TBL,
its such a rare treat to see your posts!
so happy..
dun worry too much abt nat's speech development.
shes still young n pose no concern.
each tod develop differently. nat may be focussing on developing other skills first!
there are some todds who 'speak' at 24months or later and they have no problem in school later on!
since shes babbling alot, all the more you should not worry excessively.
on the contrary, i read that the 2nd/subsequent child might talk 'slower' as their elder sibling will be their spokesperson hence they lack the chance to talk.. haha
nathan:'mummy, i ......'
natalie:'mummy, nathan wants to drink milk'
nathan:'huh? no..i want...'
natalie:'didi, no? i know! mummy, nathan wants to watch barney vcd...'
nathan:'.......................'
hehe.. sorry, i boliao..
For rae, i find that reading to her aids in her speech development. and when she was younger, i used a method i learn from a book (same author as baby sign).
I am not sure whether combination of these 2 was the reason for that but i feel that she was focussing on her speech development rather than others as her gross motor skills is the slowest in this thread. really!
I am rather pleased with her verbalised vocab,more than 100 words and now shes attempting 'phrases'.
but her maths skills is non-existent.
her problem-solving ability is still rudimentary.
I have been teaching her phonics recently and she can recognise several letters and sounds.
but i am in a dilemma as it might confuse her. so i try to teach her name of upper case letter n sound of lower case. i dont know if this method is ok.
for me, each baby learns differently and has different strengths. so since rae loves words n books (till today, its the only thing that calms her immediately when shes upset/crying)
so i tend to focus on her english language development and place less emphasis on others. *guilty*
main thing is to make learning fun n tap on what interest them at the moment and how they learn best. my gal is a strange creature, since i intro phonics, the first thing she does when she wakes is to look for her phonics cards. so i think she learns fast cause she enjoys it.
but when i read chinese story books to her, she lose interest fast. hence her spoken chinese to date is less than 10words.
yuru and any other mummies, i need help with introducing maths and chinese to her.
that said. a child who appears 'faster' in a certain area need not necessarily be 'faster' consistently. she/he can slow down later on, might be in kindergarten, primary or even secondary. so likewise, a child who appears 'slower' might be just a late developer and might zoom past their peers in school later on. I have personally seen many of such cases.
theres a book that talks about finding out about a child's learning strength and how to tap on that to draw it out. very interesting.
it is still too early to 'judge' our tods at this point.
each is special and different.
for me, other than the usual happiness, health n good moral values, i only hope tat rae's love relationship with books is a lifetime and she can be an eloquent speaker.
but hey, i am just a deluded mother...haha