At 18th month, Rosie is late to start talking comparing to other children. She makes sounds; close to what we think they mean but I still cannot say definitely that she is talking.
I am not worried. Not at all.
Calum didn't start to speak until 2 years old. Before that he didn't even attempt to 'talk'. He didn't make "Ma Ma" clearly like Rosie. He didn't say "ya ya" (teeth in baby Mandarin) like Rosie when she wants to brush her teeth. But one day after turning 2, he suddenly started to talk; and non-stop.
Having some linguistic training and been interested in child language acquisition, I was aware that he was trying to sort out the languages he was receiving at the moment; English, Mandarin and Thai. Also, he is a very observant child who doesn’t act until the situation is ‘safe’ and ‘certain’. Therefore, I was not worried when he was not talking. However, once he started talking, it was rather an interesting observation to me. He would speak to me in Mandarin, English to his father, and Thai to his nanny. He knew what to say to whom. When talking to my parents in Taiwan, he could have simple conversation with them. At home, his best friend was our neighbors from England. And his Thai nanny was very proud of him speaking Thai and liked to show him off to her family and friends. Of course, we are talking about a child with 2-years-old’s vocabularies, so he was not making speeches.
When we returned to the U.S. and Calum entered kindergarten, he was asked to have an ESL test because one of his parents is not native English speaker – me. He took the test and was determined that his English proficiency was ‘boarder-line’, and he was asked to be interviewed with his kindergarten teacher. After the interview, his teacher told me that the test result was ‘boarder-line’ because Calum didn’t agree with the pictures provided and thought the story line was not logical. Therefore, he skipped the whole ‘Pictionary’ section. He teacher joked that Calum had no English proficiency problem, the only issue was that he couldn’t stop talking once he thought the topic was interesting.
Rosie, on the other hand, showed interest in talking earlier than her brother. She acquired languages or sounds for now in a fast speed. Since I was more lax with Calum speaking Mandarin, the second time around, I determined to do a better job in keeping the Mandarin speaking with Rosie. Even when I read English books, I would translate and read it to her. Therefore, we have “Goodnight Moon” in Mandarin version.
Of course, since listening (input) comes easier than speaking (output), she demonstrates her language ability by showing what she understands. Recently (Feb. 2013, 17-18 months old), she showed understanding mostly in body parts or related items. Her vocabularies in Mandarin include Ears, Hair, Nose, Mouth, Hands, Feet, Butt, Belly, Socks, Shoes, and Hats. In English, to my surprise, she understood Balloon and Moon (from Goodnight Moon), Kiss, Sit Down, Bye Bye. Down (from calling Boomer to get down from the couch).
It is really amazing to observe children’s language acquisition and my personal pleasure is to stimulate and challenge children to see how far they can go. Very often, I am amazed by children’s potential and creativity; again and again.
Look at your child/children, let’s think about how they amazed you today.
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