Chloe is two, and only recently really started picking up language. Our doctor tells me this is within the normal range, as long as she continues to progress.
But damn, it’s driving me nuts. She doesn’t say the ends of any words (with two exceptions), and only says one syllable. So “she” means she, sheep, and fishy. “Stah” means star,stairs, stop, stuck, and (for some unknown reason) “pick me up and carry me over there.” I did manage to get her to say the “p” in “up,” but due to my overpronunciation, she now says, “uh-PAH.”
She also doesn’t say “yes.” She nods and giggles instead. If you ask her if she can say yes, she nods and giggles vigorously.
Oh and she gets some words just scrambled - “I chaw” means “I want to draw.” “Chlue” means blue, “key” means pink (and key).
Anyway, I feel like she’s teaching me her language more than vice versa. It does beat screeching and pointing, but I could use some “been there, done that” stories from parents whose kids got over this. Thanks!
As a mom and as a preschool teacher, I can assure you that yes, it does get better. It seems from what you wrote that she’s at the point where she’ll suddenly start picking up a couple of new words every day. Just keep talking to her in simple terms (please, please, please, don’t use baby talk!), and she’ll get it soon enough.
Just a simple patter about what you’re doing.
“Do you want to draw? Get your crayons. Here’s the paper. Show me the blue crayon.”
“Let’s go upstairs. Up. One step, two steps, three steps…”
Give her lots of chances to answer you, of course, but just letting her hear you talk and say things is how she learns.
Read her lots of books, too. She should love reading at this age, and may try to read it to you. You don’t always have to read the words on the page - you can just talk about the picture and name all the things you see. The Richard Scarry books are great for that.
Eric Carle is another author she’ll love. Great pictures and simple stories.
Hampshire, you’re terrible! Aeryn, yes, it does get better. Our little one is three now. Duck used to be “dut” and hard used to mean “loud”. We’ve outgrown “capatiller” and “baf” (caterpillar and bath, respectively). Right now, we’re working on subject/verb agreement and subject/object pronoun usage: “Her did it” vs. “She did it” and “Do that hurt” vs. “Does that hurt”
It’s an on-going thing, though. I had to correct my 14 year old on the word conveyance just moments ago.
It does get better, and pretty quickly too…I hear.
My daughter has a mixed expressive/receptive language delay and at 3 sounds just like what you are describing your 2 year old as. We daily go through the frustration of not understanding what our daughter is saying (and dealing with her frustration in turn). I still only catch about 2/3rds of what she says. Please try to count your blessings if her language development is ticking along without lots of extra work for you.
I don’t mean to run down your frustration at all because I too live with it every day. Just wanted to say if this is the worst it gets for you as her language develops, well…you should be so lucky.
Children routinely understand sounds they cannot pronounce. Check out the fis phenomenon.
They also frequently have hyperextended or underextended semantic fields for words they’ve recently learned; like a child who uses “duck” for any bird or “cat” for only the family cat.
Child language acquisition is quite interesting to watch. And yes, barring any very unusual problems she will learn to speak, just like you did.
My two year old niece is much more verbal than your toddler but I’ve spent time with her about once a month since Christmas and it is amazing how her vocabulary has grown. At Christmas, I was “Air-KAH” but by now she has grasped that my name has four syllables(Aunt Erika) (she doesn’t neccessarily pronounce more than the original two- but she’s getting closer). At Christmas, she’d say “up-py” for “up, please” (and usually had to be coaxed- being prone to just lifting her arms in the classic toddler gesture) at this point it has progressed to being something that much more resembles usual words (and she has reduced the amount of time that she seems to want up). She knows that the families new vehicle is a “mini-van” and not a car (and remembered that someone had come to for a visit in “An Air-ka’s car”.
She still drops syllables from words- and sings songs in half the time the adults do “Tuesday, Friday, Saturday- now I’ve named them all” appeared to be the complete lyrics to one song (she can name other days of the week- they just dissappeared when she sang the song).
Her parents can understand some of the things she said better than those of us who see her less often- and it is clear that she understands things that she can’t say (and doesn’t always understand everything- we got a chuckle out of her excitement over Dad’s Father’s Day present- a gas powered weed eater which she is obviously not allowed to touch. Once we got home, she saw her mommy and forgot about the present.)
All kids have their strengths and weaknesses. I have two girls, one is 3.5 and the other is a bit more than two. The older girl has always been EXTREMELY verbal, while the younger one has progressed much faster physically. I can pick up about 75% of what the younger one is saying, but the interesting thing is that I sometimes need the older one to translate. She’s amazingly good, and can pick up just about everything the younger one says. A few weeks ago the younger one asked me something that I absolutely could not understand. I even asked her a few times to repeat but still had no idea. Finally older daughter looks up and says, in her best exasperated teen-age voice: “Daaaaaddd, she wants you to play the Rahhgghh Game.” (The Rahhgghh Game being the one in which I pretend to be a monster and they test their bravery by seeing how close to me they can get before I yell “Rahhgghh!!” and try to grab them. They run away squealing if they make it, and are mercilessly tickled if they don’t.)
