Sunday, July 20, 2008

Utilization of a Verbal Symbol

Tonight Alex and I went out for dinner and stopped by DQ on the way home for a little dessert. it was time for Max to go to bed, so we got it to go and continued to eat our sundaes when we got to Neeme and PaPaw's house.

Max was lounging in PaPaw's arms when we got home and after he came to me, I decided to let Max enjoy a little taste of Alex's soft serve ice cream. We had done this a few nights ago and it was met with the same curious enthusiasm. After two small bites, I took Max into the living room and Alex intentionally moved a little further out of his field of vision. Max didn't feel that he was quite done eating the chilly white goodness, and began motioning that we really needed to go back into the kitchen, where he thought Dada was still eating that yummy stuff.

Neeme and I tried to distract him and did our best to convince him that the toys in the living room were more desirable, but Max was undeterred. He began squirming and gesturing more wildly toward the kitchen, and then blurted out a loud and crisp, "DADA".

Now, Max has been saying Mama and Dada for a while now, but this was the first time he had used one of those sounds to indicate interest in seeing one of us specifically.

We're curious to see if the sound "DADA" is something he associates with just his father or if he thinks it is the name of a type of sweet dessert.

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