Just a quick update on Julian’s speech sound development. By now if you are a fan of Julian’s you know he is a master of sign language (for all posts on that topic including how to get started teaching your baby sign language, type “sign language” into the search box on the upper right – you will find a lot of resources, videos, tips on how we got started and also how we learned by accident that Julian can sight read words, etc.)
So that means that rightnow Julian’s primary form of communication is ASL. He knows about 150-200 words (I think, although we haven’t written them down lately, I keep meaning to update our list). I am Sooo thankful that we started with sign language so that we know all of the awesome stuff that Julian thinks about every day and also can talk with him on a daily basis about his needs and wants. Even if your child does not have special needs, it is such a great tool to help ease frustrations before kids learn to produce actual spoken words and sounds.
Julian has been working with a speech therapist through the state funded early invention program since he was about 15 months (started out 1x month and then gradually we moved to speech appointments 1x week as he progressed) and we decided to also work with a private speech therapist weekly in addition to the early intervention therapist starting around 20 months old.
Julian is able to imitate and produce a bunch of speech sounds now, including:
M, P, B, D, H, N, D, T
We have even heard the occasional R!
Besides the word UP, which he says ALL THE TIME, most of his spoken words are just what are called word approximations, but he has produced a handful of complete words once or twice:
In (has said a number of times)
Hat (said only once)
Baby (once)
Daddy (once)
Down (once)
At 26 months, here is the list of word approximations Julian can say right now:
Word approximations/ Actual Word:
Rrr / Roll
Ap / Apple
Duh / Down
Eee / Eat
Buh Buh/Bubble
Duh / Duck
Boo / Boom
Buuuh / Book
Op / Open
Muh / Moo
Buh / Bus
Haahhh / Hi
Ah / All Done
Mmmm / More
Eeee / Eat
Ba / Ball
Baaa / Bath
Maou / Mouth
Ba Ba / Banana
Ba / Berry
Uh / Uh Oh
Puh Puh / Puppet
Puh / Pop
Ha / Hat
He is starting to ‘pretend talk” on the phone with us and to babble out loud with various sounds when reading books and “counting” to himself when he points at things on the page, or his toes or fingers. These are early speech development goals we have been working toward and it is so fun to see his progress!
The next things we are going to do is implement a system at daycare when he has the necessary supports he needs to develop his speech even further in a classroom environment because we have noticed he doesn’t really talk at daycare, mostly probably due to all of the noise around him and the other kids who are talking a lot more (the age range in his classroom is from around 15 months to 26 months or so. Most kids transition to the “older toddler” room around when they turn two.
On August 31, our primary early intervention coordinator is going to meet with our private speech therapist at daycare to observe his daily routine, and see how he can be supported. They have been talking about using some picture supports to help him show a teacher what he needs if he can not say the word (the teachers know very basic sign language but no where near the amount of signs Julian knows). I am not exactly clear on how things are going to work, but I would imagine once he has a picture he can grab and bring to the teacher to indicate his wants and needs and thoughts, he can work directly with the teacher and the teacher can prompt him and encourage him to say the word out loud to them each time he brings them a picture. That way the teachers begin to understand his version of the word approximations and can support him to refine his spoken language skills even further.
That’s the update right now! And a picture to conclude this post. He is really a BOY now!! No longer a baby….wahhhhhh.
Rock on, Julian! It sounds like you are doing great! Maybe you can teach Ellie some of your signs and sounds
Ellie is no where close to that signing vocabulary. That is quite impressive!
That is AWESOME! He’s the same age as Abby, and she’s nowhere near that in her speech development. We came to find out, she has significant hearing loss. They say after she gets her tubes in, it will progress again. Here’s hoping!
Thanks for sharing! My daughter is 29 months and starting pre-school this week in a fully inclusive settle with no special supports where they’ve never had any child with special needs before. The director has asked me for a list of her signs, etc so they can learn and requested I share my Signing Time collection with the staff as well. Very exciting but overwhelming too. We have no access to speech therapy so its interesting hear about the development of sounds, words v word approximations, etc.
Pingback: All About Me – Julian Sherman (for Blue Room teachers) | Julian's Journey – Life As We Know It