Anyway, soldier on. As my pediatrician said when I was asking the same questions about my two year old, “I suspect she’ll be talking by the time she goes to college.”
Yes, it gets better, I swear. This too really will pass and you’ll laugh about the cutesy mispronunciations someday, honest!
To second what Bibliocat said, try really hard not to give in to the instinct of using her words instead of the right words. It’s remarkably easy to find yourself saying “Fef fies and check-up” instead of “french fries and ketchup” but imagine the McD’s trauma she’ll endure for the rest of her life if she learns it that way. My sister keeps falling into that with my 3 year old nephew and sometimes it seems like he really gets stalled linguistically. Keep on keeping on and she’ll be just fine.
kambuckta, I believe the Neathderthal Grunt-Speak is reserved solely for the male of the species. Teenage girls communicate through loud sighs and eye-rolling.
We do read tons of books - she’s a junkie just like her mom. And thanks to that she came up with a new word last night - “lel-la” for yellow - two syllables!
I don’t use her versions for anything except nursing. In fact, when she says (for instance), “I chay!” I always say, “You want your diaper changed?” Just making sure I know what she’s talking about, but also letting her hear it correctly. Matt, thanks for the fis phenomenon link - very interesting, and I think we’ve seen some of that when her dad uses her words back to her.
I try to remind myself that I thought she’d never figure out a sippy cup, or walk, for that matter, and they came with time. But you know how it is. I feel bad when she completes a 30 second monologue, and I have no freaking clue what she just said. This morning, I just said, “I don’t understand what you’re saying, but I will someday.”
My son, Almost First-Grade Caricci , talked beautifully from about 12 months (at 18 months I asked him if he wanted grilled cheese or pasta and he told me “I prefer the cheese”), but didn’t roll over till he was 11 months old. Now, he’s the only one of his friends who can tie his shoes or ride a two wheeler, but he refuses to even try reading a book. The whole strengths and weaknesses thing goes on forever.
I wasn’t trying real hard to get my kids to speak the words properly, as long as they spoke in full sentences. For example holding their cup in the air and saying “Juice!”, would get them nowhere. I kept repeating “Mama can I have some juice, please?” until you get something close to it, and then they get their juice.
Toddler speak isn’t going to last that long. You’ll be missing it before you know it. My favorite: “Him did it!”
My oldest was doing toddler speak up to age 3. We weren’t sure if he was progressing or not so we brought him to our ISD’s testing center. They have a program called “Project Find” which will test any child in our county (Ages 0 to 4 I think) for any developmental delays… all for free.
So we took my oldest there and found that he did have a delay in his speech development. They recommended that he be placed in the ISD’s Preschool, 3 days per week. Going on their recommendation, we did that and within six months, he was where he was supposed to be at, and at one year, he was exceeding all expectations. When he entered kindergarden, he was placed in the advanced reading group and was reading books that other classmates wouldn’t even touch.
So what I’m saying is that most likely your toddler will eventually grow out of the toddler speak, but you should keep an eye on it though and have him tested if you have any doubts. You can check with your local school system and see if there are any services similar to what we have here that will do developmental testing with your child.
When she was 18 months or so, my oldest crawled onto my chest, stared me straight in the eye and screamed, “Hi Dite” over and over. After about 5 minutes I figured out that she meant Hawiian Delight - her favorite baby food flavor.
A word of warning - if you persist in using the toddler versions of words after your kids have outgrown them, your offspring will think that’s the lamest, dumbest thing on the planet. My kids don’t like going to their dad’s house for a lot of reasons - his drinking, the crabby new wife, her skanky smoking and drug using daughter rank right up there. But the thing they bring up first as a reason they dislike being around him is the fact he persists on asking them if they want ska-betty for dinner.
Yeah, I used to translate for my (4 1/2 years younger) sister. Eventually she figured out the talking business, but I’m still occasionally brought in to act as mediator/hostage negotiator/translator when she and my parents are having a major disagreement.
I love first time mothers. They’re so cute when they’re panicky. I should know. I was the same way.
Relax. You’ve got her hooked on reading, you’re not using baby talk…she will be just fine. Her tongue hasn’t figured out how to make all the sounds yet. But she’s a smart kidlet and she’ll be chattering up a storm before you know it. Meanwhile, enjoy the baby talk. It doesn’t last long and it will be gone before you know it.
You’ve learned an important secret…parents don’t always understand baby talk. It’s not a crime, it doesn’t mean you’re a bad mommy. Just be patient and try to help her tell you what she wants.
