Back when I was super nervous about language development for
my child and we were counting all of the new words that she used, we got tested
frequently for age appropriate vocabulary at the Atlanta Speech
School. I distinctly remember filling
out the scantron sheet of words she knew only to have them scored by a machine
and then interpreted by her early intervention teacher at the time. We started doing the MacArthur test with her as soon as she was expressively using
language and I always took pride in her growth.
I did find the test to be a little skewed, however, because
the word lists may have been a little old and more suitable for a different
climate. There were a few that we never
used as adults and so therefore she did not know as a child. For instance, I never talked to her about
salt because she was not old enough to cook with me yet—or so I thought—and we
never sprinkled it on her food at home.
I began taking notice of all of the words Ella did NOT know from the
test and started teaching to the test. I
bought pretzels with visible salt particles and asked her to lick the salt and
described the pretzel as salty until she suddenly started saying “salt” every
time she saw a pretzel. Not sure that is
exactly what the early interventionists were going for in terms of language acquisition, but it was a way to get better scores on the test.
Also, there were a ton of words on there that related to
cold weather—snow suit, sled, snow. Hello! We live in GA! Can we get a swimsuit or a waterslide on the
list please? She was just over 2 when I
realized, she was a June baby and had encountered 2 winters in GA where there
was very little snow. I started singing
the Frosty the Snowman song in October and reading The Snowy Day and suddenly I
was able to fill in the little open circle next to the word “snowsuit” on the
expressive language list on the test.
Also there were words on the list that she was supposed to
know that had synonyms that we used much more frequently in our home. For instance, “noodle” was one of the words
she was supposed to know. We almost
never said “noodle” in our house and instead used “pasta” or “spaghetti” much
more frequently. So I started trying to
remember to expand her vocabulary to more words that we never used—I would say
“Ella, would you like some pasta? We
have spaghetti noodles for dinner tonight.
Do you like pasta? Do you like noodles?” and I showed her the pasta as I
put it on her plate. A new experience... a
new word—for both of us really.
Still, when we had pasta for dinner, she never said the word
“noodle” and we never were able to mark it on the test.
Next were the body part words—we were easily able to mark
off the parts of the face very early on, the arm, leg and tummy words, and soon
enough she knew shoulder, elbow, knee and neck as well as thigh, shin and wrist. She even used the correct words for her
female parts. These were easy to
incorporate into bathtime. However, we
had two little girls in our family and these words were much more common than
the male body parts. We were never able
to mark “penis” on the form, but it was on the list of words she was supposed
to know. But I was actually ok with her
not knowing that word right now. It
seemed awkward to me to try to explain the difference between boys and girls to
a two year old without an animate object as a prop and my husband was not
planning to model for our children.
Fast forward to 2013 and we now have a little boy in the house. My mom was giving Wyatt a bath and Ella
walked into the room to find her scrubbing his little tummy.
Ella asked very plainly, “Nanny? Why does Wyatt have that
noodle between his legs?”
Fantastic. She
finally used the word Noodle! IN A SENTENCE!
However, I guess we still need a little more teaching to the
test, huh?
Sigh. See how we hate noodles in boxes around here?
Love that girl.
