share" "change" 

 "Claw 5"

"basketball" "ball" "want(2)"

 "Flat B"

"doggie"

The words with numbers next to them indicate either two different variations on a sign, or a sign that uses two different handshapes (such as "1" pointed into the palm of "5" to indicate "more," compared with two "G" handshapes meeting at the fingertips for the same meaning). The handshapes are produced in different locations with various different movements for the words listed. Some of her handshapes are not precise yet, such as her "claw 5," which is produced with slightly less "clawing" than seen in the photo above. However, the 6 handshapes that she uses so far are visually distinct from one-another, and are used consistently to communicate a surprising variety of words (26!!).  There are a couple Del-invented signs that cannot be described simply, such as "poop" and "don't want." I will do my best to capture these more intricate Del-isms on video to share what they look like.

Del continues to link two signs together in multiple different ways, typically with "more (insert food or drink)" or "where (mommy/daddy/milk)?" She uses the head shake "no" as a linguistic tool, for example pointing to the fridge for me to open it and then waiting as I list things inside as she either points and smiles to indicate, "that's what I want!" or shakes her head no. My favorite new development is when we ask Del if she is ready to go to sleep. She will either shake her head no or point to the bedroom and sign "sleep." This has alleviated so much nap-time and bedtime drama in recent weeks, and the pure fact that she has a role in the decision seems to make her that much more eager to drift off to la-la land.

Speaking of la-la land, that's where I am heading! Until next time, happy signing/talking/singing/sharing/speaking/listening/loving! Good night.