3V1234.1

3V1234.01 A New Way of Presenting Words (6/9/81) Peggy’s biggest problem in typing words [from a list] was recognizing which word she was copying to the keyboard. I began telling her to look at the first letter of the word and to remember what it was, emphasizing it that way and by identifying it by …

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3V1233.1

3V1233.01 Peggy’s first Word World: a summary description (6/8/81) Objects: SUN (base color) (via UPx N) (help with WALK/SLOWERx2) GIRL (base color) (Via DOWN x N=4 (started at road) CAR (help with GREEN) (help with MOVE) (via DOWN x 5) (help with WALK/ FAST) DOG (base color) (help with MOVE) (via DOWN x 1) HOUSE …

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3V1230.2

3V1230.02 Writing What ? (6/5/81) Peggy drew a heart on her chalkboard. With Kate’s birth due at any day, her sister’s are much on Peggy’s mind. She drew her favorite shape, a heart, and drew some wiggly lines inside. she asked, “Dad, does that say ‘babies and sisters’?”

3V1230.1

3V1230.01 Xylopipes and letters (6/5/81) The Xylopipes were set up on the piano bench — an inconvenient place but a flat surface of approximately the right size. Ages ago, I had put letter labels on the pipes as I did also on the piano keys. Today Peggy banged on the pipes with no apparent recognition …

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3V1223.2

3V1223.02 Duets (5/29/81) Peggy has begun to ask me to help her sing, even ‘The Fox went out on a chilly night.” What typically happens is that I sing a little, she sings a lot and when she is stymied, I sing a little more. This scenario seems to derive from two sources; one may …

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3V1218.1

3V1218.01 Spelling a second word: “loadshapes” after “load” (5/24/81) My cassette files are set up with procedures stored before shapes. The first are accessed by ‘LOAD’ and the second by ‘LOADSHAPES.’ Since Peggy had insisted on typing LOAD wherever possible, I have HAD to instruct her to discriminate between the two words so that her …

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3V1217.2

3V1217.02 Spelling “load” and being grown-up; contrast toilet training (5/23/81) Peggy sat alone at the computer. The rest of us were out in the dining room, eating lunch. She called with notable excitement, “Daddy, come see. I’ve spelled ‘LOAD.’ Come see it, Daddy.” Because of her excitement, I left the table, witnessed her achievement (it …

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3V1217.1

3V1217.01 The Alphabet Song: letters change but the melody lingers on (5/23/81) Coming home from Cambridge, Miriam was singing the litany ‘ABCD-EFG…” and getting Peggy to join her. At home, singing by herself, Peggy gave evidence of knowing the tune well but her text was somewhat corrupt: “ABCD-FIG…” was how she began then petered off. …

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3V1215.1

3V1215.01 Peggy in Cambridge for Greg’s Farewell party (5/21/81) Peggy came with us. The whole family on a trek to Cambridge for a farewell party at Greg’s leaving Logo. Everybody “hung around” Logo while I tried to complete my Tictactoe paper for Cognitive Science. I don’t recall much of what Peggy did then.. -> for …

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3V1212.1

3V121201 Writing words: in order to load programs (very impt.) (5/18/81) Peggy has spontaneously begun to “write” (ie type) words in order to control the loading of programs. While waiting for Gretchen to make available the DRAW program, Peggy typed “LO” (Did she ask if that was right ? Did she ask what next ?) …

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3V1204.1

3V1204.01 Note for Bob: A bug or is it a feature ? (5/10/81) Peggy has been able to get DRAW to malfunction, in such a way that a red truck appears in mid screen. This was a nice novelty. We left it there and she drew a box around it. It makes me wonder if …

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3V1199.3

3V1199.03 P’s on the computer with drawing program 5/5/81) Peggy has begin playing with a tile-based drawing program I made for Miriam.. Although she says she prefers playing with the Blocks program, Peggy plays with the drawing program more than any other. She surprised herself and me today by making a box, then she continued …

