The Continuing Adventures of Super-Preemie

Shoshanna is a former micro-preemie (born 3 1/2 months early) who's now thriving! If you'd like to support research into the causes & prevention of premature birth, you can donate to WalkAmerica.

Thursday, July 06, 2006

On language acquisition

Shoshanna's at the age where she should start to call herself by her name. But we, being the sadistic parents that we are, saddled her with a name that no toddler is going to be able to say (the most common toddler-version seems to be either "Sosanna" or just "Sanna"). So she improvised/copied the grownups.

She calls herself "I". I can only assume it's from hearing us refer to ourselves in the first-person-singular (and apparently it doesn't confuse her that everyone has the same name for themselves...). But it's terribly cute to hear her going around saying "I shoes." "I socks." "I keys." and so on...

posted by Sarah @ Thursday, July 06, 2006  

5 Comments:

  • At 12:43 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Ha! My niece does the same thing--she uses "I" at an age where she shouldn't be using pronouns at all. (Of course, she also holds actual conversations on real phones at an age when voices coming out of the earpiece are just supposed to confuse kids. And instead of saying "yes" or nodding her head, she repeats what you've just said if she wants something. "Zoe, do you want strawberries?" "Srawbewwies!" "Do you want chicken?" "Chicken!" "Do you want Sandy to hold it?" "Sanny hold it.")

    Laura

     

  • At 5:10 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Can't remember who, but someone (who later became famous), didn't talk, and didn't talk, long past the age expected. However, one day when her Mom had paused in front of a petshop window, this kid said, "Fish have no hannies. You can't shake hands with a fish."
    We stand by for wisdom we know wll come!! e

     

  • At 2:21 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    "I shoes. I socks. I keys. I pod. I Romulus." Ooops, I guess she probably can't say that either!

     

  • At 2:35 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Well, Gavin calls his brother "D", Dexter calls himself "D", and both of them call Gavin "D". So much for encouraging twins to individuate!

     

  • At 1:14 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Up until 2 and a half, my brother referred to himself as you and and the second person as I or me.
    My sister and brother and I used it to our advantage as much as we could. e.g. If we wanted to take something away from him we would ask, "Who's is that?" to which he would answer "Yours!!"
    If we did something we weren't supposed to "Do know who did x?"
    "Yes, me!"

     

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