- My sister suggested that I test Ben's melody recognition ability by playing some of his favorite songs on other instruments (without lyrics). Interestingly, he recognized "Eleanor Rigby" immediately when I played it on the violin, but not at all on the piano, even after I played it several times. I wonder if it's because the violin's timbre is closer to that of the Beatles' guitar and vocals (as well as the string accompaniment in the Beatles' version) than that of the piano. Further investigation is warranted.
- Oh, I should mention that I certainly wasn't playing in the original key, so he recognized the melody even after it was modulated into a different key. I'm wondering how that relates to Dan Connell's ongoing efforts to calibrate his pitch perception via his CI.
- At dinner on Saturday, I was chatting with Ben. Neil was out of town at a conference. I said to Ben, as I've said on many occasions, "You're the best Ben ever." He responded with, "Best Ben in the whole wide world?" His articulation was almost perfect (for an 18 month old), so I understood him immediately, but I couldn't quite believe he had said this. How on earth could he come up with something like that on his own? So I asked, "Did Daddy say that you're the best Ben in the whole wide world?" And he said (and signed) "Yes." (He almost always signs "yes".) Okay, mystery solved -- the phrase "Best Ben" triggered his memory of something Neil had said. So the next day I asked Neil about this, and he said that yes, he had probably said something along these lines at some point, but not recently, and not with any particular emphasis. The point is that Ben does this to us all the time -- we'll use a phrase fairly casually, and two weeks later he'll spout it back to us under very different (but appropriate) circumstances. The kid has an amazing memory.
Modular Arithmetic
2 years ago
6 comments:
He is definitely a smart little guy! The fact that Ben could identify a tune using a CI shows how good the technology is. Granted, I know it isn't perfect, but he was able to pick out a tune at the age of 18 months!!
I wonder when you start worrying about articulation. I have some concerns about Nolan's, but a lot of that could be age related. Still, "gee-ya" for shoes just can't be right!
Ben still doesn't have anything for /s/, /sh/, /f/, or /t/, and /k/ isn't clear at all. I would worry about whether he's hearing the high-frequency speech sounds clearly, except that we have good evidence that he can hear and disciminate them, so for now I'm putting it down to age. The SLP at NYU faxed us a great Ling sound activity that our SLP has been using with Ben; let me know if you're interested.
Also, Ben retains a few of his early (poor) word approximations, almost out of nostalgia -- "milk" is still "noon" for some reason. So "gee-ya" might be a holdout.
My personal feeling is that as long as you're confident that he's hearing the relevant sounds, then articulation is a minor concern -- it's probably the easiest to address later if it turns out to be a problem. If he's getting The Idea of language and speech and starting to put words together, that's more important. I had a problem with /r/ up into grade school, and had some pull-out speech therapy in kindegarten.
Amazing kid he is! Yep, definitely the best Ben on the whole wide world, who's son is he anyway? Did I hear the "Best roommate ever!" ? :)
Fethiye, on my study door I still have the little post-it you left there when you were here for my wedding ... although I'm not going to try to reproduce the Turkish right now!
The teachers at BHSC said the same thing- don't worry about articulation yet. Nolan's missing some of those same sounds. He has /t/ and /d/ and uses them in words as a substitution for other consonants. He doesn't have /g/ /s/ /sh/ /ch/ /f/ /k/, etc. And his word for milk is "nult," lol. Very similar to Ben's "noon."
you kept that post-it?!!!
tears here...
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