[reepicheep]

Hi,
My son will be 2 1/2 in sbout a week and he seems to be a typically developing little boy- he is very verbal and can speak in coherent multisentence phrases. There is only one issue that bothers me- he still calls himself 'you' instead of 'I.' He also calls the person he is adressing 'me' or 'I.'
In other words, he reverses his pronouns. He will refer to the two of us together as 'we' correctly. Anyway, when I looked this issue up on the internet (a dangerous game, I know) all I found were links about Autism and Asperger's. He doesn't fit most of the other criteria, although he does like to listen to the same music a lot. Anyway, I am starting to freak out and am wondering if anyone else had a child who did this and turned out fine?
Thanks,
Rachel

 

[Earth Angel]

My oldest did this, and he is such a verbal person now. My mom (an english teacher) still gets a kick out of telling these stories cause there was such an amazing step by step learning of the english language sitting in front of her!!!

One of the big ones I remember (hes 6 now, so it is hard for me to remember all the examples) was when you'd ask him, "would you like to do that or would you like me to do that"...he'd say "me do that" meaning he'd like to do it himslef.

Think about it. When you address him, you say "you". "do you need to use the potty" "Are you hungry". So naturally, he picks that up and calls himself you!! Actually very smart if you think about it. He is picking up what he is hearing! It takes a bit longer for them to realize that when we talk about ourselves we say "me" or "I"...that is a more complicated concept in and of itself, and, they have to pick it up by learning the concept, not just by repeating what words they hear us say

I know it is so easy to worry

but english is a very complicated language.....before you know it he'll get this part of it, but there will be another aspect of language that he is working on. My 6 yr old is working on the past tense of many words even now

 

[guestmama9916]

My DS will be 3 next month and still has a few little things he says wrong too. I'm not worry. To DS, everyone is a "she" or "her".

He also does this thing where he started adding the "T" sound to the end of some of his words. For example, Winnie the Pooh became Winnie the Poot.

We thought it was funny so we would say things like he would which is NOT the way it should should be handled, I know. Its starting to go away though now.

Kim

 

[Daffodil]

My DD reversed "you" and "I" until she was about 2 1/2, despite having a very good grasp of grammar otherwise. Her cousin had them mixed up until she was even a bit older. Both of them are just fine now.

 

[LynnS6]

My dd is 27 months and does this regularly. My dd loves to listen to the same songs over and over. TODDLERS LOVE repetition!

Remember, 'signs' of autism are characteristics that tend to CLUMP TOGETHER for the syndrome. It doesn't mean that every child with Autism will display these behaviors and it doesn't mean that every child who displays this behavior has Autism

As a PP stated, pronouns are confusing because you have to shift reference to do them. "I'm "I" when I talk about me, but "you" when you talk about me."

Actually if you listen to young children's speech, they have trouble with all sorts of words that are like this (deictics if you want to know the technical word). They mix up "here" and "there". "Mother" and "daughter". "These" and "those". It's all part of a wonderfully complex, developing language system.

 

[4evermom]

I think pronoun confusion is really common. My niece did it for a while and would get really upset if the person that she was talking to didn't understand that she wanted to do it when she said "you do it". It is partly why I actually made a point of talking in third person when ds was a young toddler (saying "Mommy is coming" instead of I'm coming). I just eased out of the third person slowly as he got older.

 

[reepicheep]

for those of you whose children did this, did you correct them? Or did you just respond to them as if they were saying it correctly? That is, if the child said "What am I doing?", did you tell them what YOU were doing (which is what they are asking, after all) or did you tell them what THEY were doing in an attempt to point out the error? My husband and I are in disagreement about this. I say it will work itself out as other speech idiosyncracies do but he is a behavioral psychologist and is worried we are reinforcing the error if we don't correct it.

 

[robinkate]

Dd has mixed up "you" and "I" since she was about two and is still doing it at three. She has developmental delays and sensory issues so if your child doesn't have any other problems, I don't think you need to worry about it. Raising a Sensory Smart Child had a list of milestones that was more complete and helpful than other lists I found.

I have started correcting her now when she calls herself you but didn't when she was younger.

 

[4evermom]

It was funny that my niece started correcting herself first with my dh. She realized that he didn't know what she meant when she said it wrong so she would rephrase it correctly. She said it wrong for a longer time with her parents, my mom, and me. I really wouldn't worry about correcting him. I think young children generally learn better in an environment where they are not corrected but given the opportunity to self correct through observing how others do things or what simply works the best. Your ds will hear you and your dh using pronouns correctly with each other and figure it out soon.

 

[BathrobeGoddess]

I do EI work so I can tell you this is really very normal. I wouldn't correct him unless you want it to become a power struggle issue. Typically developing children don't develop language by being told what to say, they develop it in a non-linear way. Just keep talking to your son and reading to him often and it will work its self out!

Behavior psychologist huh....I'm sorry to hear that, ap and behaviorism often don't mix well (not really but I'm an educational psychologist and I am way more influenced by the "gooey" theories)

 

[reepicheep]

Quote:

Originally Posted by BathrobeGoddess Behavior psychologist huh....I'm sorry to hear that, ap and behaviorism often don't mix well (not really but I'm an educational psychologist and I am way more influenced by the "gooey" theories)

Boy, tell me about it! He is very accomodating but we have had numerous arguments about these issues, although he is not ALWAYS enamored of behaviorism. Just don't sit us down together to watch an episode of Supernanny! Not my favorite show...

 

[Earth Angel]

reepicheep....My mom always explaied that what she felt was the way to promote appropariate use of the language (she's the english teacher

) was to just use language correctly in front of the children. If they speak incorrectly you could simply repeat the statement, sort of as a question but not really (kind of making sure you heard them correctly is the best way I could explain it) correcting the statement as you would need to through your own speech, but not telling the children she/he is wrong.

So child would ask "What am I doing mamma?" meaning ("What are you doing mamma") and you would respond maybe by saying "What is mamma doing?" (taking the whole pronoun thing out of it and allowing him to hear a different phrasing of the same question) "Mamma is doing blah blah blah".

I think that if you go about this by telling him "No son, you must ask What are you doing Mamma" that you are just creating a situation in which power struggles could erupt, but more importantly, where you son could begin feeling badly about himself.

He'll get it. Language just isn't learned by children the way other things are. If you child was hitting, you would of course want to redirect him to using gentle touches and talk with him about other ways of expressing anger. If you didn't do this I do think that there is that possibility that the child could begin to think that this was an OK behavior. But, with language, the best thing to do is just speak properly around him, and he will grow up speaking properly.