Do you know the nipple song?

I made a discovery a few weeks ago that I’ve been meaning to share. And what with Sunday’s nipple-related post, I thougt now would be as good a time as any. This is a music video from India, which has been captioned/subtitled for English-speakers:

Apparently a new tradition has blossomed across the internets to add English subtitles to videos that are not translations of the lyrics, but what the non-English lyrics sound like to an English speaker. I somehow had missed this, even though it has clearly gone viral, judging from the over 9 million YouTube views on a video called “Crazy Indian Video” since it was posted just over a year ago:

I stumbled across this phenomenon when following a link from Ashley Awesome to an Indian video, which I found strangely compelling. Then I found that same video, “buffalaxed.” (Go see Tunak Tunak Tun for yourself!)

I admit it. These crack me up. Does this prove to the world that I am actually a 12-year-old masquerading as an adult?

early intervention (part 4): getting up to speed

This is part of my series about our experiences in getting Early Intervention services for Phoebe’s expressive language delay. Phoebe started receiving services in January of this year, which consisted of one-on-one meetings with a speech pathologist, and weekly attendance of a parent-toddler group. For background, you can refer back to parts 1, 2 and 3. This post is a bit about the course of Phoebe’s language progress, and a bit more about what went on during the services she received.

(I should make it clear that the rapidity of Phoebe’s progress is not typical, and most likely not due solely to the EI services she received. I also can’t say how the service she received compare to those of other locations, and other kids. But here is what we experienced, for what it’s worth.)

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When Phoebe started EI services in January, she would primarily use single word utterances, with occasional utterances of 2 words or longer. Through the next couple months, we would get plenty of the 2 word utterances, like “eat cake” or “candles hot”, with more and more 3-word strings.

She was getting more and more comfortable making requests (which became more and more like demands). We tried to encourage her to request using a sentence, such as “I want X,” like the more advanced speakers at the playgroup would do, but she would only produce this reluctantly. She must have been giving this a lot of thought, though, as there was one early morning in March when she was apparently practicing in her sleep. I was startled (and amused) to hear the words “I want a cookie” ringing out loudly and clearly from the baby monitor. (And then she went back to sleep.)

By April, 3- and 4-word sentences were the norm, with more and more of the adult-like grammatical elements showing up. (She would regularly produce plurals and articles, for example.) More helpful to us, though, was that we were getting to the point where Phoebe could really communicate. She could tell us not only her wants and needs, but more information about her state of being. After she had been sick, it was really thrilling for us to hear her produce the sentence “tummy feel better now.”

In spite of all this progress, it was like she was a different child at the playgroup. She would often not say a peep for the first half hour of free play, aside from occasional single word responses to questions. Then at snacktime, she would only whisper her request, which was often only a single word even after she could make longer requests at home. Over the months, she would more and more often make the full-sentence requests that she’d make so readily at home, but very very quietly. Whenever Phoebe was particularly tired, such as after we’d returned from a weekend trip, she’d get even more quiet. Likewise when a new child (and accompanying adult) started in the group, or when a substitute group leader took the place of our regular person.

Things were different with the speech pathologist, J, when we’d meet with her for our one-on-one sessions immediately after the group. Phoebe would need a few minutes to warm up, but would gladly respond to questions and use her words. Our meetings continued to be play sessions, centered around various toys, and Phoebe showed no signs of believing them to be anything other than sitting around and playing with J. I’d sit with them and watch, and play, and sometime encourage Phoebe to tell J about something we’d done since our last visit. Phoebe tended not to speak in quite as complex ways as she did at home, but even so, J never failed to hear evidence of Phoebe’s rapid progress. Each week, I’d have some new bit of language development to report, and Phoebe would usually obligingly produce that construction, if not during that session, within the next one or two. Plurals. Articles. A range of negatives. Multi-word constructions. Past tense. Then full sentences with all the right bits in place. And then, suddenly, complex sentences with subordinate clauses.

