Communication update - long overdue

I've been meaning to post an update on Penelope's communication skills for a few weeks, but life keeps getting in the way. Anyway, here we go. Penelope has really started learning words quickly now. We can judge how interested she is in something by how fast she learns the word for it. For example, she learned the word "swing" within a day or two of us putting up the swing, to the point where we would have to use code if we wanted to talk about it without her demanding to go on the swing. Since it has been so long since I've posted about Penelope's words, I kind of lost track of all the words that she now knows, but here is at least a partial list of words that she has learned in the last few weeks:

• get or bring (these are actually old, but I don't think I posted them before)
• Mommy (she still doesn't really say it, but she definitely knows "Where's Mommy?"
• swing
• water
• outside
• dog
• airplane (she learned this on our trip to New York, and now looks up when we say "airplane")
• cup
• zebra (ie, her "rockin' zebra" from Grandma Kris)
• dismount (my word for getting off of the zebra)
• sleep (very useful for bedtime)
• wash hands
• tunnel / box (we have a box on the floor that Penelope can crawl through)

I'm probably missing a few, but that's ok. Now, when I say that Penelope learns a word, these are words that she understands, not words that she can say herself. Penelope's spoken vocabulary is still quite small, although today she added a new spoken word: up (she pronounces it "hup" and says it when we pick her up).

The biggest change in Penelope's communication system has been nodding her head yes and no. She started nodding well over a month ago, but it was always somewhat random. Then, about a month ago, she started nodding yes and no in response to questions. This has made communicating with her so much better. For example, we can ask her if she wants to eat, wants more, wants a drink, wants milk, is all done, etc (the questions usually revolve around food, but not always). She will also now point at something and nod yes to mean that she wants it, with the vigorousness of the nodding proportional to her desire for it. Or we can point to an object, name it, and ask Penelope if she wants it. However, Penelope's nodding is not always clear. Katie and I discovered that Penelope will pretty much nod yes as a default answer when she doesn't understand what we are saying. It's kind of like talking to someone on the phone who isn't really paying attention and just keeps saying "uh huh, uh huh." Although it can be get really frustrating, this default yes answer can actually work out pretty well. For example, we will ask her a question, she will nod yes, then we do whatever it was we asked. This won't be what Penelope wanted, so then she nods no (or pushes away or some other clear negative answer) but in the process she starts to learn what we were asking and we learn what she does or doesn't understand. It is also good because while yes may be the default answer, no always means no. So if we ask her something and get a no, we can be pretty sure that it's real and move on to something else.

The downside of all this nodding was that for a while Penelope forgot all of the signs that she knows, so rather than asking for something (like making the more sign for more food), she would just get upset until we asked the right question and she could answer with a yes nod. However, this week, she has started bringing back the signs along with the nodding, which has improved our two-way communication. The other downside is that we now communicate almost entirely in yes/no questions. We are not yet at the point where we can ask, "do you want X or Y" or other more complex questions. Still, it's amazing how far we can get through the combination of yes/no questions, nodding, and pointing. It has really improved how we communicate and interact with Penelope.