Sep 01
Monday’s Child - Words
I know that Monday’s Child is usually a photo, but to catch everyone up on Caspar, words are required, not a picture.
He is talking. A lot.
And very well considering.
Now is the time that I am supposed to be taking him to see a speech pathologist (which is another thing on my current to-do list) for an assessment and, because of his cleft palate, speech therapy was something that I expected to be part of our lives for quite some time. Now, I’m not so sure. The way he is going I can’t imagine that he will require anything more than a little monitoring.
To my untrained ears there doesn’t seem to be any evidence of a lisp or a nasal quality - common difficulties with a cleft - or any indication that his language skills have been affected by those first nine months of hearing difficulties before he had his surgery. (Seeing the audiologist for a checkup is another job on my list but he knows there is an aeroplane nearby before I do, so I think his hearing is better than mine.)
The clarity and intelligibility of his speech is better than some older children I know. (Of course, that could be because he’s mine so the speech pathologist gets to give her educated opinion.) His vocabulary is good too, well and truly in the triple figures and increasing every day. That, however, is somewhat sobering because occasionally I talk like Magneto Bold Too writes (I blame working in hospitality - Gordon Ramsey is not an anomaly) and on Thursday, one of those new words was “Fuck”. My friend and I managed not to laugh and I, sarcastically innocently, said, “I have no idea where he picked that up”.
And last week he brought me his Schleich (I love Schleich!) velociraptor and when he handed it to me he said, “Raptosaurus”. I thought that was genius. For him to be unsure of the exact word, but to categorise the figurine correctly and to choose an appropriate word ending…
In all seriousness, the way humans acquire language is a beautiful and amazing thing.
September 1st, 2008 at 9:09 pm
What a delight!
September 1st, 2008 at 9:30 pm
It’s great to read you again. That’s awesome that your son is doing so well. I think the colourful language is standard now, if my own homelife and that of students I hear is anything to go by! I remember when my kids were quite young having the conversation, you know the words, now you need to know when to use them. They were perceptive and intentional in their language use. It was just when they were toddlers that a few inappropriate ‘F’ bombs were dropped on the unsuspecting. A funny consequence for me for my modelling!
September 2nd, 2008 at 6:50 pm
Rosemary - I agree wholeheartedly!
Joh - Thank you! And yes, my interest is more in the way those words get used, rather than a problem with the words themselves. There won’t be any discussion about some words being “bad”, but I will be trying to teach him to be considerate/respectful of other people. As for modelling - it’s rather interesting to hear what what my little parrot picks up on!
September 8th, 2008 at 7:07 am
My sons beginning to talk now too, he’s nearly two now and the speach is getting clearer day by day (not that you’d understand him as he speaks swedish) so I know what your saying about how wonderful our ability to learn a language is. I must question your top left “bio”, it says 1 year old, could it be that that information is a bit old?
September 8th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
lol, My younger son had speech delay …. Struggled with most words…. the ONE time, I am pulling off his poopy pull up and mutter ‘Oh Sh*t’ and guess what word he said for a very very long time……
September 9th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
Hi Perrow! Yes, that info definitely needs updating. He’ll be 2 next month, so our boys are of a similar age. Thannk you for the link, by the way.
@ Widdle Shamrock - They latch on to the interesting words, don’t they? The other day we were visiting friends and they decided Cas looked like the kid from The Sixth Sense so tried to get him to say, “I see dead people.” He met the new neighbours a day later and said, “Dead people! Dead people!”
September 9th, 2008 at 6:25 pm
As my son’ll be two at the end of next month I’d say they’re of quite similar age
As for teaching them disturbing things to say, you’re aussies so you absolutely must teach your son what all the animals sounds like…
… especially the shark…
… dum dum, dum dum, dum dum (ie theme from Jaws).
September 10th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Wow Cas is doing so well with his speech.Well done.Fun times as they are so amusing learning new words.One of my boys is a little slower than the other in new words otherwise we are having a language explosion here as well as screeching !
I will have to watch my language now …especially when driving.
Glad to see you back.
September 11th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
Wow Cas is doing so well with his speech.Well done.Fun times as they are so amusing learning new words.One of my boys is a little slower than the other in new words otherwise we are having a language explosion here as well as screeching !
September 12th, 2008 at 9:48 pm
It is great to know he is doing good with speech, and doesn’t have any serious problems. With your plan for his improvement in that field i am sure everything with perfect and i nplace.
Good luck!
September 13th, 2008 at 9:31 am
@ Perrow - LOL. We Aussies are a disturbing bunch.
@ Trish - I’ve had a few driving incidents myself. Especially with tailgators. I have to drive really slowly over all the local speedbumps because of my sister’s spinal injury and the things people do! Makes me so mad. With Cas, I’m getting squealing instead of screeching but haven’t had much luck yet in suggesting he save that for the park.
@ Katy - Thank you. It is great.
September 19th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
Wow Cas is doing so well with his speech.Well done.Fun times as they are so amusing learning new words.One of my boys is a little slower than the other in new words otherwise we are having a language explosion here as well as screeching !
September 30th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
Hi Alvina - sorry for delayed response. Language explosion is definitely the right description. And they become such parrots too. My sister’s step kids are older and they have fun getting him to repeat things.
January 5th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
Its great to hear about you that you need to have some thing gained knowledge here..Thanks for the updates on new topics..