Friday, January 15

Scattered

Witnessed good mother-child communication today. This is the stuff we learn about in school (yep, I'm in grad school and they teach us this!).
Setting: Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) in the biodiversity section. Mother is with her 3-yr-old looking at a case of insects.
Mom: Whats that?
Child: Bug
Mom: What is another name for a bug? *here mom waits for an awkwardly long time to give the child a chance to respond. This is good!
Child: babbles a little
Mom: Insect :) Another name for a bug is an insect. Look at me when I say it: In-sect.

She waits for responses. She has the child look at her when she says the word so they can see how it is formed. She repeats the word many times in a variety of sentences. I wanted to ask her if she was an SLP or had been to an SLP!

Next story:
Last weekend a few friends and I were walking past the University of Toronto at approx 7pm. Just as we turned on to a side street there was a low but powerful boom. The kind that causes the ground to move beneath you. It was almost exactly like the mini-quake I experienced in Peru. Not being hardened Toronto citizens we all stopped where we were and, after a bit of thought, ventured back to investigate. The air started to get hazy and there was a funny smell.

Me: thinking someone blew something up. Waiting for debris to rain on me.
The rest of Toronto: no one even awknowledged that it happened! Our little posse was the only group that showed any sign of concern or even recognition.

Recently joined with Couch Surfing again. I have yet to surf or to host (I don't have a couch but I indicated a willingness to show people around). Reading through the profiles makes me want to travel!!!! Is it wrong to use it as a free place to stay within the same province???

ETA: Forgot to actually finish the whole sounded-like-an-explosion story. Sorry to leave you hanging about the current state of downtown TO. What happened? Nothing. Or at least, we never did find out and I checked all the news sites I could think of for days afterward. Of course, the smartest thing to do is always walk towards the big boom sound...

4 comments:

V said...

So what happened?!?! You left me totally hanging!

Katie V. said...

Sorry about that Vaness! Apparently I forget that stories need endings :) Fortunately there was nothing to report that I ever discovered. It was pretty eerie though.

Beth said...

why is it good for the child to look at the mother's lips? i mean, they can see it...but they don't really know what they're seeing, do they? tell me! i'm fascinated.

Katie V. said...

Ms. Beth:

I have not forgotten your question. I wanted to give you answers with citations so you know I'm not making this stuff up. But I can't bring myself to read more journal articles than I have to right now.

Basic answer: even though not all speech can be seen overtly (look a mirror and say 'dog') there are still cues to give answers. By directing the attention to your face/mouth you can be sure that 1) the child is more likely to be paying attention, 2) it promotes imitation from the child, 3) they pick up any cues that can help them decipher the word.

I would still like to find you a more thorough (supported) answer but for now hopefully this will suffice.