Word Count

 Levi talks.  A lot.  In the beginning I understood nearly everything he said because he would say the same thing over and over again.  Now he strings together words that sometimes make no sense.  For instance he says things like
"Cat train zoom bless break."

There are other situations when he is crystal clear--like the time he watched Pop grilling dinner out in the backyard and said, "Me Levi want out."

It feels so good to know exactly what he wants.  When Levi shows a sign of a whimper, some sort of dissatisfaction, I ask him, "What does Levi want?"  He is usually able to answer.

Levi made a joke.  Not a very funny joke, but a joke nonetheless.  He said, "Levi hurt."  Douglas and I looked at each other.  "Hurt where?" We asked, concerned.  "Levi funny," he answered and laughed.  That was a joke, wasn't it?

It is so amazing to see the birth of language.  When we went to Tennessee, Levi's aunt asked me how many words he could express.  I told her I stopped counting.  She insisted I count again.

So Douglas and I sat down and counted.  And counted.  We were flummoxed at one point (okay, several points)--we were stumped about how to count certain things in ASL.

For example, in ASL "airplane taking off" is one sign, one handshape, one movement.  Is that considered one word?

We counted that as one word.  There were a few other action verbs and descriptive verbs that we just clumped together as one count.  As of today, Levi signs about 250 words.  We know that children that sign are able to express themselves more readily before their voice catches up.  How many words does your toddler sign?  What resources do you have in terms of language development for signing babies?