She Speaks!

Jessica has been "talking" since she was about a year old....meaning she has been acquiring a vocabulary. However, she has not really used this vocabulary to communicate thoughts until the last week or so. This has been rather frustrating on multiple levels 1) It is hard to figure out what she is trying to communicate without words 2) I get tired of people thinking she is autistic just because she hasn't been communicating verbally and 3) I am just dying to hear what is going on in that little head of hers!! This week I have heard a couple new words such as peach and keys, and today she saw birds as we were driving and said "Birds." This may not seem like a huge deal to some people, but although she has known the word "birds" for quite a while, she has never told us about seeing birds without any sort of prompting from us.

Jessica's language skills have been developing in a rather interesting fashion. She has an average sized vocabulary for a child her age, but until recently has not really used that vocabulary to communicate thoughts. She has been far too busy exploring the world around her and figuring out how to do things to waste her time talking about them! Also, most children learn lots of nouns, and then they move on to learning lots of verbs. Jessica's vocabulary has always included a wide variety of parts of speech. From what little she does say, it is obvious that she has a great propensity for grammar (much to her mother's pride)! I actually don't find this part too surprising. David and I are both spatially/math oriented, and grammar is more of a spatial/math skill than a verbal skill. Yet another way in which my School Psychology world collides with my new career as Stay-at-Home Mom!!! (I am sure other moms aren't as nerdy about this kind of thing as I am!)

Jessica, at almost 26 months your dad and I are absolutely ecstatic to see you taking these first steps in the direction of verbal communication! What is truly amazing is all you have learned prior to learning to communicating verbally: potty training, please/thank you, unloading the dishwasher, making oatmeal, eating anything and everything like a big girl, picking up your toys, etc. You are an amazing kid and most definitely march to the beat of your own drum! May the music you play always be filled with joy!