Sunday, May 18, 2008

Pointing and Communication

10 month old Grace learned to point with her finger at least a month ago. Meanwhile, sometime around his birthday, DJ started pointing at things, but with a full open hand. He had been "pointing" with an open hand to the "light" and the (ceiling) "fan", but that was it. Around his birthday, he started to point at very specific objects that he wanted, not just at things where he knows the names.

On Tuesday, Steve noticed that DJ was starting to mimick Grace and pointing with his index finger. The open hand "point" still happens, but the one finger point is happening a lot more frequently now.

His pointing is easiest to interpret at the table, as he points to his milk or whatever else he wants to eat at the time. Yesterday, I thought he was finished eating lunch. Instead, he pointed at MY lunch (english muffin pizza) and made the lip smacking noise he makes when he wants to eat/drink something. Ok then...! I shared at least half of an english muffin pizza with him!

When we've been outside (he *loves* outside - at least that hasn't changed since he was a newborn/infant), he's been pointing at things but because they aren't close, I'm having trouble interpreting what he seeing. Is it the tree? The leaves moving in the wind? No idea.

DJ's communication, overall, has been improving for sure and although when he learns to talk we'll be excited to truly communicate with him, I actually really like this method of communication now. It's a challenge, but it's so incredibly cute!! In fact, he's been babbling a lot more this weekend than we've ever heard him. He's stringing multiple syllables together with various inflections and sounds. He's not close to matching Grace in her prolific conversations with various objects, but he's certainly saying more than he had.

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