Field Observation of Penny

As a student studying how to be a Linguist, I have since done an experiment with a one and a half year old. In the form of questions and statements, I tried to see how many words Penny would say along with the way on which she would say them. Shy at first, Penny only wanted to eat her Fruit Loops, so I asked her something easy. While holding out 2 different colored Fruit Loops, I asked her which one was blue and she grabbed the blue one which I would consider a success. Penny did not use any words, but the comprehension was indeed there.

She was indeed shy so there was not any babbling, mostly silence and looking around. Penny knows what a lion is, and it is also a yellow and orange figure, so she tends to overgeneralize calling "lion" to things that are the same color. She pronounces "lion" and "guy" flawlessly; most likely because they are short words and possibly her favorite objects in the group of toys she plays with. Penny also makes animal noises to associate with other animals such as a cat, lion, or dinosaur.

Let's preserve the "Baby Talk" language, no oppression!

One of the tough words Penny said almost perfect was alligator. She broke up the word into three different parts and said it slowly. Some of the letters in her phrases fade out at the end, such as "Kitty Cat", it turns into"Kitty Ca". Penny also conveys her knowledge of names of her toys by doing motions such as a monkey scratching under armpits motion, and a lion paw scratching motion.

As Penny became more comfortable with the class of college students, she started using telegraphics, for example, saying "a guy" and "a lion". She learned how to say "Peace Out" and rhino as well, which shows she was making progress towards the end of the 50 minute class period. When working with any toddler age child, there are things that factor into the results you are going to get. For example, if Penny ate breakfast, needs to go potty, the time of day, general mood, types of toys she had available, and the type of people in the audience as well as how they are seated. If she didn't get sick that morning, maybe she would feel better to be more cooperative, and also maybe she isn't on her "a-game" in the morning and the afternoon would be the best time to communicate.   My conclusion of this experiment is overall very good, Penny learned 2 new words/phrases, although she needs assistance with over-generalization and maybe more practice naming her toys to distinguish them that way instead of by color, and even then she would be able to incorporate telegraphics frequently.

Considering my nephew is two and a half, and commonly likes to use grunts and motions to explain what he is trying to convey, I would like to be able to teach him a few words that would be really useful in his daily dialogue. I would even consider getting him to use telegraphics on a common basis instead of him responding with one word at a time.