Each week, J would write up a report for us of her observations of Phoebe’s progress, and recommendations for things to work on. She’d include a few samples of Phoebe’s longer utterances, which will be nice for me to look back at. She also would give me various handouts about activities we could do to encourage speech, and information about development stages. After the first few weeks, J said that Phoebe’s progress was steady enough that weekly one-on-one sessions were no longer considered necessary. However, seeing as Phoebe enjoyed these sessions so much, and I got a chance to observe the process in action, I asked if we could keep up the weekly meetings. J was happy to continue. (I also got her assurance that there wasn’t some other child waiting in the wings for an opening in the schedule, though.)

I don’t remember when it came up first, but the speech pathologist let me know that come our next assessment, which would be scheduled 6 months from the date we started services, Phoebe would no longer qualify for services.

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I’m still not done with this yet, though it’s getting closer. Next time, I’ll talk a bit more about Phoebe’s progress in the playgroup setting, and perhaps also about our 6-month assessment. I’d also like to share more about what I think that Phoebe got out of the Early Intervention services, and how it may or may not have affected her language development.

early intervention: starting to get into it (part 3)

Last week I started writing about our experiences with Phoebe and Early Intervention for a language delay. Part 1 was about the original assessment, and part 2 was about starting to work with a speech pathologist. (If you are interested, you may also want to see what I wrote before the original assessment back in November.)

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Some time in January, our speech pathologist told us of an opening in a parent-toddler group that we could attend on Mondays. I wasn’t sure what to expect from the play group. I hadn’t had a whole lot of interaction with groups of parents and toddlers.

The group leader, N., was a very friendly young woman who welcomed us warmly. The other parents were generally quite friendly as well, and all were supportive of all the kids in the group. There were about 8 kids in the group (each accompanied by a parent or other family member), with the number fluctuating a bit week by week. The first week we were there, Phoebe was the only girl at the group. Apparently boys are flagged for Early Intervention services much more frequently than girls. However, our group did have quite a few girls re-appear and join the group over time, as well. (In fact, at the last group we attended, there were more girls than boys. However, this was considered remarkable.) All kids were under 3, as services only cover kids up to 3. The youngest child was 18 months when we started, though I later learned that he was a “community child,” meaning a child not receiving EI services, and attending the group as a “model.” Most children were closer to 2. (Phoebe was almost 2 when she started.)

While I know groups vary quite a bit, here’s an overview of what went on during the group.

The group met for 2 hours, from 9 to 11 in the morning. Things started off with some unstructured time where kids could ease into things, and play with various toys set up in stations around the room. This gave adults a bit of time to chat (and thankfully, time to run late). The group leader, N, would also move around the room and chat with each child, and also with the adults to get progress updates. Other activities then followed, in a more-or-less fixed order: clean-up from the free play, snack time, playground time (indoor or outdoor, depending on weather), craft time, “circle time” (with songs) and then the good-bye. Each activity had it’s own routine and sometimes associated songs.

Because the group was geared towards working on expressive language and communication skills, the routines typically involved getting the kids to participate and communicate. For example, for the snack, there was always a choice of 2 snack items, and the child was encouraged to express their choice. “Do you want crackers or raisins?” N might ask, showing both options. And depending on the individual’s abilities and level, different answers would be encouraged. For most of the kids, a single word or sign was encouraged. (Some of the kids weren’t speaking, though all in the group were hearing.) Sometimes a “please” would be encouraged. For some kids, such as those just entering the group, pointing to the desired snack was enough. For more advanced speakers, a whole-sentence request was elicited: “I want crackers.” I remember being impressed by one little boy, who was almost 3 and had been attending the group and getting EI services for at least a year, because he could sometimes be prompted to ask: “Can I have crackers, please?”

