DD 2.5 has very few words, none consistent but now has started counting 1,2,3,4,5 this weekend

[osospecial]

She has always liked pulling my fingers up from a fist while i count to 5 and then tickle her on '5' if that makes sense. i always try get her to take a turn saying the numbers without much luck but 2 days ago she did, although quite unclear i knew she was saying 1,2,3,4,5, we keep practicing now and she is getting better/clearer every time. This is a small step but im delighted. I am now trying to think of other things i can teach her in this way. she has always liked numbers/counting things but any ideas how i can expand on this please? this is the first thing in a long time that she has really tried to do/say because she wants to. i made such a big fuss and she seemed to enjoy the praise, trying to get me and oh to keep clapping lol!

Its funny how some children aquire language isnt it. I am working with a little boy at the moment who is a similar age. He says a few words consistantly but he can count to 5 and recognise and name about 5 colours! I suppose it is what interests them.

Well done to your Dd, keep it up.

I think it's something to do with pattern recognition being a strength in many of our kids? I always found this confusing because professionals assured me DS2 would struggle with "abstract" concepts but you can't really get more abstract than numbers can you?

Is there anything that your DD likes to have two of? Might she, for instance, routinely have two biscuits (or something healthier!). I think kids often like to have something in each hand. Can you start thinking about things she has two of? Socks may be good because she's had two years' experience of them coming in pairs. Because if you can set up some "two" situations over the next few weeks you could then try the following:

week 1: you give her her accustomed item and there are two things that comprise it: socks, chocolate fingers, whatever, and you say "one, two!" as you put the items into each hand. This has to be a routine.

week 2: continue - don't be tempted to go too fast too soon.

week 3: one day, give her one item when she is expecting two. Say "one?" (use the upward swoop of your voice and exagerrate it? raise your eyebrows, do anything you can to indicate that something is wrong) and wait... wait... wait...(use all that Hanen stuff you learned). if she reacts with any kind of surprise you're winning. don't expect her to correct you that day - change your tone to a joyful end-of-sentence one and say "two!" and give her the other item.

.... in future, this could develop into "one or two?" ie introducing choice concepts.

this is reminding me of how this stage could be fun as well as deeply stressful.

Thanks lingle that is a good idea, I will try that with her socks
I think that makes sense that pattern recognition is a strength as she has picked up a game we play clapping hands together in a routine quite quickly and seems to enjoy that type of thing.
I will let you know how we get on with the socks

That's brilliant, oso! My DS loved numbers, nice and concrete. He also liked colours, shapes etc. in fact he could say cylinder and sphere before much more useful words like 'hungry!'

Thanx Ellen+zzzz.
DD does really like her shape sorter aswell so maybe she will pick up colours/shape names next from this.
Good ideas using 1 or 2 thanks zzzzz

"do you want ..... One...or...two?". When she can choose reliabley using 1 or 2 you can slowly morph it to "do you want .....Shreddies or cheese?"

wet blanket alert - that would have confused DS2. I'm no salt but as you say our kids learn numbers first because everyone uses them in the same way. So to use them in a way that goes against the grain of their real meaning seems risky to me.

Or you could try 1 or 2 using lingles suggestions

then...

1 sweet or 2 sweets
1 shreddie or 2 shreddies (but initially only expecting a 1 or 2 answer).

So you are always keeping the thing constant but you are adding language to your motivational routine. You can repeat it so it becomes a fill-in like above.

I think it would be a while before you could move from this to
1 shreddie (preferred) or 2 cheeses (non preferred) or vice versa but it's not undoable, as long as 1 and 2 remain, well, 1 and 2.

As it's come from a finger/hand game, I would keep the finger counting as a cue as it's very functional and will aid processing if you model two words e.g. 1 sweet etc.

Although this isn't "typical" first word stuff, typical language learners do this sort of early negotiation so communicatively this seems a good fit. One of my son's transitional phrases when moving from 1 - 2 word communication was "one more" while holding up a finger.