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3V1199.2

3V1199.02 Two Drawings (with Polaroid sample) and “wwords” (5/5/81) Peggy made these figures (see photo in notebook) on her chalkboard as I watched (After the first was completed). She explained they were two hearts, the one at right having the message “I love Daddy,” the second “I love Mimi.” Peggy wrote the marks in the …

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3V1199.1

3V119901 Bizarre reason (5/5/81) Peggy often asks which shoe goes on which foot. Today I saw her putting her sandal on the correct foot and asked how she picked THAT foot. Peggy answered, “‘Cause it was the funny one.”

3V1192.2

3V119202 Unusual construction: “I won’t make sure I’ll slip.” (4/28/81) no further detail with this note.

3V1192.1

3V119201 Issues in learning graphical language: Logo logon messages (/28/81) Peggy has more or less read “BY” — the common word in her story books. Her reading it shows little discrimination but for length. Today, Peggy began reading (in my presence, for the first time) the Logo Logon messages “Setting up” and “Welcome to Logo.” …

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3V1191.2

3V119102 Cutting up a Tree: an old joke (4/27/81) Robby and I were hauling hickory back from the site where I recently felled a tree. When Peggy came to watch us, I introduced her to a joke, a simple absurdity of the language. She knows one cuts down a tree (she has seen this twice …

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3V1191.1

3V1191.01 Nightmare: looking for Miriam (4/27/81) Peggy woke up around midnight, sobbing loudly and crying for her sister. I tried comforting her a while. She responded, more or less to our questions, but was still asleep. Gretchen sat with her longer, than I did. The next day, I asked Peggy what was wrong the night …

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3V1188.2

3V1188.02 You can spell everything, not merely “French” (4/24/81) Peggy is apparently coming to realize that all words can be spelled (not merely “French”). The cause of this conjecture I can’t document, but she sat in my lap this afternoon and asked me to spell word after word…. words with no apparent connection, ending up …

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3V1188.1

3V1188.01 Piecemeal discovery from playing with TI BLOCKS (4/24/81) Peggy’s grasp of what she could do with this micro-world has been delightfully piece meal. The first and most striking thing was learning to make the blocks walk. I seem to recall this happened in the first session. The next discovery was the BACK command. It …

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3V1186.1

3V1186.01 Learning by observation during Story hour (4/22/81) Today was the last in a series of story hours for Three Year Olds given weekly at the local library. The Childrens’ Librarian would take a group of children (maybe 10 to 12) into a meeting room where they might sing a little song or play a …

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3V1185.1

3V1185.01 Computer at home: TI-99 (4/21/81) I finally brought home a TI-99 from the Logo lab. The machine’s storage extension is very flakey and the tape recorder would not work well for the first week or so. Consequently it was hard to program little systems for Peggy. We began using the computer in experiments with …

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3V1184.1

3V1184.01 Blocks microworld: Moving Blocks (4/20/81) Peggy has experienced a number of insights in her developing control of the little blocks microworld. The record of her discovery of “BK” is in P169. This is a significant and meaningful operation for her when the block has a forward velocity. In the case “BK” interrupts the velocity …

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3V1181.2

3V1181.02 Anything can represent anything: Forks and Bottlecaps (4/17/81) Anything can represent anything. Sitting in the chair beside [me] at the end of supper this evening, Peggy began playing with a dinner fork and a cake fork (the smaller of the two). They became me and her, going for a ride in the car. The …

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3V1181.1

3V1181.01 Blocks microworld: “Clever little blocks” (4/17/81) Peggy was introduced to computers with P168 and P169. We talked a little today about what she was doing with the computer upstairs. She replied that she was “making the blocks walk.” I asked if she was able to make the blocks turn yet. She replied, “No, they …

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3V1179.1

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 …

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3V1173.1

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, …

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3V1171.3

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 …

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3V1171.2

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 …

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3V1171.1

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 …

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3V1170.1

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.

