8 months old, week 1

Juli crawled fast from corner to corner, investigating various objects. Climbed up the short and long stairs all by herself, supervised.

Reduplicated syllabic (canonical) babbling

Juli babbled manually and vocally much more often, especially with the syllabic pattern of the ASL word "work".

Dominance-base rule

In ASL linguistics, the Symmetry Condition (Battison) states that, if both hands in a two-handed signed word move, then the handshape must be the same and the movement is either alternating or simultaneous. E.g. bath, maybe, etc.

On the other hand, the Dominance Condition states that, if the hand has a different handshape in a two-handed sign, then only the dominant or active hand can move while the base hand remains stationary (not moving). E.g. enough, cookie.

For right-handed signers, the right hand is the active or dominant hand, while the left hand is the passive or base hand. The opposite is true for left-handed signers.

It is a natural rule that governs the structure of signed language. Native signers didn't consciously create this rule.

It is interesting to observe that Juli had been babbling with one active hand onto the base hand. It can indicate that Juli might be right-handed, but it was still early to determine.

Studies show that syllables in vocal babbling prior to around 8th month can be found undifferentiated among babies across different cultures. Then, the patterns in syllables develop a bit more that is found in an adult language of their own culture.

Likewise, the syllables found in Juli's manual babbling appeared to be based on the patterns of ASL words such as: work, shoes, more, be-careful.

These two-handed ASL words had been regularly exposed to Juli for the past months. And, one of the primes (location, movement, and handshape) of the ASL words was similar in one way or another. But, what all of these words had in common was that both hands were in contact.

People

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Better now than later

".. We have taught our son (now 1 year old) to sign since the age of 8 months. .. we can practically talk with him about all the things he cares about .. If not for this, we wouldn't be speaking with him for another year!" -- Jason and Kristine Krever. October 29, 2000.