Our own goal for Phoebe was to get Phoebe to make requests using single words. Even after she started making such requests with us, she was still very reluctant to speak in front of others. She would sometimes manage only to point, or only to whisper her choice in a single word. What was nice was that every attempt was greeted with encouragement and praise, and there was little pressure. If a child wasn’t up to making a request, a choice would be made for them and they would still get encouragement.

I swear that Phoebe loved every bit of the play group time. She was probably fondest of circle time, where we’d all sit in a circle and sing songs. Each child would get a turn, in the order of our seating arrangement, to pick between two toys representing songs: a spider, a fish, a boat, a bus, etc. Most of the songs (or at least the tunes) were familiar to me (and some to Phoebe), and a subset of the same group of songs would be chosen each week. All the songs had some sort of movement or gestures, so that kids could participate with their hands and feet. (Mostly the kids did not sing along, but the adults all did.)

Phoebe behaved quite wonderfully during the group, staying in her seat, following instructions, and observing everything going on around her. I think it helped that she had already been attending daycare, which also had a bit more structure than our time together at home. (I think Phoebe is also rather on the mellow side, as toddlers go.) The kids in the group varied in how well they could focus. A few kids would have trouble sitting still, especially by the end of the 2 hours. But for the most part, all the kids seemed tuned in for at least most of the group time.

While I was worried that I would find the whole thing painfully hokey, seeing Phoebe so engaged was really gratifying. And while she continued to be quiet during the group time itself, she started to show a lot of signs early on that she was really taking in the lessons of the group.

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Okay, I’m still not done. Next time, I’ll write more about Phoebe’s progress. And maybe about the one-on-one sessions. If anyone out there has questions about particular aspects of the EI services we received, please feel free to leave a comment or email me. (See the “contact alejna” page in the sidebar.)

early intervention: getting started (part 2)

Last night I posted a bit about Phoebe’s initial assessment for Early Intervention services. This is part 2. (If you are interested, you might also want to look back at what I wrote back at the end of November, and how we ended up getting the assessment.)

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As I mentioned, because of the time of year, it was several weeks after the assessment before our services got started.

In early January, we heard from the person who would be taking on our case. (I’m actually not sure what her specific qualifications were. And actually, I never thought to ask. But we’ll call her a speech pathologist.) She set up an appointment to come to our house for a first meeting to talk to us about goals, and to write up our ISP (Individual Service Plan).

At that time, our main concern was that, while she used quite a large number of different words to label things at her own discretion, and would occasionally produce longer utterances of her observations, Phoebe didn’t often use language to communicate her needs and wants. What was most difficult was that she would typically only ask for things by pointing, or sometimes just by becoming unhappy, and we would have the job of trying to figure out what was wanted. Most of the time, we were able to do this, largely through playing what was a lot like a game of 20 questions. Are you hungry? Do you want milk? Do you want the toy? Are you hurting? Those times when we didn’t come up with the right question, Phoebe would get frustrated. She would sometimes start making that sort of grunting/groaning toddler noise, and occasionally break down crying. Mind you, these times were few and far between, but we wanted to get past them. We knew, for example, that she could say the word (and in some cases the sign) for many of things that she wanted. But somehow, she was never willing to say them as a request.

This was the main goal written on her ISP: for Phoebe to make simple requests, using single words.

We also worked at that first meeting on getting a schedule for services. The speech pathologist would meet with Phoebe once a week, either at our home or at Phoebe’s daycare. Phoebe could also attend a weekly group at one of the program offices (either a parent-child group, or a “drop off” group). Since I wanted to be involved in the process, we got signed up for a parent-child group. I also wanted to be around for the one-on-one meetings, rather than have them take place at daycare. As it turned out, because of my tight schedule, we ended up scheduling our one-on-one meetings right after the play group, at the program building, rather than having a separate meeting at our home on a different day.

We did have one more home visit from the speech pathologist before starting the regular schedule. She came over with a bag of toys, and sat down to play with Phoebe. Because that was just what it seemed like. As they played, the speech pathologist used very short, simple sentences and repeated single words often. I was very impressed with how engaged Phoebe was right from the start.

