38 Months: Speech Sample

Nolan is in a very "active" phase right now, so it is hard to get him to sit down for a chit-chat. I did manage to maintain his attention for a few minutes to get a good speech sample:

Unabashed Brag Post

Perhaps we can just skip the "pre" in the "pre-literacy" skills for Nolan's goals. It looks like he wants to cut to the chase and start reading!

Speech Sample, 33 Months: In the (Play) Kitchen

Nolan spent much of today making me "coffee" in his play kitchen. His imaginative play has really blossomed lately!

Speech Sample: 32 Months

The little guy is progressing at an amazing rate with speech and language- he is starting to form longer sentences and tell narratives. We made playdough today, so he created several objects and told me what they were! Too bad the video is backlit- we were playing in the breakfast nook. You can hear Matt humming in the background, too.



Youtube no longer allows third-party transcription (i.e. Overstream), so I am unable to caption the video. Nolan is discussing his "Christmas Tree" out of playdough, and he states he is going to see Mickey Mouse in July, and then states that he is three years old rather than two years old (he wants to be three to visit W-Kids at Wegmans). I had to correct him on that one!

Head Bump and Speech Sample

Poor Nolan fell after preschool the other day, and has quite the bruise and goose-egg from the fall. I was worried about a concussion, but other than a large bump on his head, he is fine. The poor kid can't seem to get a break this week!

He loves his "Spider" book (Eric Carle's "The Very Busy Spider") so I took a speech sample recording while he was looking at this book.

Speech Sample: 25 Months

Nolan is obsessed with the Pixar movie Cars, so when Grandma sent a sticker book with the characters, he was absolutely thrilled! I figured I would snag a speech sample while he was so enthralled. I have noticed his "hearing bubble" seems to be smaller these days- he has had a cold recently so I am not sure if the fluid is causing trouble or if there is something more permanent going on. He's dropped his final /r/ sound (car used to be "tar" and is now closer to "tie"), initial /p/ sound, and is confusing words like "police" and "green." I'm voting for fluid troubles- hopefully it will clear out soon!

Nolanisms

Our future soccer star

Like all two year olds, Nolan has several words that don't sound exactly "right." These toddler words are so darned cute, and I'm going to miss them when they're gone! My favorite Nolanisms:

• Bape (grapes)
  
• Bider (diaper)
  
• Boppy (coffee)
  
• Bet-bet (blanket)
• Tut (truck)
• Mittey Mout (Mickey Mouse)

I know that "Want bape, Mom!" and "Want bet-bet and rock, Mom" are not long for this world, with all the speech therapy he gets and the rate his language is exploding. We are also making headway in other language skills.

Nolan hasn't used the concept or word of "yes" yet. He hasn't even nodded to indicate he would like something. After some games with our speech therapist, he is now (with prompts) using the word yes. It goes something like this:

"Nolan, do you want more bubbles?"

Nolan: "Want more bubbles."

Speech therapist: Nods head vigorously.

Nolan: Also nods head vigorously.

Speech therapist (still nodding), "Yes, I want more bubbles!"

Nolan: "Want more bubbles- yes!"

The good news is that the nodding prompt is now working to elicit the "yes" response (though he doesn't use it spontaneously). The bad news is that we are all going to need dramamine from the motion sickness induced by all that nodding!


Since I'm in brag mode, other new Nolan phrases are:

"Be right back, Mom!"
"Come on!"
"Want watch moodie (movie)."
"Don't kiss my head!"

There seems to be another language explosion around the age of two, and it is a big one. We have heard a six word sentence recently (though the more typical length is 3-4 words). If he continues at this rate, he may be orating speeches by the end of this year!

Speech Sample

I finally found our "little camera" that has a video function. Here's a sample of Nolan's speech at 23 months of age. It is quite long, so some of the captioning might not match perfectly with the video. He is probably above average for expressive language, but you can see his tendency to simply repeat questions rather than process the information and give an answer. I've heard this is not uncommon for hard of hearing kids, so we'll see what happens with a few more months of growth and speech therapy!

Speech Sample: 17 Months

I try to get occasional speech samples of Nolan to compare with later. We've been working on "up" and "down" lately. He is missing some consonants lately, which always puts me on alert. We've lost /d/ lately, but have maintained /p/ so I'm not too worried. We also have an ending sound to "down" now (he says something like "downg," but close enough for now)!

Twas Brillig and the Slithy Toves...

We have a new development on the speech front- Nolan has finally developed "jargon!" This is a variegated form of babbling which resembles the intonation and inflection of adult speech. Since we never had this with Matt (he said almost nothing until he hit 2 1/2), it is really neat to watch. Last night Nolan came up to me and informed me, "Ba! Dabawa! Inda!"

I'm fairly sure he was "tattling" on his brother.

This is cool.

Happy Surprises

You never know when your kid is going to surpise you with something they learned. Nolan isn't always very verbal, but he's obviously taking it all in. Today he surprised us with.... animal sounds! He will accurately make the sounds of a cat and tiger, and sometimes will make a whimpering dog sound. I managed to get "tiger" and "cat" on video before he tired of the game.



You can also see his "selective hearing" here- this is when we're not sure if he is not quite hearing us or just ignoring us!

Showing Off

I finally got some video of Nolan saying "ball." It comes out as "da!" because our "B" sound has been on hiatus for a while.




I also have a video of Matt "reading" the Hungriest Caterpillar. His speech has come a tremendous way in the past two months!

Battle Wound

Turns out curiosity isn't always such a good thing! A little girl grabbed Nolan's ear when I was at playgroup yesterday, trying to get at his hearing aid. Her mother and I quickly removed her hand from Nolan's ear, but he has developed a nasty bruise that is on the top of his ear. His left ear is quite sore now, and it doesn't make inserting that earmold any easier!

On a more positive note, Nolan signed "ball" for the first time during therapy today. He now signs "more" and "ball," and has imitated "all done" and "milk." He also waves bye-bye, and babbles while doing that. Sometimes it sounds like "bababa," though usually it is "dadada" or "yayayaya."