Final Case Study of 2 1/2 year old Logan Language Acquisition

(see my previous post about specifics for my study)

My Plan:

• Get Logan to incorporate the word "No" into his vocabulary
• Teach Logan new words, those new words may be incorporated as we go along with the study.
• New word repeat practice in different settings, on different days, during a different time of day.

Starting off, I had Logan introduce himself, as well as his age. 

One of the first things he did was play a game using a new word he learned: "Zombie(s)". The chairs...and eventually myself became the zombies. As long as he is using a new word, I can take a hit!

Logan was struggling with asking to get onto the couch, so I had him repeat "up please". You can hear, the first time he says "up" he does a little bit of a grunt after (a common occurrence within Logan's every day speech. He uses it to establish something he is trying to say or get across. That grunt at the end makes his statement established. 

In this video, I have captured an example of the mother translating for the child. In this case, I helped Logan add into his short story the word "sting", in which you will see in the next few videos. 

After teaching Logan to use 3 words because his use of telegraphics has been increasing, he can now tell his story and convey what happened. He says this phrase clear enough so anyone who hears it will know what he is saying. 

For our next activity, I decided to test Logan's ability to distinguish letters. Considering children remembers letters on places they commonly go, I decided to choose "K" for Kohls. After some time, Logan finally found the K. After re-watching the video of himself afterwards, he found the "K" right away. 

During this time, Logan was struggling with understanding the concept of naming objects in the same way people have names. When I asked Logan what the name of the squirrel was, he distinguished it as being from the Easter Bunny (which it was).

Reverting back to what Logan and I had discussed before about the bee sting, he remembered the story again and used the word sting each time. I think this is a great word to implement because it is one he can easily pronounce.

While showing me his new Darth Vader shoes, I asked Logan to distinguish what color they were. Logan usually knows his colors, but they maybe have not been practiced recently. He seemed to struggle with the naming of color.

Many times when Logan doesn't know the word for something, he will agree with what you are saying by answering "Yea". I taught him the word for fence, and he seemed to use it. I hope I will have more luck in the future days by getting him to use this word. 

Logan refers to me (aunt) as Yaya. Here, I asked him if he knew what the swing was. He knows this word and uses it frequently, but I had him build upon that request by using more than one word. 

His most common use of telegraphics is when he asks someone to push him on the swing, up high. I taught him here to say "Go up high". 

I've explained in the description of my Case Study the way mothers and family can assist with language comprehension. Here, Logan commonly tells stories about the garbage man/truck--one of his favorite activities during the day. As you can see, I know what he is trying to say, and I assist him in conveying what he wants. Afterwards, we worked on saying more to his garbage man stories. 

This was a very exciting documentation for me; Logan repeated a word I said without any prompting. He cannot say the full word but only two parts of it. This was great progress in him learning to repeat words that are longer than words he commonly says. 

This word Logan was saying was a bit of a challenge for me. I saw where he was pointing, but based upon what he was saying, I couldnt connect it to any real word. After talking to my sister/his mother-- she informed me that he was saying "dirty" referring to the wood that had been dirty. This is a word that we will further work on on order to pronounce the "d" and "t" sounds. 

Teaching Logan the uses of the word "no" was an interesting task. Instead of using the grunt "un uhhhh" as his form of saying "no", he actually said the word "no" when I re-asked the question. I see a lot of potential for him to start using the word "no", mostly because it takes a shorter amount of time than grunting.

Once again, Logan remembered days later to say the phrase "bumble bee sting". Progress is made!

 Logan learned a new word after I could tell he was struggling to find the means to say what the object was. Logan learning the word "camera" is important because he always wants to look at videos of himself on it. making the struggle to ask to do so, easier. Usually he will point to the object and say "me".

Once again, the word comfortable is re discovered.

While watching one of his favorite shows, he would always laugh at a specific character, that being the chinchilla. My attempt at getting him to repeat it was good, but the second time, no such luck.

While teaching him how to say a new word--butterfly (based off of an object he saw), I also reinforced the other new word "comfortable".

I noticed that teaching him words while he was in a calm state was the best for his memory. I then introduced another word, flag. He sees this object daily right by where he swings, reinforcing the probability of him remembering and using the word.

  

Logan's new phrase has been "right now" either in the form of a statement of a question. In the first video, you can see how he repeats that he wants to go to the park (when it was too wet and he could not), which is sadly frustrating. Also, since he speaks through his nose, he cannot say the "p" sound which gets confused with the "f" sound for fruit snacks. In the second video, he tries to tell me that he wants me, his brother, and his mom; all to go to the park.

This section of my vlog is where Logan is in a frustrated state, and the sound of the grunt is after each statement, used for reinforcement.  The frustration may also increase from not being able to enunciate the words the way he hears others speak, so the lag in getting his point across also creates possible discouragement within himself.


Throughout this Video Blog/Journal with Logan, I have learned what new words are the easiest to incorporate, the hardest because of the way he speaks through his nose, having trouble with glottal pronunciation. His use of holographic terms is very low, while telegraphics is high and increasing into using between 3-6 words in a statement. I am proud of my work and I plan on using my research to help mothers or family members how to get their child to progress exponentially based upon environment whether is is physical location, people around, time of day, and even if they are hungry or have to go to the bathroom. I definitely believe Logan's knowledge will incorporate the new words that I taught him as well as repeating new phrases that both parents speak. By his third birthday in October, I hope to do an update. Thank you for reading my blog and research (which is in a previous post).

I Are a Cat