Our son received a baby sign language DVD from one of his daycare mates this year. We watched part of the video with him early last week. The following day when I asked him what the sign for "shoes" was-- he quickly responded with the right sign. I thought: "Fluke. Let's try that again". I then said: "Rowan, what's the sign for "hat"?".
He got it right too.
My son is a genius. He, in a short 5 minute video picked up the signs for hat and shoes and learned the sign for milk after we showed it to him a couple of times (granted, we started showing him the sign for a milk at 6 months old and gave up because he wasn't going anywhere with it then). We've been trying to get him to grasp more abstract concepts like "please, thank you, sorry" by watching the video with him a little more but so far, that's a little too much to ask of him. Or is it?
Today Amanda told us that Rowan signed "more milk" several times because he was thirsty. The child put 2 words together! Is that normal for a 16 month old? Have we been holding him back because we underestimate his abilities? For weeks now I have been stunned at his level of comprehension, but the use of his hands to speak has blown me away. He is so beautiful and sweet and this just makes him that much more fun! I want to burst when I think about his little face and how excited he gets when he wants us to open something and he uses his hands to show us (he made the link between the hand motions to the "doors on the bus go open and close" and his desire to open things up and so now he says "upen" while doing the hand motions for the song).
He is my beauty. My beauty with the 12 spoken-word and 5 signed-word vocabularies.
Go Rowan! What a genius!
ReplyDeleteIt's never too early to expect your child to be well mannered. They many not have the vocabulary but they can certainly act it. Teach him the concepts and keep at it. One day everything will come together and he'll impress you once again. They are smart kids. Very smart.