3V1169.1

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 …

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3V1162.1

3V1162.02 Not quite right, even yet: “By” in Hop on Pop (3/29/81) Peggy offered to read ‘Hop on Pop’ to me and began with the title. Pointing to the word “HOP” (alone on the top line) she said, “Hop on Pop.” Pointing next to “ON” (alone on middle line) she continued her reading as “by” …

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3V1160.2

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. …

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3V1160.1

3V1160.01 Imperfectly articulated Guessing Games (3/27/81) While we were at dinner, Peggy came running around the table, behind Robby’s chair, waving her BearHug. She said, “You’ll never guess what’s behind my back.” Non-committally, I responded, “I won’t.” Peggy said, “It will be a bear,” then hid the bear.

3V1156.1

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 …

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3V1155.3

3V1155.03 New question form during March and April: [Can we x — yes or no ?] ( 3/22/81) Peggy has a habit of posing a question and demanding an immediate answer. “Can we go for a walk ? Yes or no?” Almost every question is accompanied by this insistence. Gretchen.

3V1155.2

3V1155.02 Auxiliary introduced in non-std. way: “Should” ( 3/22/81) Peggy has been using the verb form “should” as an inquiry “Should I have cereal?” “Should you help me get dressed?” She does this where you expect her to say “can” or “will”. Gretchen

3V1155.1

3V1155.01 Cuisenaire rods: playing with them after experiments (3/22/81) Guessing games Peggy had used Cuisenaire rods in the immediately previous videotape. Somehow she got hold of them again and I became aware that she was laying them out [Bob had, I think, tried to see if she would build a “stair.”] As she did so, …

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3V1153.1

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 …

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3V1152.2

3V1152.02 More names of French numbers: [Cat…twank] (3/19/81) Peggy talking to herself again. I heard a recognizable ‘Tra…cat..twank’ followed by what seemed to me to be reproductions of higher French numbers (around eleven to fourteen) which Miriam and I had discussed earlier. Gretchen

3V1152.1

3V1152.01 Letters: [N…G…Y.. spell N…G…Y…spell?] (3/19/81) Peggy commenting to herself. A few letters, the ‘…N…G…Y spell… N…G…Y…spell. ? Gretchen.

3V1150.1

3V1150.01 A Tricycle at last: lost observation opportunity (3/17/81) I wanted to buy one for Peggy’s third birthday but (even on sale) the prices were too high and the quality of the bikes too low for purchase. Today — some eight weeks later — I saw an ad selling a tricycle for 10 dollars. We …

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3V1149.1

3V1149.01 Drawing on Peggy: drawing on her arms and more (3/16/81) When she asked me to draw on her hand this evening, I made a little heart that said, “Dad” (she asked on my beginning with “D” if it said “Daddy”) and “Peg” which she figured was “Peggy”). Upon presentation of the other hand, I …

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3V1148.1

3V1148.01 “Tendy” (3/15/81) While working on dinner in the kitchen amidst a circus of children, I suddenly heard out of the chaos Peggy counting, ‘eighty, ninety, tendy, eleven…’. She trailed off there, perhaps having said ‘eleventy.’ Gretchen

3V1147.1

3V1147.01 Letter H: “Is this for jump ?” (3/14/81) ‘Is this for ‘jump’ ?’ Peggy asked, bringing me the letter ‘H’ from her set on the floor. I explained that ‘H’ was for ‘Happy.’ (maybe I should have said for ‘Hop’ — but would she recognize that as different from ‘jump’ ?) The letter names …

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3V1146.3

3V114603 Dancing: we need to document her interest and activity (3/13/81) This is an activity of Peggy’s needing extensive observation and comment. It is obviously important to her, something she enjoys, and something she does a lot..

3V1146.2

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 …

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3V1146.1

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 …

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