Is this normal? Ds saying words but not likely to know the meaning???

[aliceinwonderland]

He's so good at reapeating words after you say them, but when you point to said object, he won't say the word. To date, he has repeated after us "water", "banana" "apple" "cookie", "hello", "doggy", etc. but when you show him an apple, etc. he will not neccesarily say the word. Also, he will not *always* repeat (some of the above have been one time occurances). He's also a very stubborn kid: he knows several signs (has used many when much younger), but yet refuses to use them now as he can get what he wants in other ways and I don't want to get into a power struggle about this. He also has entire conversations, with tone, pointing etc. that noone understands but he looks at us like we should.

Thoughts?? He's a 14 month old boy who is spoken to in two different languages everyday.

thanks in advance.

[kath68]

Sounds totally normal to me. I wouldn't worry; he has all the pieces (understanding, production, intonation, interest in communicating, etc.). It is just a matter of time until he puts them all together at the same time. My guess is that when he does, he will do it at a very advanced level.

FWIW, ds will repeat words, but never when we want him to. He also has these fabulous conversations with us, and I have no idea what he is saying. I think you are right not to make a power struggle issue out of it. It would just feed into the toddler desire to say "no" to anything and everything.

[Wife_and_mommy]

There better not be anything wrong with your DS! My DD does the exact same things! ;)

It's all a very normal part of their speech development so nothing to worry about. :) DD has yet to speak any Spanish to me. She understands it but I think I use too much English due to my horrible Spanish-speaking skills. Oh well!

He'll be asking you questions until your head wants to explode soon enough so enjoy these nonsensical conversations he's having now! :)




Elizabeth

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Our second morsel due early February 2006!

[aliceinwonderland]

My DS does the same thing!! Will repeat when he feels like it (say, the first dog we encounter on our walk), but five minutes later, you see another dog and say "doggy??" and he just looks at you and gives you a coy smile I have labelled "I don't have to proove anything to you!". LOL :)

[elliput]

>and he just looks at you and gives you a coy smile

And he is thinking, "Yeah, Mom, it's a dog. You catch on quick!" ;-)

[aliceinwonderland]

LOL! You are probably 100% right!!

[kim_d]

Sounds normal to me. My 2.5 year old was like that. I remember at his 18 month appt the ped asking me if he spoke 15 words and I literally counted the words he had said (some of them only once or repeated after DH or I said it) and it was exactly 15. By 2 years old he was speaking in 2-3 word sentences and now is very advanced (at least according to his ped).

Kim
Mom to Liam Boyer (11.29.02) &
Jameson Keelyn (10.28.04)

[kath68]

Charlie just had his 15 mo. appt and the doc asked if he had any words. I guessed that he had about 10 (and that counts "meow" for cat, used primarily when he is mercilessly chasing the cat around the house). He said he looks for 2-3 words by 15 mos. That's pretty consistent with your ped's view.

Forgive me for the proud mommy moment, but when I later discussed it w/ the daycare provider, we concluded that DS has more like 20 words, counting liberally ("sssss" for shoe counts in my book). He knows the names of people at daycare and she identified some words I didn't -- down, outside. Pretty cool! He'll even say "red ball" and "blue ball" and get it right for the ball he is looking at. All of this language development only really started after he got his walking under control. It is like he can only focus on one skill at a time.

[linsei]

Yep that is what ds is doing. Everything has to be on his terms! He does repeat quite a bit of what we say, right after we say the word. He still babbles things on his own.

It sounds like he is speaking a foreign language, but in our case, it's not. He thinks we should understand what he's saying all the time; but mostly, I don't. He does repeat the same thing over again, in hopes that I will understand. Maybe someday I'll figure it out and I'll have a duh momment when I actually understand what he's been saying because it will be sooooo obvious.

For now, I think my ds is primarly doing a lot of immitating. He carries the phone around and says "hello?... ello?... ello?... ello?..." He says "yes" but says it when he means no - and lots of somewhat inappropriate stuff like that. For the most part, his tone sounds much like ours - kinda scary! ;)

Linda



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