The new sound "s"

Today Rapahel made a new sound "s".

He did this at the end of a word that he was copying "Always"

It is not a very confident sound but it is being made with the correct part of the mouth rather than him using the constant fluid in his nose to make an s whistle when he breathes out his nose.

We are still trying to get him to confidently end words with k and make dy sounds but this seems to get better and worse over time. At least he is making some progress, even if it is in an area that we have not been trying to teach him.


Ironically his Chinese can be quite clear but he has a very limited Chinese vocabulary. Mostly "I want" and "I don't want"

Development and weight gain (10.14kg)

Today we weighed Raphael at 10.14kg (a 60g increase from last time).

Raphael has begun cruising to more difficult surfaces of different heights. He still complains about having to do it but is willing to do it if the incentive is high enough.

He has also just managed to say Mama, it is a bit garbled but he clearly pointed to his mum and made this new sound. This is the first new sound in a long time and makes his list of sound:

• "dya-dya-dya"
• "adaadaadaadaa"
• "aiyaiyaiya"
• "mama"

Mama is English and Chinese for Mum and so we are going to claim it as two new words that he has learnt. I think that he knows that am "Dada" and that his mum is "Mama" but I can't be certain about that.

Early learning

My wife took Raphael to Early Learning this morning I believe that the general advice was that the Physiotherapist was happy with Raphael's development but the OT (occupational therapist) thought that he was lagging quite a bit.

The problem with his fine motor skills might be becuase other children his age are picking up small pieces of food with their fingers to eat but of course he doesn't get this experience; he can't even eat mashed potato, let alone a whole sultana. So we are going through our toys looking for things with small things to grab hold of. Of course we can't just give him tiny things because of the risk that he might put them in his mouth and choke on them. The only thing that I can think of at the moment is baby puzzles that have the little knobs on the pieces to pick them up by.

My wife believes that Raphael has made attempts at verbalising a few words:
All done: "Ada"
Zài jiàn (Chinese for goodbye): "Dyadya"
Gěi: (Chinese for give): Ge

She claims that the evidence is that:

• the sound is approximately correct
• he has said these things more than once; and
• he says them in conjunction with sign language (or action in the case of give)
  

I think that Annie is still being a bit optimistic about this being speech. I suspect that this might turn out to be another "head scratching incident" as he has not signed mummy in a very long time. But regardless of this we will use his sounds back to him (and with the correct pronunciation) to reinforce this behavior and with any luck he will learn that he has actually said an understandable word and not just a coincidental grunt.