Symbol Recognition and Language Development

[naomikritzer]

Years ago, at Christmas, my in-laws wrapped up a remote-control electronic mouse as a gift to the cats. It had a joystick (which didn't work very well) to let this large, gray plastic mouse with a cartoon face whiz along the floor. The box showed a cat chasing it. Naturally, the cats took one horrified look and ran for their lives. There are things that look kind of like a mouse to a cat, but huge chunk of plastic on wheels -- no.

So I find it really fascinating to watch the toddler mind figuring this stuff out.

Molly has some socks with pink flamingos on them. As we were leaving Molly's preschool yesterday, Kiera saw a yard with pink plastic flamingos, and pointed them out. (She calls them Me-Mangos.) I did spot a black and white picture of a flamingo and Kiera was not able to identify it, so my guess is that she's cued in large part by the color.

Although, she also found an old swim diaper of hers that was decorated with cartoony multi-colored dinosaurs, which she identified as dina-whores. We don't live in a particularly dino-intensive house. (I know some two-year-olds would doubtless be able to tell a triceratops from a stegosaurus, but Kiera does not have the proper sort of older sibling for that.) She does like a book called Ten Little Dinosaurs (in which a series of dinosaur species are killed off by jumping on a bed, riding a bike in traffic, sliding down lava tubes, etc.) but the pictures are very different (cartoony, but in a very different style) from the dinos on her swim diaper.

There are occasional total misfires, like the time we were looking at the petting zoo at the apple orchard. The last animal was a llama. I asked Kiera if she knew what it was, and then joking asked her, "Is it a bunny?" (We have a book where they show you a kitten, a puppy, and a lamb, asking each time, "Is that a bunny?" The bunny, which is the same bunny from the Pat The Bunny book, shows up at the end.) Kiera's eyes went wide and she said, with total conviction, "Yeah!" She then insisted that the llama was a bunny for the rest of our visit. I suppose it does have those long, stick-up-y ears like the bunny in the book... (And yeah, this one was totally my fault. Bad mother, no biscuit.)

Comments

Animal recognition

[dtm]

For a long time, all animals were for Katherine either "ow" (short for "meow") or "woof". In particular, horses and zebras were "woof". (At least cheetahs were "meow")

She's since branched out, but a surprising number of different animals these days are identified as "cow". (Hippos, guinea pigs, and Miss Piggy, though she sometimes manages to identify her as "pig") She seems to take correction well, and will call the hippo a hippo while it's on the page, but the next time we read that book it's back to being called a cow.

We must go to the zoo sometime soon and see what Katherine makes of actual animals, and not cartoon pictures in books.

[peacockharpy.livejournal.com]

Hee! Meg used to call flamingoes "so-mingos."

As an antidote to the bunny, I suggest Is Your Mama a Llama, which is also about identifying animals... only it winds up with, you guessed it, llots of llamas.

[mrswebchik.livejournal.com]

This week Amber started actually talking more. As a 3rd child, she manages to get her needs met without using words. Our dog is huge - over 80lbs - and my cat weighs in at 17lbs. She does a good job with "Doggy" and "Kittie" with them, but if we go somewhere and she sees a small breed of dog (like the terrier next door) she squeals "KITTIE!" and attempts to smother it.

[naomikritzer]

We actually have that, which is why I thought she might recognize the llama. The problem is, she always gets sick of it around the time we meet the seal; we never get to the llamas.

[peacockharpy.livejournal.com]

Ahhh, then you don't get to clunk over the "Rhonda responded" line, then. *grin*

[queenofstuff.livejournal.com]

actually, llamas remind me of rabbits too, the ears and the split upper lip make them look rabbity.