3V0924.02 Watching Videotapes: single letters as name symbols (8/3/80)

Last night Gretchen and I reviewed four videotapes (weeks 26, 52, 78,
and 104). Peggy was in and out during this two hours of viewing (she
was alternately watching an hour long Disney show on the basement TV).

One question of interest to me was what Peggy made of these “other
children.” At 26 weeks, the tape began with a scene of me playing with
her in my lap. I asked Peggy who was the baby. She answered “My own
Peggy.” During the tape at 104 weeks, Peggy entered at a point when
she had been playing with her box of standard objects and noted,
“That’s me. doing a ‘periment.” The actor of the two intermediate
tapes went unrecognized. Her best speculation was that the other
toddler was “my best friend” — which is how she has often referred to
her coeval cousin, Matthew, met and played with in cherry Hill for one
afternoon.

As we looked at one of the tape section headers Peggy/AT NN/WEEKS
Peggy declared “That says Peggy.” I asked “Where?”
“Up there,” she said, “and down there it says ‘Gurry.” I asked her to
come to the TV and point where it said Peggy. She pointed to the letter
‘P’, and where does it say ‘Scurry’?” Peggy pointed, as I had expected,
to the letter ‘S’ of “WEEKS.” This observation confirms Peggy’s
interpretation of individual letters as representatives of names of
family (members).

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