Not In Kansas Anymore (NIKA)

Language Explosion

The explosion of Dorothy's language abilities has been continuing, and we wanted to record her current state before she gets to the level of the high school debate team.

Below are new words she can say and/or sign (that she couldn't do as of the last report), and words that she now says that she only signed before (at least, these are the ones we can think of right now):

• Animals: Cat (pronounced "wahnwa"), bear, owl, dog, bird, deer, bunny, duck, fish, sheep, frog


• Food: Milk, water, cracker, cookie, cheese, apple


• Misc. objects: Socks, bus, bike, bah-bahl (for big/blue ball), diaper, frisbee, bathtub, slide, moon, Aquadoodle (said as "ahdoo"), block, door (she can say these last two very clearly)


• People: Dorothy, Meemom, Poopop (sounds like Boopah), Emma


• Abstract: Help, bye, outside, down, up, high five, please


• Compound words: Other (said "oh" as in "o-bear" and "o-sock"), more (e.g., she's now saying "more food" instead of just "more")

Some of these words are also used to name specific books. For example, the book "I Love You, Little One" has a picture of many animals in it, including deer, so she calls it the deer book ("dee"). And "More More More Said the Baby" is the "baby" book.

She also chatters on for long periods of time, although it's mostly babbling that we can't understand.

Dorothy knows many body parts. She can point to her head, hair, ears, eyes, nose, mouth, teeth, shoulders, belly button, knees, feet & toes. And she understands some colors pretty well. If you ask her to hand you the blue duck, etc., she usually gets it right.

It's pointless to try and list all the words she can understand, because 1) there are so many, and 2) she understands more than we realize. I'll see if I can collect anecdotes to give examples in a separate post, but here's just one to give you an idea. At the zoo yesterday, after lunch we'd put the remaining pieces of cheese on the front of her stroller for her to eat as we were going around. They stayed there for a little while, and I thought she was full. So I asked her if she was going to eat them, and got no response. I then commented that maybe I should throw them out, since they were getting soft in the sun. She immediately grabbed them and snarfed down the cheese before I could blink.

UPDATE: Additional words that we either forgot, or heard very clearly for the first time today, are: pizza, eye, teeth, open, rhino, and OK. Elizabeth figures that Dorothy is now learning to say almost one new word a day. :-O The avalanche is beginning...

Posted by Tom Nugent at August 30, 2005 11:55 AM