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> "I'd be really suspicious of any first words other than "more" as in candy and treats and toys and stuff." It's pretty interesting to see what words people p
by lotharbot 13y ago
> "I'd be really suspicious of any first words other than "more" as in candy and treats and toys and stuff."
It's pretty interesting to see what words people pick when their vocabulary is very limited (like, 5 or fewer words). When my son had severe speech delays, we focused on teaching him signs like "hungry", "more", "diaper", and "help".
I was actually quite grateful to have played a game called "Og" where players take on the role of cavemen, typically with vocabularies of that size. We learned, through experience, that words like "I" and "mom" are nowhere near as important as "food". I, too, would be suspicious of first words (for someone with severe delays) that weren't addressing specific momentary needs.
> "yeah my kid started talking just out of the blue one day"
Mine had some very sudden increases in his speech. There was about a month-long period where my list of all of his spoken vocabulary ballooned from about a dozen words to well over a hundred. I wouldn't say it was "out of the blue", but instead the result of quite a bit of intensive therapy, focused communication from all of the adults in his life, and his own growth.
- eitally 13y agoFor breastfed babies, a very common first word is usually a variation of "ma". For my daughter, her first word after "mama" was her brother's name (Noah). Then they learned the bottom rung of Maslow's Hierarchy via sign language at school (more, please, thank you, milk, food, mom, dad, child). <edit> Both of my kids had sudden rapid improvements in speech at some point, too. I can't remember, when, and I know it happened earlier with my daughter than my son, but I still remember the day my son was answering a question and started with "Actually, ..." and then later on, "Even so, ...". He was two. Close together siblings are fantastic teachers!
- DanBC 13y agoChildren learn words, and say them, but then don't bother repeating those words until they've built up a vocabulary of about 200 words. So that's one reason for one of the language-jumps. But it is fascinating. My son has one phrase which he speaks with a local accent, but the rest of his language is different.
- jacalata 13y agoI don't know if they always are. My older nephew spoke 'for' his slightly younger brother a huge amount, which I think probably either exacerbated or masked the younger ones language delays. (I wasn't involved in any of the diagnosis/therapy process so this is just my opinion).