Language Explosion!

Within the last month, Griffin has gone from very little language and communication abilities to regularly communicating his needs, desires, frustrations, and knowledge.  We have been signing (on and off) with him since he was 4 months old, and I was just about ready to throw in the towel, calling it a failed experiment, at around 12 months.  BUT, I am so, so glad that we stuck with it now because we are really reaping loads of benefits from all the effort over the past months.  It was as if, all of a sudden, signing "clicked" in his mind, and it has been non-stop from there.  Oliver and I really want to record what he is learned just in the past few weeks, and I'll do that by adding to the list I made for his 13 month blog post, putting newly learned items in bold.  As of today, our 13 month old little man knows how to say 38 words via either speaking or signing.  Just from what I can see that he recognizes, in addition to the words he can "say," he understands/recognizes 30 more words!  So, in what seems like overnight, he has developed a catalog of almost 70 words!!  Clearly, I am gushing...I am just so proud of him!  And I am so glad and thankful that others encouraged us to use sign language with Griffin.  Of course, I would highly recommend it to anyone else out there.  If you're interested in signing with your baby/toddler, we started off with a book called Baby Signing 123, which uses actual ASL.

 

An invaluable resource is the My Smart Hands website, which has a video dictionary of signs.  Basically, a mom videotaped herself and her children making each regularly used sign.  This is super helpful because pictures of the signs only go so far.  You kind of need to see them acted out in real life to understand what they're actually supposed to look like.  Also, we've recently ordered the Volume 1 DVD of Baby Signing Time, which gets RAVE reviews.  It's been highly recommended to me personally by other moms who have used it as well.

Anyway, I could go on and on and on about all of this [obviously...sorry!], but I thought I should probably get around to actually including the list I came on here to blog about hah.  Here it is!

A.  Words

1. mama
2. dada
3. dog
4. duck
5. cat
6. meow
7. hi
8. night-night (nie-nie)
9. bye-bye
10. bird
11. juice 
12. kitty-kitty-kitty (imitating me calling the cat)

B.  Signs

1. hi
2. bye
3. light (also "light on" and "light off")
4. fan
5. more
6. please
7. good morning
8. eat
9. Jesus
10. bath
11. peeew! 
12. bubbles
13. dog (points to right forearm....I have NO CLUE where he got that, and it isn't the sign for dog in ASL, but...oh well!  Hahah)
14. bird
15. tree
16. orange
17. fish
18. book
19. baby
20. cereal
21. spoon
22. diaper
23. diaper change
24. I love you
25. spider
26. song/music
27. movie
28. ball
29. drink/cup
30. papa
31. hat
32. play 

C.  Can Recognize/Point to/Locate (not including the things he can sign/say)

1. toes
2. mouth (his and mine/other people's)
3. nose (mine/other people's)
4. weeble wobble
5. monkey
6. cow
7. horse
8. pig
9. zebra
10. elephant
11. cup
12. nuk
13. spoon
14. frog blanket
15. ear
16. hair
17. sock
18. shoe
19. hand 

D.  Recognizes & Will Do These Things When Asked

1. splash
2. jump
3. kiss (with a "mmmm" sound included haha)
4. blow
5. clap
6. smile
7. no touch
8. no bite
9. high five
10. How big is Griffin?  SO BIG!
11. sit down on your bottom
12. blow kisses
13. hug 
14. read