Quick Child Development Question

Here's one I've never really noticed in toddlers before and I've never read about it specifically, that I recall.

Selina is really exploding with language these days.  I have lost track of the words she knows and she will repeat any word you tell her to repeat--usually quite accurately, in fact.  But as she picks up language on her own, Cole and I have just noticed a pattern.  She focuses on the end of words rather than the beginning like most kids seem to do.  This explains "Bear Pooh."  Because I usually say, "It's Pooh Bear!" then Selina says "bear!" and I say "Pooh!"  So she picked it up "Bear Pooh."

Likewise, Selina calls herself "eena," calls babysitter J by the last 2 (of 3) syllables of his name, calls Cole-Mom "m-mom" and calls Mama Shannon "nyan-nyan."

My first thought was that maybe it was a hearing thing--maybe she doesn't notice someone is speaking at first and then once she realizes they are, she's catching the end of the word.  But that doesn't jive with her very clear speech when she does speak.

So, anybody ever experience this with a kid before?  Or read about it anywhere?  Or do you suppose it's just an odd little quirk of Selina's?

Comments

[beate]

No sophisticated theories here, but I've noticed that my kid will occasionally omit prefixes and articles to focus on what she perceives as the root of the word. So maybe Selina is filtering out what to her sounds like grammatical "noise" in order to concentrate on the "essence" of the new word, as she sees it.

[yasmara]

My son (just turned 2 on Saturday) does something similar. "Old MacDonald" is "Donald," "tissue" is "issue," etc. Most words he's fine on, but there are definitely some that only close family understand because of this quirk.

[Sheri Bheri]

Hmm, I've noticed the same thing with my 4 y/o (but mostly in French, her 2nd language).

I *think* it's because we often SAY the first syllable of the word FOR her. It's more obvious in songs, where she gets her cue from the first syllable of the first word of the line.

I agree with Beate too. That we teach them that this is 'a' ball, can you say ball, get 'the' ball.

Cool theory.

[Heidi]

My almost two year old does that exact same thing!!!

[Global Librarian]

I did this as a child. Started when I was 2 years old. By the time I was 4 nobody but my mother could understand what I said.

That is when they discovered I had lost 95% of my hearing caused by repeated ear infections. Tubes in the ears fixed it, but because I couldn't hear well during the important language acquisition years I had a terrible speech impediment and needed 9 years of speech therapy.

My suggestion? Get her hearing checked, just in case...

[mijk]

here I've read about it many times in child development articles. All dutch children go to a docor specialised in childrens normal development (for diseases you go to your general practitioner). She told me to tell me what my child needs to do instead what she shouldn't be doing for that same reason.

Even if the child is older they catch the end of the sentence better then the first. T%he words push the earlier words aside.. was her very unscientig explanation..

So if you say don't jump on the bed, you spark their interest with jump and bed and the don't gets lost..

And that ends in a very angry mom because child does exactly what she was told not to do..

[ShariU]

I think it's very normal. And it's quite cute. Some of my 4 have done this or similar and it's all over way too quickly. Be sure to write all these things down because you'll never remember them. My all time favorite was by my 5 year old when she was a baby....for I love you she said "I lou".

[Lexie]

It can be common. I think Naim does this sometimes.

Kids can do vowels right away. Consonants are hard. So sometimes I think they start with the vowel and finish the word off because starting with the consonant takes a lot of concentration. And also I think that Beate is right, too. A lot of times we start off with the first phoneme of a word to get them started and they finish it.

I'd get her hearing tested anyway. Just because at that age unknown ear infections are so common. But if she is able to get the last consonant sound, that probably means her hearing is fine.

[Sara]

Both my kids did this, especially with names. Samina became Mina. Nicole became Cole... and so on.

[Amy T.]

Both of my (now tween) boys did that. I lack a lot of examples since it's been so long, but I remember the one that stuck! We tried to teach the boys to call their grandmothers "Granny". Adam always just got the end "Nee" and ended up naming them "NeeNee". I'm positive he did that with lots of other words as well.

[Stacy]

I don't have kids, but the ones I've babysat for did this...when they've learned to talk, I've always been "cee." Also, it happens in sentences, not just words. Little kids will often choose the second thing you offer.

for example:
"do you want juice or milk?" MILK
(2 seconds later)
"do you want milk or juice?" JUICE.

[Lori]

I would not worry. I don`t think it is an issue.

It sounds like her language is really unfolding, WHAT FUN!!

And a big ol LOL at Bear Pooh

[Kathleen]

HI -
My daughter, Joy, almost 3 now, had a language delay, and after some rather pleasant interventions(mostly training me), she was recently re-assessed as being up to about the expected level for her age. At that re-assessment, the speech pathologist told me J's practice of leaving off the beginning of words was a little unusual, most kids don't say the end consonant (after all, consider all those unnecessary and complicated -s, -ed, -ing endings).I put it down to Joy just having to do something a little different, since she was now judged to be producing the normal group of consonants for her age, the normal number of words, that she had to do something "her way"!
But all the other comments make lots of sense to me, and I completely see why a child would pay attention to the END of what we say- less retention necessary.
Kathleen