Austin’s words for “I want that” and “the other one”
August 18th, 2011 by gentry
Having two kids is a constant source of learning. With Ronan most of it comes in the form of endless “why” and “how” questions — a constant litany of wonders about, well, everything (how do they make water bottles? Why do people die? What does ‘care’ mean?). Lately, though, some pretty amazing insights about the human mind has come from watching Austin form her first words.
Back when I was in grad school I got pretty into object relations theory. OR is basically the idea that we construct models of other people in our heads, and in those models the person is paired with the emotional feelings one has around them. So when you think of that ex-girlfriend, or your dad, or your neighbor, you don’t just recall a person, but also a feeling (or feelings) that you tend to have when that person is around. Up until having Austin around, OR theory was just an interesting set of ideas about how the brain might work. But lately she’s been doing something pretty wild stuff with language that’s making the theory come to life.
With Ronan we were pretty good about using baby sign language to give him an early vocabulary. But with Austin, either due to neglect on our part or lack of interest on hers, signing has been limited to “milk”, “water”, and “all done”. She has lots of other ‘words’, though, most of which are spoken. For a while now she’s been saying ‘Mama’, ‘Dada’, ‘Roro’ (Ronan), ‘Nana’ (Grandma Nancy), ‘Ball’ (for any toy), ‘Bee’ (for anything bug or bug-like), ‘Woof’ (for most all pets), etc.
‘Mama’ and ‘Roro’ get use a lot though. At first we just figured she liked her mom and brother quite a bit, but too often her calling for them made no sense. She might point and say “Roro”, but if I followed up by bringing her brother over she’d get upset.
And then one day it dawned on me that ‘mama’ wasn’t only her word for her mother, it was also her word for ‘I want’. Or more more specifically it was her word for “yeah, that’s the ticket” — the verbal equivalent of the feeling you get when someone scratches your back right where it itches. Birdie wasn’t saying “mama” because she wanted her mother — she was saying it to express a kind of satisfaction and comfort. Figuring this out was a huge relief: it turned dozens of daily confusions into a deep sense of being on the same page with her.
Then, a few weeks later, Austin and I were playing with a pair of outdoor showers at the swimming pool when I made a second, similar discovery. After feeling the water sprinkle down on her from the leftmost shower, she pointed to the one on her right and said “Roro!”. She’s not usually a fan of sharing with her brother, so I wasn’t sure what to make of it. “You want me to ask Ronan to shower too?” I asked? She understand a lot more than she speaks, and she got enough of what I was asking to make it clear that wasn’t what she wanted. “Roro!” she said again.
Mostly because it was there, I pulled the chain hanging off the second shower to open the valve above. As water began to flow from it she got a big smile on her face. “Deedoo!”, she said to thank me, and she waddled to the second shower.
Almost immediately she pointed to the left one. “Roro!”. I turned it on and the same thing happened in reverse. “Deedoo!” she said, as she walked from the right shower to the left. And then it hit me: ‘Roro’ was not only her word for her brother, but for “the other one”, or more specifically “I want that one over there instead of the one I have right here”.
Seeing Austin use the words for her brother and mother this way — as expressions of her own inner feelings — has been a huge “aha” for me. Not only is it a pretty cool validation of some interesting theories, but it’s given me a much better way to understand what’s going on inside Austin’s little brain.
It’s a short-lived phenomenon, though. Since I first started working on this post, Austin’s language has begun to bloom, and already she’s abandoning “mama” in favor of the words that she sees her family members using with one another other. The window on this little bit of magic is closing. And though it seems silly to say it, hearing her say “yeah” this morning instead of “mama” actually made me sad.
They grow up so fast.
August 19th, 2011 at 9:47 am
This is super fascinating, Gentry! Thanks for sharing these insights…I wanna learn more :)