3V1179.01 Counting Plates with numbers in various ranges (4/15/81) Peggy loves to help empty the dishwasher. After stacking the small plates on the shelves, she began counting: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, etc…18… She continued from stack to stack, using ‘big’ numbers as well, “eighty, ninety, tendy” repeating them as well as smaller …
3V1173.01 Typing “Bear” variously as “BAER” and “BERA” (4/9/81) Peggy sat playing quietly with her typewriter a few feet from where I was working. I don’t recall that her BearHug was with her, but it may have been (and probably was). She typed in sequence the following, with a significant pause between each: B, A, …
3V1171.03 Counting in French: “Quatorze” (+ dog) (4/7/81) Peggy counts in French, which to her is “spelling”, i.e. reciting a list of non-sense sounds as an amplification or explication of something about a meaningful (?) work[d?]. Beginning with “/cat//twank/”, Peggy has picked up “/cat//torze/” (single word, no caesura) from Miriam’s recitations — partly offered as …
3V1171.02 Letter roller: compared to Rubic’s cube (4/7/81) Peggy has played with Rubic’s cube for several weeks, first destroying the complete pattern by a single or double twist, then “fixing” the cube by reversing the operation — uniformly with great pride and delight. We, of course, applauded her efforts. This was not at all surprising …
3V1171.01 Letter names versus Meanings: now even “the mommy letter” is blind coded.(4/7/81) In the last experiment, P167, Peggy made a distinction I have observed otherwheres since. When asked the name of any letter, she would reply “D”, no matter what the letter was, no matter what meaning it had for her. For example, she …
3V1170.01 Reflexive pronoun means symmetrical directed action: “The guys are killing themselves” (we would say “each other”.) (4/5/81) Peggy noted as she banged the Fischer-Price dolls against each other. That is, she uses the reflexive pronoun to describe symmetrical directed action.
3V1169.01 Recognizing “By” in another context: Asterix book (4/5/81) Peggy asked me to read “Asterix in Britain.” On page 6 (bottom) there appears a balloon with “Attack by Juno” in large capitals. As I was reading near the top of the page, Peggy pointed to “BY” and said, “That says ‘BY’.” Now it appears that …
3V1160.02 Subject and aspect: repetition expresses continued activity (3/27/81) Peggy is very vocal and most frequently describes verbally her action. The subject of her verbal predicates is usually herself and most often is “understood.” Today she ran through the kitchen, with her BearHug, putting him through actions. She said (manipulating him the while) “Run after. …
3V1156.01 Spelling a word: “B-E-R” for bear, from “BearHug” Peggy sat on the floor by her typewriter. She looked up at me and said, ‘I spelled ‘Bear’.’ when I asked her how, Peggy pressed in sequence the letters, ‘B’, ‘E’, & ‘R’. I asked how she knew to spell Bear that way, but she did …
3V1153.01 Peggy volunteers a spelling: letters instead of words (3/23/81) Miriam worked on her school work in the dining room, writing a composition. She called out to her mother , “How do you spell ‘couples’?” Peggy volunteered an answer, “L, N, G, P, L.” While Gretchen supplied a more nearly standard one. A few seconds …
3V1146.02 Dancing and whooping: a new script for animal play (3/13/81) Last night after supper, Peggy brought her collection of toys. Our new Chieftains record was playing, so when Peggy (as BearHug) asked me (as Pink Panther) ‘What do you want to do now ?’ I answered, ‘I want to dance’ and began bouncing the …
3V1146.01 Dead flowers: [They been shot.] (3/13/81) A warm day, the family outside working in the garden. Peggy picked up some dried flowers, brought them inside and asked me to put them in a vase. I refused to do so, avoiding a confrontation by evading her request. Outside later, Peggy again mentioned her flowers. I …
3V1145.01 What does spelling mean to Peggy ? [“How do you spell ‘boat’ ?”] (3/12/81) ‘How do you spell ‘boat’ ?’ Peggy asked me. I responded to her question as if she meant what any adult would mean. After a pause, smiling, Peggy said (roughly), ‘That’s what I thought…. I can do it myself.’ (She …
3V1141.01 French: [I can speak French – “Cat twank” ] (3/8/81) I asked Miriam how her French is coming. She replied, ‘Comment allez-vous ?’ ‘Tres bien, merci, et vous ?’ I answered. Miriam could not continue. We mentioned ‘French’ several times during the conversation. Peggy, who had been sitting there piped up, ‘I can speak …
3V1140.01 Letter names as entities separated from signifiers of people (3/7/81) Peggy brought me the ‘F’ from her set of letters. She asked if it were the letter ‘A’. When I said ‘No,’ she next guessed the letter name ‘E’ (She knows this, of course, is the ‘father letter.’) I told her it was the …
3V113601 Imperfectly articulated script: [Which hand ? This one ?] (3/3/81) ‘Which hand ?’ This question is one Peggy meets when she asks Robby or Miriam for something she knows they have (usually candy). Today, she came running up to my chair at the table and asked, ‘Which hand is the Rubic’s cube in ? …
3V112401 Singing: quiet activities of self-construction (2/19)81) Peggy’s repertoire of songs is sometimes surprising. On her recent trip to Boston with Robby, I found she knew a bit of ‘The cat came back’ (A song I know not but Robby does know, perhaps from a Disney program). This afternoon, Peggy sat singing quietly to herself …
3V1105.04 Generalized arguments to avoid rejection: [some little kids like candy.] (late January 1981) For some months now, Peggy has shown a semantically unusual usage. She typically uses “somebody”, “some kids”, “some people” as ways of indirectly expressing her feelings — especially in situations where she may be unsure that a request for something will …
3V1105.03 Meta-cognitive observations: [I think my jokes are funny.] (late January) We were driving east on route 1, near Moose Hill Manor. Seeing the ponies of the Diamond M Ranch, Peggy remarked, ‘I want to ride one of those every day.’ I turned to her with shocked surprise, ‘Every day?’ Peggy smiled, ‘I think my …
3V1105.02 What we observe is not what she intends [Woodstock is patting his tail with the monsters.] (1/31/81) ‘Patting’ is an activity that Peggy knows a lot about. Scurry is her close friend and she pats Scurry every day. She is, in fact, merciless in expressing her affection for the dog who gets no peace …
3V1104.01 “Gepeters” [computers]: incremental lexicon standardization (1/30/81) Peggy wants to go to Logo (whatever that means to her) and also asked if she ‘could play with the gepeters at Logo.’ Later, her use slipped into the standard form by first appearing a ‘geputers’ then as ‘computers.’
3V1103.01 Peer interactions (1/29/81) When Peggy was too late to b e enrolled in the North Guilford Nursery School, Gretchen enrolled her in two pre-school library activities. I took Peggy down to the second crafts session, and Miriam asked if she could come. Peggy had a good time at the library but with respect to …
3V1100.01 What words mean: example: graphics mean the name of the thing (1/26/81) After concluding an experiment (P157 I believe), Peggy touched the camera now back in its case. Pointing to the words on the camera she said, ‘I know what this says.’ ‘What,’ I asked. ‘Camera,’ she replied. This is a second example (see …