We have an almost 4-year old nephew who has a diagnosed and ongoing but-yet-untreated hearing problem. He speaks very little and when he does, all kinds of consonants and syllables are missing and it is near impossible to understand what he is trying to say. The parents don't seem to feel any urgency to intervene -- it makes him unique/different, great artists are born from differences in experience and challenges in life (all true, in a sense), and being anti-establishment and profoundly critical and distrustful of conventional medicine, they prefer to go to the astral plane to summon a healer who will come visit them with crystals than have a doctor perform a minimally invasive surgery or put tubes in the ears of their son.
Johann and I feel great sympathy for the little guy, and I have a good deal of anger or disgust at them for their inaction while their child struggles and suffers unnecessarily. I imagine he must get pretty frustrated having to fight to communicate. And I worry about other kids, classmates, playmates, they can be cruel to a slow-but-bright nearly non-verbal kid. Even adults have only so much patience to try to decipher what a child is trying to say -- I've seen it happen with my quite-verbal kids. But as extended relatives we have only limited influence. Beyond commenting our concern and offering suggestions, we can't do much. We don't want to meddle -- they have their own (unconventional) life philosophy which we must tolerate and, in a way, respect. We already encounter resistance (maybe even a little resentment) from them, and if we push too much on this (or any) issue we could be totally walled or written off. So we just wait and worry from afar.
The other day, Johann expressed concern for Bebe's word development. Perhaps because of this nephew, we're extra sensitive in wanting to catch possible hearing problems early on. I haven't been concerned with Bebe's development. I'm around her more often than he is, and while there are some consonants (fricatives mostly) that she doesn't make, she is still very chatty, engaging, responsive, sing-song and musical, demonstrates understanding, and loves to read books. No red flags for a hearing problem.
As far as worrying about language delay, we sized up Goober's vocabulary (for curiosity, for kicks) when he was around this same age. At his 18-month check-up, our sweet resident doctor gave us this little handout-thing that suggested an average number of words that a 18-month old should have. It seemed shockingly low. I don't remember the exact number now, but somewhere between a two-dozen or three-dozen words. We hadn't kept track of his growing vocabulary and couldn't even make a guesstimate. So we sat down and figured it out.
Bebe is now maybe a couple weeks past 18 months. I'm loath to compare my children side-to-side. They are clearly different, different personalities, different strengths, different body types, different interests, inclined to push in different ways. My son is brainy, cautious, an engineer, developed fine motor skills early on, sensitive, outgoing, friendly, strikes up conversations with every passerby. My daughter is dramatic, fearless, stubborn, agile, musical, nurturing, a lap child, loves showers, will probably run away to join a circus. They have developed differently, and at different speeds. Still, I can't help but seize this opportunity to compare them (with a grain of salt) with this little developmental snapshot in time. They grow up so damn fast.
Also, my husband adores comparing numbers and probing statistics, so this is a practical and effective little way to allay his concerns.
So without further ado, here's Bebe's list.
| airplane | Alle | apple | baby |
| ball | balloon | banana | bath |
bear / Bär
| belly | berry | bike |
| bottle | bottom / Popo | bubble | bunny |
| bye-bye |
cat / kitty / meow!
| cheese | Dada |
| dance | diaper | dog | doll |
| down | draw | ear | egg / Ei |
| Elmo | eye | finger | flower / Blume |
| foot / Fuß | hair |
hand
| Heiß |
| hello | helmet | help | hi |
| Ja | keys | juice | light |
| Mama | milk | more / Mehr | mouth |
| no / Nein | nose | ow / Owa | owl (1st word) |
| pea | pee-pee | pen | Ponyo |
| poop / Kaka | potty | shoe / Schuh | shower |
| sock | stop | swing | towel |
| Uh oh! | up / Auf | vulva | water |
It's a pretty good list, right? I'd call it "mighty and growing" and not under-average, or worrisome. She uses at least 70 German or English words (some more clearly than others) and understands much more. She favors the English right now but, like her brother, I expect her German to catch up later on. The whole list is surprisingly comparable to her older brother.
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