SpeechUpdate

The update on Abbie’s speech is: Not much. She still isn’t really talking. She’s making some more sounds, but the only word she really says is still “muh” for “more.” She’s way behind where the development charts say a 20-month-old should be. She should have a vocabulary of at least a few words and as many as 100 spoken words by now, plus the standards like “mama” and “dada,” and she should be telling me “no” frequently. Lack of speech isn’t entirely without benefits.

Her signs are coming along much better. She recently added bird to her repertoire, which for her involves flapping her arms up and down like a bird. She doesn’t look exactly like a bird though since she flaps her arms out in front of her instead of at her sides, like she’s imitating a bird with a major neurological disorder. She also recently started signing cat, which involves sliding a finger across the cheek like you’re tracing a whisker, except Abbie starts her finger at the corner of her mouth and rips is almost straight down like she’s imitating a cat with a huge frown, possibly because it just discovered that the bird it caught suffers from a major neurological disorder.

She’s even made her first two-word sentence using signs. That sentence is “fish on,” as in she wants us to turn on the fish mobile on the twins’ swing. The swing used to belong to Abbie, and she hated it when she could still fit in it. Most children find a swing’s gentle rocking motion soothing; Abbie found her swing to be an inadequate substitute for mom or dad’s arms. The fish mobile directly above the seat might have helped soothe her at the time, but she never even noticed it. Now that she can’t fit in it, the mobile is her favorite toy, and she’s not shy about telling us to turn it on. First thing in the morning, I see “fish on.” While changing her diaper, Abbie will furiously tell me “fish on,” letting me know which activity she would most prefer to having her bottom wiped. At mealtimes, she occasionally says “fish on” instead of more, though to be fair she may just be asking for Goldfish crackers, which are tastier than her mobile though less musical.

Even more encouraging is her ability to identify objects when asked, or “receptive communication.” While paging through her books, she will point to just about any objects when asked, especially if it’s animal related: Dogs, cats, fish. She still confuses guinea pigs and mice, but at least she identifies that they’re both rodents. She can even identify colors in one of her books when asked, though I think she just memorized the colors’ locations.

Most impressive was her ability to return a torn flap to its original location. One of her books had a flap that simply said “whale” on it that fell out, and by “fell out” I mean “was torn out.” She pulled this abandoned flap out of her book box, immediately pulled out the correct book, immediately opened the book to the correct page, and immediately put the flap back in its original “whale” spot. She’s showing a very good memory at this age, and that’s very encouraging. I’m sure she’ll start talking someday soon. As long as she never remembers she’s supposed to tell me “no” a lot, these toddler years shouldn’t be too bad.