Communication Skills

When she works her way to the front of your legs and does her whining "eh-eh, uh-uh" this means she wants to be picked up. If you ask her, "Do you want up?" She says "Up."

When she points to something and YOU correctly identify what it is, she says "Oh." and stops point at it. If she wants it, then after you identify it she says "eh-eh", and once she receives it she says "Oo" normally with a smile.

When she's all done with eating, and you aren't paying much attention, she will grab the food (or if she doesn't like a particular food she does the same thing) and drops it on the floor. If you are able to intervene before this point and ask her if she's "All done?" she will sign all done (basically waving both arms as if she wants you to take her tray away) and sometimes make sounds like she's also saying all done. We have started to make her pick up her dropped food and put it in the trash can before she can go play after eating... This is a touch and go tactic, so I'm now kind of changing to seeing if I can get her to put the food into a bowl and have that mean "all done" instead of dropping the food on the floor... We will see. She hadn't been putting food on the floor for awhile with me, but then whenever Brian was there she'd drop it on the floor, and even with scolding, she then continued to do it.

In the middle of the night when she wakes up and wants to nurse she does the sign for milk (opening and closing a fist like milking a cow), and also says "Me"

She knows the sign for "please" (making a circle around your heart with an open hand), but she only does it occasionally when asked, and definitely not when she really really wants something.

When she wants something to drink (water, milk, juice, etc), she does the sign for "milk." Not to be confused with waving "bye-bye" (this distinction is when she verbally says bye bye while waving, or when she puts anything on her arm like a bracelet, purse, bag, etc), or "light" which is supposed to be the back of the hand up and opening the fingers, this is normally when she notices the light going on in the van.

She knows the sign for diaper (patting the hip), but she doesn't really do it in a way to tell us when she wants/needs a diaper, just kind of a when she's thinking about it way. But I have hope that knowing this sign will still help in the future.

She knows the sign for "Daddy" (an open hand touching the thumb to the forehead where a cap would be worn), but, again, only does it on rare occasions. Sort of like how she can say "da da" and "ma ma" but doesn't do it with any sort of consistency.

She is proficient with the sign for "duck" (simulating quacking with your hand), "frog" (sticking the tongue in and out of your mouth), and "fish" (opening and closing the mouth like a fish).

For the most part, whenever there's something of interest, she points to it and says something like "Apple" (ah-pull) but this goes for pointing to bananas, pointing to lights, pointing to trucks, pointing to toys, etc.

When ever she drives her car, or pushes around cars/buses/trucks etc she says "beep beep!"

Whenever it's time to wash her hands, or her hands are dirty and she wants them clean, she rubs her hands together to simulate washing them.

For awhile she was making a sound like a rooster crowing whenever we asked what noise the rooster makes. There also was a point in time when she could point to our nose and then to her nose, but then these skills seem to have taken a back seat to other things.

We are working on the sign for "eat" (touching finger tips to the mouth like you were feeding yourself), "hot" (blowing like you were going to cool it down), and "thank you" (touching fingertips to chin and extending outwards). She has done the signs for "eat" and "hot" before, but mostly in mimicking, not initiatively. Not sure what we'll work on after this, but I'm sure we'll figure it out as we reach these communication boundaries!