I’ve been keeping track in my notes and we’ve had a language explosion recently: First words and gestures Words: go, cat, yum yum yum (01/23), ?cow (01/24), hop (bunny, mimicking Feb 5), ball (02/22), up (02/12), hi, boo (from peekaboo 03/12), mimicks bye, signed milk (03/15), yea (sometimes), tried to say tree (march 19), car, attempted cracker (03/20), pop, bang (03/29), ba/bo for bottle Gestures: high five, will hand me things when I ask for them, will show me things, reaches for things he wants, raises arms to be picked up, bangs the table when he’s excited, Pointing (01/22), waving (01/25), clapping (02/07), moves arms back and forth in running like movement for fast when singing the gestures song, pushes things away he doesn’t want or waves his hands in front of his face to refuse Understands: asking to come to me and gesture of holding arms out, asking to show me, rolling ball back and forth, cause and effect (puts ball on tower to go down), tries to put rings on stacker, will stack three items, if I point to a shape in the shape sorter will try to put the shape in the correct hole, understands ‘do you want water?’, plays peekaboo, will take his arm out of clothing on command or put his arm in, hides with a scarf, rolls toys cars they way they are supposed to, shakes maracas as intended and gets excited when you say shake shake shake, when I say bounce bounce bounce he will bounce, bangs things together and when I say bang bang bang will get excited and repeat the action, understands clapping and will start to clap

@Samantha Crooks well honestly watching a lot of your videos and those of other SLPs on how to talk about things! I try to repeat things at least 2-3 times when saying them and pointing a lot to various objects. I read at least a book a day, and when possible I try to hold things close to my mouth when talking. I’m sure there’s other things as well but I think a lot of it is repeating the same things and having routines where we repeatedly use the same words.

Hey! Not an SLP, just a new mom also learning but from everything I have seen I think that’s a great way to do it :)

@Samantha Crooks he’s still doing it sporadically but has thankfully calmed down a bit lol my ears were starting to hurt

@Maya Borrero I got the books by Stephanie Anderson not too long ago and was going through it (I think it was the action book) and was ‘popping’ the bubbles on the page, while my son didn’t say anything he did start ‘popping’ the bubbles with his finger too so I think they work great!

@Sanela Music it is so hard not to compare, I really struggle with that all the time. My cousin is an SLP and her daughter is two weeks older than him and shes been clapping for so long and blowing kisses, etc. It’s hard not to feel stressed that you guys aren’t there yet

@Meredith Pringle that truly does! That is so so sweet. My little guy’s birthday is tomorrow and I’m getting all the feels today

Awe that’s amazing! It’s such a wonderful feeling when they get going with something. We are still working on bottles over here haha