Bear: Lost Language

Hello Little Bear,
You are very quick to learn things, and you laugh at the funny parts of books for much older children, without prompting from me. However, your language has been lost.

I must write about this here, because perhaps I will later know the reason, or this will correct itself. I was told, when this happened several months ago, that I shouldn't worry, because, I was told, sometimes infants and toddlers only focus on one thing at a time. So, I was told, perhaps you were focusing on motor skills rather than language right now. That made some sense to me, but I was still a little worried. I thought perhaps too, you are confused with hearing Spanish and English from me and others and don't know which to use. Yet in the last month I have become increasingly worried. This cannot be normal. It is certaintly NOT normal child development, even as I am aware of variations from child to child.

My mother tells me I began speaking at 9 months of age, and that my first word was "Kitty". She and my father say I was a real "talker" and called me "Chatty Cathy" after a doll that could talk which was popular at that time. I quickly amassed a large vocabulary at a very young age. My brother on the other hand, barely said one word until he was 2 years old and then he spoke in complete sentences. You, Little Bear, have not followed either one of these patterns.
This is from my notes on you (before I was blogging) from:

November 30, 2006: He hasn't said any words, but yesterday he was trying to say "thank you". He tried it over and over. He gives me a kiss, and I'll say "thank you honey!" and he goes, "ank-ha" for "thank you"--he says it with the same intonation as my thank you so I know he's trying to say thank you. (age 6 months old)

December 16, 2006: --'s main words are: "mam", "mama", "hi", and "thank you", but he doesn't always say them consistently. He's very friendly. He likes to hear animal sounds and one day, he copied them, but hasn't done so since. (7 months)

January 3, 2007: --- just said "key"! and "keys" after i picked up my keys, talking about them and he reached for them saying the word. (almost 8 months)

January 6, 2007: Anyway, wanted you to know, yesterday ---was iniating peek-a-boo to play with me, also played ball with me by giving it to me after I gave it to him, and he said 4 words yesterday (3 new): hi, dock, bubble, and there. He's said hi before, but the others are new. When I was blowing bubbles, and talking about the bubbles, he said "bubble" and when I was singing "Hickory Dickory Dock" he said "dock" a few times, and he also said "there" when I was saying something but I don't remember. This morning, he heard a song and patted his thigh with his hand, in time to the beat. (couple days shy of 8 months)

January 21, 2007:---watched as I paid attention to Emma making raspberries and has been doing this ever since. Also, a couple days ago, I visited Gardenia and held Austin, and ---watched. I paid attention to --- too and he didn't seem to mind, but he was watching closely and when I talked to Austin, who only squealed a certain way, later, ---started doing this, to get my attention. He mimics the squeal exactly. I realized --- picks up things other kids do that he thinks get my attention and makes me want to hold them...He's been babbling with intonation since 6 months and tries out new words now and then...should be noted that the sounds --- is imitating, by other babies, are less sophisticated and are actually a regression of his own speech development. he goes from articulating vowel and consanant (msp) sounds to preverbal stuff he did many, many, months ago. makes me realize the power of peer pressure and what how easily kids are influenced and pick stuff up, especially when they perceive a certain behavior is "rewarded" by/wish adult attention, or from someone they love .

January 27, 2007: i believe --- DID put a bottle nipple to a baby dolls mouth yesterday, and today i said "bye bye!" and --- said "goodbye" (so perfect and proper) but he never said it again. he's said these words out of nowhere and i wonder if he even knows it bc then he doesn't repeat them!

February 2, 2007: Yesterday evening, at the bookstore, --- was imitating the sounds of: a goat, a cat, and an owl, when we went over some animal books. And he kept saying "kiss" all day, when I would kiss him. I think this is regular vocab now. He seems to be more expressive everyday.

February 12, 2007: a couple days ago i was patting your back and then you patted my back. i said, "pat-pat" and you said, "pat-pat" right back to me.

March 28, 2007: He pointed to a red dot on a glass I was holding and I said "red". Then I pointed to a couple of white dots and said, "These dots are white". ---pointed back to the red dot after moving his finger to the white ones, and said, "Wed." Then, today I asked him, at breakfast, what a doggie says. He said, "woof" perfectly. Then he made a cat sound when I asked, a duck sound, a horse sound, a sheep sound, and a cow sound ("mooo"). When I said to him, "A sheep says "baaa"", he repeated, "sheep--baaa". .. He says peek-a-boo and today when he was looking at the zipper on my shirt and said "button". I said, "no, not a button, this is a zipper" and then he said zipper. He freaking said "zipper". If he sees a ball, he'll pick it up and say "a ball!" and does with other things.

April 6, 2007: ...Also, about a month ago, he started saying "Gampa" and "Gamma". My grandparents first heard Grandpa. It's really clear. He says "walk". His vocabulary: Grandpa, grandma, mama, dog, kiss, thank you, ball, balloon, red, baby, button, zipper, truck, vroom-vroom, cup, milk, shoes, bottle,

April 8, 2007: more words in ----'s vocab: diaper, light, water, bear, walk, see, animal sounds, number, chicken, puppy, yellow, blue, drum. I just counted. He has a vocab of about 33 words. He LOVES numbers, more than the alphabet. We count to 20 sometimes, and then count other things in the day sometimes (how many stairs we climb, how many tires on a car).

April 9, 2007: yesterday ----said "garbage" several times when I was cleaning and telling him I was putting things in the garbage and we took the garbage out. .I just took the card from ____ and looked at it and ----was looking at it. There are words on the top of the card and I think he wanted me to read them. "Hey Dude!" I said (this is what the card says). He just repeated, perfectly, "Hey Dude!"..

April 18, 2007: My own PCP focused on ---, and got distracted by him. I was talking about my issues and she just cut in, mid-sentence, and said, "You know, your son is VERY intelligent." She kept going on about him. He was all over the room. The toybox interested him for a second but they were babyish toys and he wanted to explore wires coming out from the walls, wall posters, mobiles, and find out what was behind the examining table. And he was jabbering away the whole time and then got insistent and wanted our attention. My PCP wanted to take over for my son's care too, but I already had him in Peds, where he went afterwards and the doctor there was also impressed and made no argument about having me contact a gifted kids center, the Robinson Center at U of W. The last couple days I wrote down words --- has said: 15th: bathroom, t.v. banana, word, fish, done, good job, couple, 17th: my ball (he's been saying this a long, long, time), graham cracker, poop (got poop), flower, 18th: glasses, all done, my jeans, curtain, mama's shower, water (as of this time of 10:10 this morning).

May 11, 2007: One day, about a month ago, I was saying, "No ---, no, no..." and ---looked at me with an impish grin, showing his teeth and nodding his head up and down, he said, "YESS!" "YESSss!" and kept doing what he was doing, watching me as he continued.

June 4, 2007: ---- is talking a lot, and can count to 5. He surprised me with number recognition when he pointed to a "10" and said clearly, "ten!". After all of this, you just stopped talking. Granny and Grandpa noticed because you don't even say "Grandpa" or "Gramma" anymore. You make sounds, and babble, and say "Kitty" and have even made a 3 word sentence a couple of times. But you don't talk anymore. You're on target for your age, not behind at all, but for YOU, you're definitely not where you were. Otherwise, you seem happy and healthy, so I'll just wait and see if there's a vocabulary explosion after age 2. Maybe you're more self-conscious now and are organizing language in your mind first? I've only included exerpts about your language development, but I have records of everything else, which I began when you were about 4 months old.
Love you!