Language related
3V0267.01 Associating Sounds with People. Interesting Action. 10/16 Peggy went through a period of several days where she seemed to associate her sounds with people. The most striking case was ma-ma(repeated an indefinite number of times with no obvious relevant stress on intonational accenting), which she apparently connected with Gretchen. This delighted Gretchen, who would …
3V0263.02 Social Selection of some actions Social Selection of some actions as interesting leads to their entering the repertoire. RELEVANCE (of preceding story in V0263.01) — Here we see an accidental correspondence of two actions selected as significant, of interest, to another person. This stumbling upon an interesting new pattern so pleased Peggy that she …
3V0263.01 Waving, communication through imitation. 10/12 WAVING — Peggy sat in my lap after dinner. We had indulged in some conversations with Peggy. Robby approached my chair and Peggy said /ae/, flapping both her arms as she has long done when excited. Robby repeated /ae/ and waved his right arm. Peggy smiled then /ae/ /ae/, …
3V0262.01 Peggy Imitating Robby Noises.. 10/11 IMITATION — Peggy was sitting in her seat at the dining room table. Robby was seated at the table also. He made a series of loud kissing noises directed to her. Finally I asked him to stop. In the silence that followed, a soft but distinct repetition of the …
3V0256.01 Verbal Imitation of “shoe” 10/01 Gretchen left Peggy with me while she made cookies in preparation for the first meeting of Robby’s cub scout pack. After trying to constrain Peggy various ways and failing, I let her roam around the floor of our bedroom/ study. After beating the log carrier with her toy giraffe …
3V025401 Miriam naming people for Peggy. 10/03 NAMING — This was one of those bad days for Miriam where her wheezing/ upchucking of medicine kept her home from school. Thus early in the morning she was saddled with responsibility for Peggy. Miriam played with Peggy on the bed and as is frequently the case with …
3V0247.01 Naming buttons in verbal imitation. Gretchen’s instruction “cookie”: 9/26/78; The older children in school and Gretchen chauffeuring a house guest to the bus depot, Peggy was left alone in my care for a few hours today. After her nap and my tending to a variety of her needs, Peggy decided my lap was the …
3V0246.01 Rejecting food: 9/25/78 Peggy being fed. Deciding she had enough, she stuck out her tongue, full and rounded, effectively blocking off her mouth. At another feeding, she did the same, then looked at me and smiled and opened her mouth for food — (Was it a test to see if she could refuse food …
3V0245.02 P035 is where Peggy’s verbal imitation began 9/24/78 9/24 On reviewing P 35, we can see that Peggy began verbal imitation RIGHT THERE! During the experiment, I thought she did not imitate my vowel sounds. On closer review you can see her imitate /b/\b/ /b/\b/ /b/\b/ – /ae/ and /m/\m/. Peggy is now able …
3V0245.01 Everyday prohibitions as source of naming 9/24/78 Peggy was crawling about on the living room floor as Gretchen chatted with a house guest. The floor was littered with her toys and the dog’s. “No, Peggy. Don’t chew on that. That’s Scurry’s bone.” RELEVANCE — The kinds of verbal naming formulae witnessed by Ninio appear …
3V0241.01 Bub-bub-bub now Peggy’s dominant sound. Peggy’s conversations today began with /b/\b/ /b/\b/ /b/\b/. 9/21 ff. /b/\b/ has now become the dominant phone in Peggy’s conversations. We’ve decided to do an extra tape on Sunday, P 35, to try to capture Peggy’s morning conversations.
