Notes on language development

December 18, 2007

While Alex’s language skills are no where close to some of the girls in our parenting group, he has made some notable strides recently. He’ll occasionally say two or three word “sentences,” he seems to understand possessives, and you can now ask him open ended (instead of yes/no) questions.

For example, he’ll now pick up his coat and say, “Alex’s coat!” On Sunday, on our way to a meeting with our parenting group, he repeated “Esme’s house” over (and over and over).

This morning, I got him to say “Alex eats apple.”

Our old modus operandi understand Alex was to ask him a series of yes/no questions. “Do you want milk? Do you want water?” We could also motivate him to go to daycare by asking him who he’ll see. “Are you going to see Rhiannon? Are you going to see Alexa? Are you going to see Devon?” This week, I asked him instead, “Who are you going to see?” His answer: “Rhiannon.”

“Who else?”

“Mimi.” (She’s one of the teachers in one of the other toddler rooms.)

“Who else?”

“Mimi.”

Mimi was his answer the next three times I asked him, too. He really likes Mimi!