Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Communication examples

Since we got some comments back on the signing stuff, here is a quick example.
But first, an explanation. In Tovina's kindermusic class, the teacher sometimes has a blanket which is used as a hammock. 1 child at a time will lie in the blanket. Then the teacher and the appropriate parent will gently swing the child back and forth. Some children do not like this and refuse to get on the blanket. Other children (whose names might start with T and end with ovina) enjoy it so much that they have to be restrained from taking multiple turns. Tovina has taken to gathering up various small blanket and rugs around the house and bringing them to us so that we can swing her. What you see here was one of her more ambitious undertakings. Before I started filming, she had managed to sort of wrap herself up and was energetically twisting herself back and forth in an effort to make me understand what she wanted.

In this video, Tovina is actually demonstrating many of her different communication options.
1) Miming: Not exactly American sign language but picking up the rug, wrapping it around herself, and swaying was clear enough
2) Verbal: You heard her 'yes'? She's got lots more where that came from. (My favorites these days is 'nana' for banana and 'Baba' which is grandmother but might also mean 'cell phone' in T's world. Can you guess who gets the most calls from T?)
3) Signs: See that beckoning hand at the end? That means wait. It is suppose to be more of just a finger flutter thing, but I knew what she meant. I actually thought she would say it and was sort of shocked when she signed it so clearly.

2 comments:

Jason said...

Learning words has been one of the coolest parts of watching Katherine grow up, too. We have bunches of different food words -- cheese, "greebees" (green beans)and "burrs" (she means blueberries) are by far her favorites -- and multiple body parts (all clean ;) and it's funny to watch her rip her shirt up and proudly proclaim "BELLY!" then ask her "where's mommy's belly?" You can guess what comes next. muhahaha!).

:)

ShamrockJews said...

Its good to know you still got game