3V0240.01 Substituting “bub” for /ae/ in conversations with Peggy. 9/19 /b/\b/b/\b/b/\b/ — Peggy’s conversations at table have continued much as previously described. Her primary phoneme is /ae/ in this use, which she repeats with many variations of tone, length and number of repetitions. In our conversations of this day, I tried to see if Peggy …
3V0239.01 Naming buttons. 9/18 NAMING — Peggy was sitting in Gretchen’s lap, facing her. She began playing with the buttons on Gretchen’s sweater, first handling them then trying to put them in her mouth. “Those are BUTTONS, Peggy, BUTTONS. Don’t put them in your mouth.” Stopped from playing with Gretchen’s sweater, Peggy turned to her …
3V0236.01 Gretchen and Miriam with “Peggy, come here.” 9/15 COME HERE — Gretchen has been teaching Peggy to respond in specific ways to a variety of simultaneous gestures. When Peggy wants to get up, for example, she usually cries and arches her back. Then Gretchen holds out two arms to her, wiggling her fingers, and …
3V0234.01 Gretchen Instructing Peggy in Naming. 9/13 WORDS — For the past week or so I have been talking more to Peggy concerning simple everyday actions. The prototype is getting her out of the crib. “Peggy, give me your hand.” (Holding out my hand to her.) “OK. Give me your other hand.” “Good girl. Now. …
3V0233.05 Miriam as Instructor 9/12 MIRIAM AS INSTRUCTOR — Miriam frequently gets stuck with the job of caring for Peggy over short intervals of time. For example, she may care for her while Gretchen bathes in the morning. Miriam’s play varies considerably. Sometimes she plays interactively (cf. 8/26); other times she plays with Peggy more …
3V0233.03 Understanding the command “No!” 9/12 UNDERSTANDING “NO” — Saturday I sat in my chair trying to write. Gretchen left Peggy on the floor of our bedroom/study while she tended to the wash. Peggy played with the sunlight and shadows made by trees moving beyond the porch and open screen door, then turned her attention …
3V0225.02 Recognition Vocabulary 09/04 What words does Peggy recognize at 32 weeks? It’s very clear she recognizes her name (and Gretchen avers she has for some time) with considerable discrimination. The evidence is of various sorts. When I fed her last night (pears on the spoon) she was distracted by her rattle and the liner …
3V0221.02 Peggy Following Gretchen’s Pointing to a Mirror: 8/31/78; A couple days ago I was upstairs in the hall about 5-6 feet away from the mirror with Peggy in my arms. We faced the mirror, but Peg’s attention was on something (such as her toes) and she did not notice the reflection. I said, “Look …
3V0216.04 Robby Pretending to Speak for Dapper Dan; Peggy talking to toys and Scurry One of the toys not shown on videotape is Dapper Dan — a baby-size cloth doll. After the session, I propped Dapper Dan in the corner of Peggy’s playpen and left her with the two older children reading in the library. …
3V2000.03 Change of Babbling Vocabulary; relation of sounds to communication protocols 8/10 The babbling vocabulary is changing. Over past weeks, Peggy’s babbling was dominated by the /b/ sounds (with occasional /m/’s). Gretchen believes that once Peggy commands a consonant, she tries it with various vowels. My recollection of her dominant pattern is this: /bae//b/\//b/\//bwae/. During …
3V0189.02 Socialization and the use of Language: /ae……ae/ 7/30 When I left Peggy on the bed — on her stomach — while writing these notes, I set her looking out the glass doors of our second-story balcony because Peggy has much enjoyed looking at the play of light on moving leaves. I sat on the …
3V0189.01 Rolling Over (7/30/78) This past week we have not observed Peggy’s intensive chatter in positions other than on her back in the morning or in her infant seat at feeding time — until just now. Peggy is lying babbling on her stomach. How she got there is a small tale in itself. After being …
3V0182.02 Verbal imitation game: /aen/ 07/23/78 At a late supper, one even less formal than usual and after she had been fed, Peggy entertained us at the table. Somehow a game began, I think between Peggy and me, of specific imitations on variations of a single sound — an aspirated, nasalized short ‘a’ (/oen/). The …
3V0180.05 Sounds. Peggy and Bob sing a duet: “Going for a Ride” 07/22/78 Over past days, a week or so, I have bounced Peggy in my lap while singing the song from Sesame Street “we are going for a ride.” At one verse, instead of standard lines such as “and the train goes ‘toot-toot’” i …
3V0180.04 Sounds. Babbling and playing with toes after rolling over 07/22/78 This morning about 7 am I heard Peggy babbling in her crib and woke Gretchen to listen. Peeking carefully through the door to be certain I wasn’t seen, I watched Peggy as she lay on her back, babbling and playing with her toes in …
3V0180.03 Extensive Babbling: 7/22/78, 5, 30 Peggy’s babbling is much more extensive now and she has quite a variety in her repertoire. She makes continuous noise, going on for many seconds, and lately has begun to do so on a high pitch tone as well. She makes a cranky, whiny “enh” sound when being fed …
3V0179.01 Temperament Peggy is always responsive and cheerful in the morning. For some time now [vide 6/2 entry] she has responded to the sound of “Hello, Peggy” with a big smile, even before lifting her head up to see. It is clear she no longer needs to SEE me to react, and the lifting up …