The speech pathologist also left us with some suggestions for encouraging Phoebe to make requests. The main suggestion was to frequently give Phoebe a choice of two things. For example, when offering a crayon, we should ask “Do you want green or blue?” When she’d point to one or the other, we should use the single word, repeating it clearly a couple of times. I was a bit skeptical about how much difference this could make, but having seen how engaged Phoebe was during the meeting, I decided to work this into our daily routine.

It may well have been a total coincidence of timing, but we had a breakthrough shortly after. I wrote a post about it on my old “Phoebe blog” (which I used mostly to post updates for family and friends) on January 19th. Since that site seems to be broken just now, I’ll copy the whole thing here:

We’ve been working on trying to get Phoebe to express her wants to us more clearly. Phoebe uses a lot of words, but usually just to name things. She’s quite good at responding to questions, like “what does a dog say?” (“woof”) or “what color is this?” (“gee!”) or “do you want milk?” (“yup.”)

She has started asking for things that are just out of her reach. She will, for example, point to where we keep her beads and say “bee?” There has also been at least one time when she has wanted us to get her Bunny out of her crib, and she’s pointed towards her room and said her version of “Bunny.” However, she has been reluctant about making requests for things that she can’t see.

Today, though, we had an exciting moment. We were in the car heading home from a meeting in Boston, and having a snack of graham crackers. I asked Phoebe if she wanted some water. To which she replied. “No. Milk, yeah!”

(Unfortunately, we didn’t actually have any milk in the car with us. But we were at least able to acknowledge her request by saying that we would get milk later.)

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Okay, I’ll have to continue this again later. (It’s late at night once more.) Next time, I’ll write about going to the play group.

early intervention: getting in (part 1)

Yesterday, Phoebe and I made our last appearance at the play group we’ve been attending since January. I’m sad that we won’t be going back. Phoebe loved it.

It actually wasn’t just your average play group, though. It was part of Early Intervention services that Phoebe was receiving for a speech delay. As of last Monday, it was official that Phoebe would no longer qualify: she no longer has a delay.

I’ve wanted to write about our experiences for a while, in part because I think it’s good to have stories out there for people who may be concerned about what it means to be qualify for Early Intervention services. I’ve also found the process quite interesting, as a linguist. Plus it’s been something big going on in my life as a parent, too.

It turns out I have quite a bit to say, so this post will be just the start. (Also, I have to get to bed. It’s after 1:00 am now.)

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Way back at the end of November, I wrote about how we were going to have an assessment to see about a possible language delay for Phoebe. The pediatrician was concerned that Phoebe wasn’t speaking often. I resisted, being sure that Phoebe was just taking her time. And then decided that, while I knew more about language development than your average mother (and probably more than the pediatrician, even), I wasn’t qualified to make an assessment.

I told people back then that I was about 85% sure that Phoebe wouldn’t need services. A funny number that.

As it turned out, Phoebe did qualify for services.

The initial assessment was actually quite a lot of fun. A team of specialists came over to our house: a case manager, a developmental specialist, and a language specialist. They ran a bunch of tests, which actually involved playing a bunch of games. Phoebe had a fun time. She was cooperative and remarkably at ease for having strangers around asking her questions. While we’d worried that she would clam up, she spoke quite a bit for what was her norm at the time.

As the core of the assesment process, they gave an approximate age level, in months, for a vareity of developmental areas: fine motor skills, gross motor skills, self care, cognitive abilities, receptive language and expressive language, and probably a couple of others that aren’t coming to mind just now. Phoebe was 21 months at the time of the assessment, and she tested right around age level for a few things, and several months above age level for a few more. Her receptive language skills were remarkably high, testing at 27 months. 6 months above age level! (And they don’t necessarily push the tests to the limits, once they establish that there is no delay.)

