9 months old, week 4

Juli constantly pointed, pointed, and pointed. A new babble had emerged -- twisting or rotating wrist repeatedly.

Juli still waved bye-bye sometimes in response to an adult waving bye and leaving. She continued to clap hands, fingerpoint, and produced th-razzies in reference to driving a firetruck.

She stood on her own for a few seconds to several seconds.

The faintest emerging ASL words

Watching Juli transition from the babbling stage to the recognizable word in signlan was like stretching time in slow motion. It was fascinating.

If Juli's babbles were meaningful or referential, it would be very difficult to idenitfy unless a context was obvious and/or when a produced word had a recognizable pattern of the regular ASL word.

For example, when she "clapped" (not that clap as in excitment) without forming a specific handshape, it could be "shoes", "ball", "more", and such that I often used these with her.

Last week over the weekend at a meal, Juli was in her highchair. At the end of a meal, Juli raised her arms/hands and waved up and down. She had babbled this such way in the past days or weeks.

But that time with the specific -- more refined -- movement, I intuitively first recognized that she meant finish/done. Being a native signer of native-signlan family, I was sure of my instinct.

Later in the day, Grandma Z reported that in her interaction with Juli, she signed grandfather referring to the painting above them. Z recognized that Juli was trying to produce a similar movement of the signed word grandfather.

That somehow confirmed that both of us sensed something the same without me telling Grandma Z prior.

Another emerging syllabic babble

This week a new syllabic babble began to emerge -- twisting wrist, hand upward. This new skill can be used in "done/finish". Remember my last week's post about the earliest emergence that I intuitively sensed? Sure enough.

Juli often used this syllabic babble when she finger-pointed while I carried her, when she sat on the floor and interacted with me or her father, and when she sat in highchair at meals.

One day Juli became grumpy at a meal time. I sensed she might be full. Time to end the meal. I uttered finsih/done. She responded -- raised her hand, twisted her hand -- that is, finish/done.

The emergence of the spoken English words

In concurrent with the emergence of the ASL words, Juli vocalized an approximation of the word "ball" when she approached a ball, played with it or saw it.

Another time, she also vocalized "ball" when she looked at the blue round paper latern that looked like a ball.

Her father Dude had introduced the spoken word "book" to Juli before. One night when Juli was surrounded by the books, she produced "boo" without "k".

Video: Juli interacted with the cloth book where there was a small image of the cow on the page. Dude asked "where cow, mooo"? Juli pointed to it.

Another time Juli was reading by herself. She opened the picture book and there was a picture of the dog. She pointed to it. Then, she tapped her hand on the lap. It was more clear to me this time.

Right next, she pointed to the cat. This time, she didn't tap on her leg. She looked at me and mouthed something like "aba". Perhaps some of her own naming or a guess.

Reading time

Juli had a habit of reading in the mornings and nights and during the daytimes. She would flip page by page by herself, look at the images and/or listen to my storytelling.

Video: Lately I read this book to her daily, one of our favorites. Before the last page, Juli knew the outcome and usually showed her preparation for the kiss or hug.

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First word subject to subjectivity

All these months since the day Juli was born I had been wondering at times what Juli's first word might be. "Milk"? "Mother"? "More"? It was one of exciting milestones I looked forward to.

But, now the idea of the "first word" was then somehow discarded. I learned a few things:

During the late syllabic babbling stage, a manual production was quite ambiguous to identify whether it was a babble, a protoword, or a physical gesture, especially during the transition process between a babble and the protoword and between a protoword and the recognizable signed word.

The first recognizable signed word could be itself not the first word. It could be that one overlooked the previous actually first word. Or, it could be the other actual "first" word in the form of protoword that was unclear (e.g. difficult phonological construction) to a parent.

Some signed words are easy to produce (equivalent to "pronounce") but some others are more difficult. Juli's first word could be "dog" (patting on thigh), but Ameslan adults don't generally use this production but still use it with infants and toddlers. Does it count? If it wasn't referential, does it count?

Or, Juli's first signed word could be "more" that I might often dismiss because her production was in the form of clap-like.

The video clip above (at 8 months old, week 2) is one example of how I might simply assume that Juli's manual movement was just touching her ear, but on a closer look, did Juli try to produce or imitate father?

Even if she was producing father, did she understand the meaning of it or attach it to Dude, her father? It was difficult to identify whether it was a referential word or non-referential imitation.

It didn't get easy till the day Juli could finger point at a person or object and produce the name.