Toddler Talk

*I found this short article from here.

This 19-month old toddler loves to hear her own voice, and is already quite a chatterbox. The dramatic vocabulary explosion that this study is probably not too far away. For now, she likes to say words like "book," "apple," mama," "dog" and "hat." In this picture she's saying one of her favorite words, "choo-choo."

If you know any toddlers, you’ve probably wondered what is going on in their heads as they put their (full) bowls on their head at mealtime or run around in circles, shrieking for no apparent reason.

There are lots of mysterious things about the toddler mind, but for scientists, one of the most interesting questions is how these pint-sized chatterboxes manage to learn words so quickly. By the time you’re an adult, you will have learned approximately 60,000 words. You’ve already learned many of those words, and, though you may not remember this, you learned an especially large number of words when you were around two and three years old.

Toddlers learn new words at an astonishingly fast rate, and researchers have called this the “vocabulary explosion.” Scientists have wondered for a long time how this is possible, and they’ve proposed that there might be some special part of the toddler brain that becomes active at this stage and speeds up word-learning.

A new study published in the 3 August issue of Science suggests a different explanation. In the study, Bob McMurray of the University of Iowa shows that that the vocabulary explosion could be related to the fact that languages generally have a lot of words that are kind of easy – but not super-easy – to learn. Young children begin by learning the very easiest, most common words, but there are not that many of these, so we don’t really notice any kind of language explosion.

But, then they move on to words that are just a little less common and a little more difficult. Languages have many of these words, so a vocabulary explosion occurs right at this stage. One of the interesting things about this idea is that toddlers are basically doing the same kind of word-learning that older children and adults do. In other words, a special “speed up” mechanism in the toddler brain isn’t necessary to explain the vocabulary explosion, as many scientists have suggested.

In his study, Dr. McMurray notes that any learning process that fits this general pattern (the easiest and hardest things being the least common, the in-between things are the most common) should have a similar period of rapid progress early on.

p/s: oh Balqis..obviously you are now in 'vocabulary explosion' phase : 32 months old

Potty Training & Spender Ultraman

“kau bolehla..kau ada maid”

Saya senyap. Masih berkira-kira jawapan yang bersesuaian apabila kawan saya katakan ini. Berkira-kira sebab a) tak mahu dia terasa hati dan b) memberi jawapan yang lebih kepada penyelesaian.

“maid aku takleh harap la”

Terukkan jawapan ni. Salah kan orang lain pula. Walaumacam manapun memang saya rasa patut menjaga hati dia sebab saya tak nak dia dah tak mahu sembang dengan saya dek sebab nak menangkan maid saya pula :) ( Dia memang tak menang pun, sebab kalau harapkan dia..alamat sampai sekarangla saya dok perhabis beli itu Hug*gies ) Tapi jawapan ini masih tak membantu kawan saya itu. Kesian dia.

“kalau aku takde, dia pakaikan juga diaper tu”

Ini memang betul masa awal-awal dulu sebab saya tahu dia tak larat nak mengemop dan membasuh carpet. Kesian juga. Tapi saya berkeras kerana ongkosnya saya yang tanggung tiap-tiap bulan. Dan jawapan ini juga masih tidak membantu kawan saya itu. Kesian dia lagi dan 2 kali teruknya saya.

Ini apa yang saya buat.

1. Minta jasa baik orang sekeliling.

Saya ambil keputusan untuk tidak pakaikan Balqis dispo diaper masa umur dia 2 tahun 6 bulan. Makanya saya telah bagitau semua orang yang Balqis tidak akan memakai dispo diaper lagi. Minta tolong setiap orang peka dengan permintaan ke tandas oleh Cik Balqis atau tanya dia sejam sekali samada nak ke tandas atau tidak.

Ini termasuklah minta jasa baik pengasuh yang jaga anak kita hari-hari. Saya takde pengalaman yang ini tapi saya rasa kita boleh cuba untuk berbincang dengan baik. Saya tahu banyak orang banyak ragam. Bukan semua orang sanggup melayan karenah anak kita seorang ( kalau jaga ramai ).

Siapa ada pengalaman? Boleh bantu kawan saya yang ini sebab dia menghantar anak dia ke rumah pengasuh. Katanya, mula-mula anak dia ok dah boleh pakai spender saje tapi bila lepas pegi rumah pengasuh, langsung dah tak nak pakai. Hadoh..dia yang nak senang tapi kita yang keluar duit. Tak boleh ke, kau yang nak senang, kau la keluar duit..

Cakap senang...pergi la sound makcik tu skali..hahaha..Ada berani?

2. Terus terang saje dengan Cik Balqis

“Balqis dah big. Shame la pakai pampers. Macam mana nak pergi school?”

“Shame kan mama?”

“ya..shame sebab Balqis dah big. Adik Hazzim memang kena pakai sebab adik Hazzim small lagi”

“adik Hazzim smoi (small) ye mama”

“ye..small”

Tiga minggu jugaklah skrip yang sama saya terpaksa mengulang. Kalau dapat kat Tuan Director Ahmad Nisfu…habis..


3. Ambil peluang masa cuti.

Masa cuti, saya ambil peluang sesunguh-sungguhnya walaupun saya nak keluar beli barang. Pernah sekali terlajak kat dalam Parkson sebab sebuk sangat tengok mainan. Nasib baik la ada cleaner dekat-dekat situ. Selalunya saya tak akan pergi jauh sebab takut jugak terbabas kat tempat yang bukan-bukan.

Kalau tak dapat nak cuti, cuba weekend dulu TAPI mesti buat. Tiada kompromi. Lama-lama mesti dia rasa tak selesa dan nak ke tandas juga. Saya hanya akan pakaikan diaper bila Balqis SUDAH tidur atau dia memang sudah di atas katil untuk tido dan saya akan cakap;

“kalau Balqis nak pee, cakapnya..bangun tau” ----> walaupun saya tahu dia tak kan bangun.

Pendapat saya satu saje : mind setting is very important.


Akhirnya saya cakap pada kawan saya itu;

“kau tak nak try training pants ke?” ----> walaupun saya tak tau apa pekdahnya sebab saya tak guna ;p

“ah..tak nak la..aku beli je spender ultraman banyak-banyak, mana tau dia suka nak pakai spender pulak ke”

haha OK, I rest my case.

Abun : Aku heran gak..Geng Sang Kelembai semua takut dengan kau tapi Nabil selamba je. Memang hero sejati la :)