Friday, January 09, 2009

Language Development Update II

Kai's vocabulary, both spoken and signed, has expanded quite a bit since the last update. I'm amazed that when we first showed him the sign for 'apple' he immediately repeated it. Quite impressive, little bear. As you can see below, B & T appear to be his favorite consonants, though he has not yet mastered bat, bet, bit, bot or butt. If someone would like to place a wager on a competition between Kai with a stick and a robot that bites people in the rear, then perhaps he could learn them all in one go.

Update: Kai learned his first word in another language yesterday! Lampa, which means 'jump' in Sanskrit, is a word he's heard a lot because it's used in Lauren's Itsy Bitsy Yoga classes.

Words Kai Speaks (roughly in order)
  • Dada
  • Mama
  • Nurse
  • Truck
  • Up
  • Hat
  • Banana
  • That
  • Bees
  • Book
  • Back
  • Bye
  • Ball
  • Out
  • Bath
  • Baby
  • Toast
  • This
  • Bob
  • David
  • Lampa (Sanskrit for "jump")
Words Kai Signs
  • Nurse/Milk
  • All Done
  • Up
  • Down
  • Again
  • More
  • Yay! (okay, this is just clapping, but I think it counts)
  • Bye
  • Me
  • Rainbow (appears in his bedtime book)
  • Water
  • Door (Kai invented this one himself - he points to the door and makes a motion like he's twisting the doorknob)
  • Eat/Food
  • Diaper
  • Tickle
  • Sleep
  • Apple
  • Help (just learned today!)
In addition to speaking and signing, Kai gesticulates wildly, dances, bangs things together, and makes multiple vehicle sounds. He appears to have separate sounds for ground-based vs. flying machines. I've been trying to teach him to make a train noise (woo-woo!), but to no avail. I should probably take him to see an actual train with a whistle. Maybe that will do the trick.

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