At about 15 months, Junior's words started to sound like words. He'd been clearly trying to communicate for a long time, but not managing to be consistent or very clear. While 'Daddy' has been around for a long time, and 'no' for slightly longer, other words appeared perfectly once, and then weren't heard again ('high five'). But over the last few weeks, at precisely the same time as he decided to learn to walk, his language seems to be making progress.
Words he says
Daddy
No
Muhmuh (dummy)
Car
'ank'oo (thank you)
Teef (teeth)
'es (yes)
Mama (Mummy)
Bok (book)
'oof (woof, means dog)
guh (hug)
At the same time, we've upped our use of signing as he has been so much slower than Pob at acquiring spoken language, and we are quite tired by the screaming that he uses to get what he wants most of the time.
Words he signs
Eat
More
Milk
Thank you/Please (the signs are so similar we don't really distinguish)
Hot
Bath
Brush teeth
All done
Bye bye
Up
We're trying to teach him the signs for toast, sorry, banana, book, and drink at the moment. Any suggestions as to what signs it would be helpful to add?
Go Junior!
No specific suggestions on which signs to teach him next. We tried teaching TK signs but he only caught on to a few. Much less than what Junior knows right now. And when his language skills started taking off at around 18 months or so we abandoned the signs. Probably just whatever signs that are necessary at the moment so Junior can express what he wants without going into a screamfest would be the ones I'd choose to teach next.
Posted by: Summer | Monday, 25 October 2010 at 15:07
Sleep was a helpful sign for us. Yay Junior!
Posted by: Lynnette | Monday, 25 October 2010 at 21:48
Yeah! The power of speech!!!
I'm glad he's making marked progress, because it is frustrating for him to know what he wants but not be able to tell you, and for you to hear him cry/scream in frustration.
We only used a few key signs, but they helped a lot.
Except some you've already mentioned, we also used:
- sleepy/nap
- book
- more (as in more food)
- give me
- hot
I tried to teach her the sign for pain, but that was too abstract.
Posted by: LutC | Monday, 25 October 2010 at 21:51
No advice. Just, AWWWWW.
Posted by: May | Monday, 25 October 2010 at 22:14
Girls are ridiculous, compared to boys. Given Mini's delays, It's hard for me to make a comparison, but by 15 months, she had so many words, it was beyond what is expected of her. She's lightyears ahead of the books suggestions, but he was so behind, I feel like it's averaged out.
And I just guess it's because she's a girl and they don't want to shut up, ever. It's kind of amazing to watch.
Posted by: statia | Tuesday, 26 October 2010 at 19:30
We failed signing, so no suggestions there, but gosh he seems to have a lot of words to say at 15 months! Makes me wish I remembered how much PB was saying at which age... but I can't and I don't think I wrote it down. Oh well, too late now. Yours both sound exceptionally well-developed to me!
Bea
Posted by: Bea | Wednesday, 27 October 2010 at 22:41