But for expressive language, measuring what she would actually say, she was scored at around 16 months. Almost a full year behind her receptive language score. Also, it meant that her expressive skills were below her age level. A 5 month delay, in fact, which qualified her for Early Intervention services.

While we had some doubts, we decided that if this was something that could benefit Phoebe, we should take advantage. We had heard that such services were generally very positive, and that even if they did not help, they were very unlikely to actually harm or hinder. We would be having weekly one-on-one visits with a specialist, and could also attend a weekly toddler group.

Things got going slowly due to the time of year. The offices were closed for a couple of weeks at the end of December, people went on vacation, and January arrived before we started services.

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To be continued…

decoding real estate listings: a helpful glossary

If you’ve ever spent any time house-hunting, you’ve probably noticed that real estate listings have a certain lingo of their own. Often, this involves descriptions of properties that have been somewhat embellished to make even flaws quirky characteristics sound like selling points. Some of these euphemisms have become standardized, such as the “handyman’s special,” a term for a home that is falling apart in every imaginable way in minor need of repairs.

In order to help you read between the lines in an MLS listing, I offer to you this helpful example and glossary.

Example: a typical MLS listing

Charming and cozy 2 bedroom house. Enjoy summer breezes in this lovingly decorated perfect starter home, with sunny, low-maintenance yard. Modern kitchen, 1 and a half baths, partially finished basement. Homey, and ready to move in!
Location features:
• easy access to freeway
• excellent cell phone reception
• close to amenities
• friendly, mature neighborhood

Glossary of Terms:
charming: run-down
cozy: cramped
summer breezes: house is drafty, may have windows missing or holes in roof
lovingly decorated: all the carpets are magenta, and there is loud wallpaper in every room
perfect starter home: you’ll want to move out as soon as you can afford better
sunny: no trees or shade of any kind
low-maintenance yard: lawn is paved over
modern kitchen: kitchen done in the Modern style, circa 1960
1 and a half baths: the second bathroom has partially-installed fixtures, or there may be a toilet in the basement
partially finished basement: basement features water-stained shag carpet
homey: house has funky smells, possible from cat urine
Ready to move in!: home has been abandoned
easy access to freeway: next to an on-ramp
excellent cell phone reception: under a cell phone tower
close to amenities: across from a liquor and/or convenience store
friendly, mature neighborhood: may be near a strip club or adult bookstore

I hope that this information will be helpful to you in your house-hunting endeavors. If you have more terms to add to the glossary, I welcome your contributions!

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This week’s Monday Mission, which I’ve chosen to accept in a roundabout way, was to write a post in the style of a real estate listing. For more listings, stop by Painted Maypole.

Thanks to maja for teaching me “low-maintenance yard” and “easy freeway access,” terms that she may have actually seen in use.

Well, golly!

I’m seriously amused. There is a quiz out there called “The Blog Cuss-O-Meter,” which I saw at casa az last night (and at raincoaster a few days ago when I was too busy to give it a spin). I thought to myself “screw it, I hardly ever swear on my blog,” but I took the quiz anyhow. Here is the result I got:

(The site further gives this bit of info: “This is 791% MORE than other websites who took this test.”)

This surprised me more than a little, especially given that others who took this were surprised at how low a score they got. In spite of having decided, and stated, that I reserve the right to swear on my blog, I tend to shy away from using certain words in my writing that more easily leave my lips when I am, for example, driving. Hell, I wrote a whole post last week where I played with “crap” as a theme, but I somehow avoided using the word shit.

For example, I’d just like to point out that the word fuck appears to appear in only 4 posts in the history of this blog, which means just over 1% of the posts. (And one of those uses is on an image of a little candy heart. Doesn’t that make it sugar-coated?)

But I do use a lot of mild taboo words. My guess is that somehow, the ass in kick-ass, as in my tag “kick-ass women” is responsible. (Yes, I’m saying my ass is responsible.) It’s in my sidebar, so may count as being in basically all of my pages somehow. Otherwise, what do they consider?

