16 months old, week 1

This week I noticed a few new significant developments. Juli picked up ASL words relatively quicker.

Juli produced with more smooth transition between ASL words, produced ASL words immediately after being introduced to new words, and produced more ASL words from memory that I hadn't used in a long while.

Juli picked up more ASL words in shorter time. The length of time between perceiving a new ASL word for the first time and using or producing it had become nearly melded into a slice of time. That is, whatever Juli was introduced a new word, she began to produce it as soon as a few minutes or a day afterward.

Another thing was that Juli produced an ASL word, for example cherry, from memory that I hadn't used it in a long time. She came across a picture of the cherry in the picture book and asked for it. The last time we had cherries was long before the last autumn.

Though Juli had produced some ASL two-word utterances sometimes in the past weeks, it was a sign of the emergence of two-word stage. Now Juli began producing some more two-word utterances.

Picking up ASL words on a 2-dimensional screen

Juli paid certain attention to some ASL words that her grandpa K talked on videophone and imitated them, such as love/hug, cry, (gesture -- holding hands on face), and a few others.

This tells something about Juli's perception skill and her understanding of the relationship between three-dimensional space and flat two-dimensional surface that she can perceive and pick up new ASL productions from K via videophone.

After chatting with K on videophone, Juli sat in highchair and made some conversations consisting of smooth transitions between ASL words.

Plus, Juli continued to pick up some new ASL words, such as wait, excited, and lemon.

Responding to requests

Juli took the garbage bag out of the garbage can from my office. When I noticed the missing bag, I asked Juli (translated as), "Where is the garbage bag?" Juli toddled away and found the garbage bag. I asked her to bring it here. She did.

One day Juli was grumpy. She just woke up from a nap. I asked her if she wanted a hug and offered her with my open arms. She forwarded to hug me.

Outside in the yard, I let Juli carry around my home key with the bright orange whistle. A bit later, I noticed she didn't have the key with her. I asked her, "Where is the home key?" She toddled across the yard and picked up the key at the other side of the yard.

Juli wanted to go out. I helped her put her shoes on. Then I found my shoe missing. I asked Juli, "Where is the other shoe of mine?" She toddled toward the spot but wasn't sure exactly where it was. I noticed the shoe partly hidden behind the play station.

Use of ASL words and two-word phrases

The following new referential words that Juli has used this week: ladybug (her own production), worm (dominant "1" down on passive "5"), bug (closed "5" on nose), slide (dominant "5" down on passive lower arm), fan, hug, lemon some more shown in the video above, and some reguarly used ASL words.

One day the father was napping on the sofa in the family room. Juli, sitting in the highchair in the kitchen, matter-of-factly uttered father sleep. I didn't say anything prior to that.

Juli stood in front of several pairs of shoes. She pointed at one of the shoes and uttered shoes mine before she toddled away.

Other multi-word phrases that Juli uttered were as follows: bear hug, mother father work, mother cook/cut grape.

Acquire sign language