These are the words Alex can currently communicate to us (communicating them to you is a completely different story… see below). Pronunciation obviously leaves to be desired (meeyoh is mellon, bee-ee is berry, woof is dog, and Gee-dee is his friend Gideon). Some, denoted with a *, are also signed. Some aren’t really said or signed so much as hinted at (for example, for elephant, he puts his hand up in front of himself like a trunk and makes his impression of an elephant trumpeting).
food*, drink*, one, two, grape, mama, daddy, bubble, more*, cheese, water, bath, bye-bye*, melon, apple, fire, elephant*, dog/woof, bird/caw, cat/meow, fish (goldfish ‘sound’), squirrel*, boots (and Boots), bacci (Italian for kiss) and kiss*, shoes, map, backpack*, banana, ball, block, siren* (wee-oh), socks, bus, pants, plane*, Gideon, truck, box, up*, down*, beer, book, away, close, change*, rain, candle, train, ear, eyes, nose, hair, mouth, teeth, crayon, berry, milk, star*, bolloon, hot*, cold*, stool, chair, stairs, Elmo, Nonno (Italian for grandfather), Nonna (Italian for grandmother), Lola (Filipino for grandmother), wow, dance, light, on, off, done*, flower, horse, cow/moo, sheep/baa, wash, no, yes, hi / hello*, slide, swing, duck, thank you*, belt, boo-boo (hurt). That’s just what we could think of off the top of our heads today. There’s probably more.
He understands a lot more than that. Among other things:
Turn the page. Pick up ___. Bring me ___. Turn. Tired. Belly button. Show. Point. What sound does a ___ make? Eat (duh). Stop. Come. Change diaper. Clothes. In / out. Wait. Close. Open. Where is the ___? How remote controls work. Forks and spoons.
He also sings along to the Muppets Muh-nah Muh-nah song. He does the mamamamama sound, while we do the do-do-do-do-do. :-)
Some people claim that if they don’t understand what Alex is saying then we shouldn’t count that as a word. I disagree. Let’s say my English vocabulary is 10,000 words. If I know a word that you don’t understand, does that mean that the word shouldn’t count? I speak 2 other languages. Do those 20,000 words not count if you don’t speak those languages?
Tags: milestones, semantics, vocabulary
When I babysat the other day, I was expecting to have a hard time understanding him since I’m not around him much (for instance, I can tell what “baba” means from Douglas usually, but that’s mostly because I’m with him a lot) but I found that Alex was really good at communicating things. Maybe it’s that I’m used to being around a child of the same age, so even though they have different vocab, some of the same translation skills apply.
[...] Both parts of Muh-nah muh-nah. [...]