Ellis talks

Today we popped over to see our friends Amanda and 11 mo old Maddie. While Maddie was climbing all over me and handing me a teddy bear, Amanda managed to capture on video Ellis SAYING 'mom' (it's actually "ba", but since he can't hear it anyway, that's pretty good!). Watch the movie here.

What's amazing is that he has connected a vocalization to a word. I didn't teach him this, and he's had no speech therapy yet whatsoever. He also gets very little auditory access from his hearing aid. (So little that he's actually a cochlear implant candidate.) We've been focusing totally on the visual acquisition of language so far. He made the connection entirely on his own. Now he's using "ba" for other words. It's a definitive sound he makes for when he's intentionally talking. "Ba" is 'mom', but it's also 'milk". He links the sign and the word.

What a kid!!! He never ceases to astound me.