Seriously, this makes me want to do an experiment. Anyone want to try adding some shit or something to their sidebar to see if they can inflate their score?

(Oh, and by the way, I’m back home. The conference and trip were really great. The presentations went well. I saw lots of people I wanted to see. And now I’m really fucking freakin’ damn quite palpably tired and need to get ready for the next conference, now less than 3 weeks away.)

the well of idioms may be about to run dry

I’m afraid I may have upset the apple cart with yesterday’s scandalously wasteful overuse of idioms. (I mean, I packed in the idioms like sardines, all higgledy-piggledy as if they grew on trees.) Because as some of you know, this country is suffering from the ravages of an idiom crisis:

Idiom Shortage Leaves Nation All Sewed Up In Horse Pies

WASHINGTON—A crippling idiom shortage that has left millions of Americans struggling to express themselves spread like tugboat hens throughout the U.S. mainland Tuesday in an unparalleled lingual crisis that now has the entire country six winks short of an icicle.

To do my part to conserve, I’ll resolve to work on recycling old careworn and threadbare clichés, and coining my own beet-juggling idioms. For more details, please tumble your aardvark over to the full story at The Onion.

dot dot dot

There are times when the world conspires to make me ponder a topic for a list. This week the world apparently wants me to reflect on punctuation.

I’m quite fond of punctuation, really. Not so much the prescriptive uses of it. I like the informal uses of it that reflect the prosody of spoken language. You can break up a sentence or phrase with periods to show the strong emphasis of making each word its own intonational phrase. (What. The. Hell?) There’s the use of parentheses or commas for, you know, parenthenticals. (And I’m quite partial to parentheticals.) Or you can use ellipses to signal that you’re trailling off…

So I offer you a ThThTh list with an abundance of punctuation marks.

First, I offer to you the Evidence of Punctuation Conspiracy:

• I came across the “What punctuation mark are you?” quiz at raincoaster’s earlier this week. I’m a question mark.
• Next, caset of Sweet Not Muches offered up this tasty bit about how the semicolon is taking New York by storm.
• Soon after, I saw that the eminent simian General Kang offered warnings of the perils of punctuation on the The Skwib:
  

  You’ve never seen anything as terrifying as a gorilloid demonstrating an impeccable use of the semi-colon.

• These spots of punctuation come on the heels of a recent post by Alpha DogMa on some corporate abuse of the period: Happy Period // Cranky Question Mark // Yes Exclamation Point

Further punctuation-related things include:

• The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks. This blog is a “great” place to see of all sorts of abuses of quotation marks.
• Apostrophe Abuse. Its the cats pajama’s in terms of misused apostrophe’s.
• The Ominous Comma. A blog. While not actually about punctuation, it gets points for having such a cool punctuation-related name.
• Eats, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss. A book on punctuation that is said to be entertaining. (Yes, I should have read it. I have it. But haven’t read it. It will probably tell me to stop with the sentence fragments. Or some such. Screw that.)
• There’s a punctuation “game” based on the book. (I use “scare quotes” here to suggest that there is not a lot of “fun” or “playing” involved.)
• More fun is the panda joke that is the inspiration for the book title (offered up by Geoffrey Pullum of The Language Log) .
• “I love you period,” a song by Dan Baird
  

  I love you period
  Do you love me question mark
  Please, please exclamation point
  I want to hold you in parentheses

• Let’s not forget the colons and semi-colons of the island nation of San Serriffe:
  

  The native people of San Serriffe are the Flong. However, the dominant group are of European stock, the descendants of colonists, known as colons. There is also a large mixed-race group, known as semi-colons.

• Finally, I offer a bit of cartoon swearing. As in using punctuation marks in place of swear words, usually in a cartoon. (This allows me to end the post with a bang. Or 2.)(Sorry, a little punctuation mark humor.)(No, I’m not sorry. I’m dorky like that.)

          &*%#@$!!