3V0138.04 Teething and Early Sounds 06/09/78 Peggy has shown well developed skill in bringing her hands to her mouth. Last weekend the smooth arch of her lower gum appeared bumpy in front, and Tuesday morning the lower stage right tooth had pushed through the gum. The major sign of teething activity has been hand in …
3V0138.03 Siblings Playing with Robby and Miriam: 6/9/78, 4, 18 text recovered from primary sources [6/17/25] A few days ago, after school, the older children were playing with blocks in the living room. I asked if Peggy could sit by and watch what they were doing. As they built their fort, Miriam talked to Peggy …
3V0126.01 Nursing: socialization and vocalizations; “owl cup” fascination 05/28/78 text as recovered from primary documents This morning Peggy had her hand caught in her sleeve so that the thumb was hooked under the edge. She was happily sucking both thumb and material. When I freed her hand, she put her thumb and index finger back …
3V0125.04 Gradual advances in time of a response: 4;4 (5/27/78) I have mentioned that Peggy does not cry in the morning. Usually I will go to her when I begin to hear her move around, so often I find her doing press ups. When I lean over the crib and call her name, Peggy looks …
3V0125.01 References for “Three Years and Talking” 05/27/78 In Thursday’s discussion with Mimi Sinclair, I showed her my “lifetime living plan,”. she asked about the work with Peggy, why I should wait until she’s four, I responded, “That’s what I want to talk with you about. She gave us directions (to me, the “us” refers …
3V0123.02 Videotape Series Beginnings 05/25/78 Peggy was 4 months old on Tuesday. I’ve thought of starting a videotape series on Peggy’s development — to begin at 4 months — but don’t really know what to do. I would buy the tape and begin this early — partly to keep for my own memory a sense …
3V0123.01 Mimi Sinclair; Meltzoff move (5/25/78) Yesterday Peggy came as Gretchen and I went to MIT to hear Mimi [Sinclair] speak on language and pre-linguistic development. Peggy put on a good smiling show for every one looking at her & was generally quite well behaved. She let out a few squawks during the lecture but …
3V0121.01 Moving Peggy in with Miriam; verbal imitation: 5/23/78; 4;4 On May 23rd, Peggy’s fourth “month-day”, we moved her crib into Miriam’s room. For well over a month, Peggy has been doing without her 10 pm feeding, going to bed between 9 and 10, sleeping through the night and waking without fussing around 7:30-8 am …
3V0092.01 Visually tracking a conversation (4/24/78) On 4/24/78 We went to visit the Clamans (and Peggy received the rabbit mentioned above). After the usual greetings and milling around, the children disappeared in the basement to watch baseball and the adults settled to talk in the living room. I sat on the couch with Priscilla, holding …
3V0091.03 Mothers-view 4/23/78 While Bob entered the previous notes, I was playing with Peggy on my lap, making noises. At one point she laughed, a set of three distinct sounds. She now, more often than not, takes one long nap (as long as 4 hours) in the day, usually after her second feeding around 11. …
3V0091.02 Peggy’s Vocalization 4/23 serial 0091 Peggy is 3 months old today; 13 weeks tomorrow. Gretchen has been making noises at Peggy for quite a while. Her favorite seems to be a drawn-out /kI/ with a moist tongue so that a slight bubbling sound is added. Within the past 7 – 10 days Peggy has …
Vn035.01 Hatch Who? 6/24/77 The jokes and puns a child is capable of creating and under- standing are a fine developmental index of his ability to conceive of some object or idea in multiple contexts. (For examples of Miriam’s earlier, limited capability see the discussion in Pre-Readers’ Concepts of the English Word). Precursors of the …
Vn032.01 The Word Box 6/20/77 As her term end in kindergarten approaches, Miriam brings home more of materials from school. Today came the Word Box — a small plastic case for holding 3×5 cards. As a reading-readiness activity, the children are, occasionally, asked to select some word whose spelling they would like to learn. The …
Vgn024.02 Writing Stories(2)6/12/77 After dinner this evening, Miriam, who has been making late Mother’s Day presents for Gretchen, brought me “an early Father’s Day present.” The present, duplicated as Addendum 24 – 1, shows combined a typical drawing with another story in the WRITER model. Miriam could not spell the words, so she dictated it …
Vn016 Binet Test 5/27/77 Miriam has known for over a week that our next trip into Boston would be for taking a test. I had introduced her to the idea with the explanation that nearly everyone takes such a test some time and that she was simply taking this test earlier than most other children. …
Vn013 Phonemics 5/23/77 In discussions some weeks ago with a distinguished Genevan psycholinguist, the question of instructing children in phonetics came up. My earlier work on children’s conception of wordhood (‘Pre-Readers’ Concept of the English Word’) and pig-latin (not available) had convinced me that children should learn how to read before delving into phonetics. (Such …