Talk-talk

Today

It's always fascinating when children learn to talk. They approach the problem in such a variety of ways and at very different ages, too. Carmen has a few words now and she definitely uses them to communicate directly, rather than merely repetitively. Ask her where her rocking horse is and she'll point and say "there!" in triumphant tones. She'll point to her duck unprompted and say "duck!" as though she's never noticed it before. and tell you "no" if she doesn't want to be moved or eat more food.

In My Day

When Lizzie was a baby, I'm not sure that I had any expectations as to how and when she would learn to speak. Few of my friends had children the same age and Lizzie was the oldest of her cousins.

I don't know how she learnt the significance of the phrase "what's that?" but when she was about sixteen months she would point at an object and say "wassat?" We would give her the answer, e.g "dog".  She would carefully copy it then move on to the next thing that caught her eye - "Wassat?" "butterfly." That was a bit of a poser, so she would ask again "wassat?" to make sure she'd heard us correctly. This would continue until she'd mastered the word and could carry on to the next and so on.

I don't think I've ever seen a child make such a determined effort to amass a vocabulary. It was as though her brain had suddenly realised that, if you can talk, the world is your oyster. Somewhere I have a letter from Daddy after a visit to Dorking, in which he describes his delight in observing how Lizzie hoovered up words. In a very short time she had a vocabulary of several hundred words and it was then a short step to putting them together to form sentences. I also remember how hard she worked to try to say the word "Ambulance" when Paul joined the service in 1977.

And, of course, she was right; with all those words at her command she could ask for things, engage in conversations, enjoy bedtime stories at a new level and be understood.  She is still a vivid talker with a large vocabulary and can make her point verbally with emphasis.

I feel sure that Carmen who is observant and has good powers of concentration will soon make that leap into proper conversation. I can't wait!