It's official.
The boys can hear and understand spoken language just fine. They use plenty of inflection. They know at least 20 animal sounds and say them clearly. They even know many of their letter sounds.
Matthew and Jonathan can verbally communicate with others.
When they want to.
The trouble is that like many twins, particularly identical boys, they really don't want to most of the time. They use the smallest parcel of language possible to get their messages across and, at 23 months old, they still refuse to put two words together.
Really refuse.
They shake their heads "no."
"Twin language," the therapist wrote on the form in the evaluation room of the early invention program. They understand each other and have no urgent desire to please us grown-ups with their linguistic skills.
That's why they just stare at folks who try to get them to wave "hello" or "good-bye," yet they holler "bye-bye" and shut the door behind me when I take them to the sitter's (They love going there!). That's why they say only the first sound of so many words. That's why I am frequently puzzled when they open the fridge and ask for milk by some term they came up with entirely on their own.
No therapy necessary, she said. They will figure it out. But we really should teach them sign language if we want to lessen the frequency of tantrums as they struggle with the realization that this isn't going to work forever, she said.
The other therapists had a few things to say too. Mostly, they wondered how we do it. The room was like a preschool, filled with countless cool toys and contraptions that drew Jonathan and Matthew like magnets.
But the force wasn't strong enough.
Within 20 minutes, they were grabbing clipboards, standing on chairs, stealing shoes and flipping through notebooks of the three blissfully ignorant therapists. Their antics earned Jonathan and Matthew a ranking of 36 months for gross motor skills and 31 months for fine motor skills.
They made it only to 21 months for adaptive motor skills because I have, thus far, refused to introduce the potty. "I'm not potty training them until they can at least say the word 'potty,'" I told the therapist.
"Okay," she said. "Here's the sign."
3 comments:
Interesting. My twin boys just turned 2 yrs old on December 6th. Sounds alot like what we have going on at our house. We have not seen anybody. Our pediatrician said it is "twin language" and they will figure it out. Reading your post and others is putting my mind at ease. Thank you for the post.
Hi again, Great to read your latest. Our boys (19months) never seem to stop talking, but don't say a whole lot that I can understand. I feel sure they are fine, they just don't feel the need to speak, to us any-way.
cheers,
Lis
ps - we seem to have moved through the clingy stage now...thank goodness!..what an epic that was..bring on 2009!!
We started signing "thank you" with the boys and Jonathan already is using the sign and trying to say the words. Matthew thinks we are blowing kisses. I think signing and preschool (eventually) will help a lot.
Lis, I'm glad to hear that the clinginess is coming to an end! These guys are more easily distractable now or, when they start to cling, I can read them a short book and leave them sitting with it afterward for a while. They love to flip through books and pretend they are reading.
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