{"id":551,"date":"2010-02-25T04:45:38","date_gmt":"2010-02-25T10:45:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dromomania.net\/Blog\/Blog.php\/?p=551"},"modified":"2012-07-19T05:27:33","modified_gmt":"2012-07-19T10:27:33","slug":"clues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dromomania.net\/Blog\/Blog.php\/?p=551","title":{"rendered":"Clues"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Photo<\/a>
\nEverett is the child of two researchers who at times experience him as an ongoing experiment.\u00c2\u00a0 However, he is not always a cooperative research subject, and so in many cases we must rely on observations alone to answer two questions that are of great interest to us:<\/p>\n

1. How much does he understand?<\/p>\n

2. How long can he remember events?<\/p>\n

While he continues the bootstrapping process of learning to speak, reason and navigate through the world, we continually watch for clues that might answer these questions.\u00c2\u00a0 Here I will try to capture a few vignettes, some related to our research questions and some are future clues about things we would like to remember.<\/p>\n

House<\/p>\n

First, a clue that has to do with our house rather than Everett.\u00c2\u00a0 One day we were looking at the stone above the fireplace and noticed something unusual:
\n\"Photo<\/a>
\nThis looks like it might be a fossil, but we never thought about it much until one day at the Milwaukee Public Museum when we saw this:
\n\"\"<\/a>
\nwhich seems like a pretty clear match.\u00c2\u00a0 So there you have it: our house was most likely built with stone from the nearby Silurian Racine Formation, including a fossil of an extinct cephalopod.<\/p>\n

Memory<\/p>\n

Getting back to E, last year he learned to say \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Dada\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and soon afterward he would start screaming it when I came home, sometimes to the point of hyperventilating, which had the side effect of making me feel like some kind of rock star.\u00c2\u00a0 One night we were on a Skype call with the Gabbys and I said goodbye early to go pick up dinner.\u00c2\u00a0 When I returned home I was greeted with \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Pizza!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d instead of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Dada!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, indicating that he knew what pizza was, overheard me mention it during our Skype call and remembered for the half hour or so while I was gone.\u00c2\u00a0 Similarly, last November I took him to the Audubon Center one day when they happened to be showing one of the resident owls, which he repeatedly and emphatically identified.\u00c2\u00a0 We didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t return for a couple months, mainly because of holiday travel and other commitments, but when we pulled into the parking lot in January he started shouting \u00e2\u20ac\u0153owl!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as soon as I opened the car door.<\/p>\n

Knowledge<\/p>\n

Everett\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s continues to amaze us with his language.\u00c2\u00a0 We sometimes try to teach him specific words, but most he seems to pull from thin air. Elevators, satellites and asteroids are a small sample of recent arrivals.\u00c2\u00a0 Also, some of his names for people are changing: for as long as he has spoken he has called Melissa\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s parents Gabby & Gabby.\u00c2\u00a0 But over the last few days, in the absence of any correction or encouragement, he has started calling them Gabby & Gandaddy.\u00c2\u00a0 We aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t sure if he remembers this from long ago or heard someone else say it, but it looks like it is here to stay.\u00c2\u00a0 Lastly, he has started adapting phrases that he hears from us, such as the time his friend Leo was crying, and he crouched down and asked \u00e2\u20ac\u0153What go on baby?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.\u00c2\u00a0 When he couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get a satisfactory answer he turned to Melissa and shrugged.<\/p>\n

Tools<\/p>\n

Everett has a growing interest in tools and instruments.\u00c2\u00a0 It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s too soon to say whether he has The Knack<\/a>, but he is certainly interested in screwdrivers and power supplies (note to the grandparents: the power supply is not plugged in).
\n\"Photo<\/a>
\n\"\"<\/a>
\nOh yes, the force is strong with this one.<\/p>\n

Mother<\/p>\n

Melissa\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s maternal instincts continue to become stronger, so much so that sometimes they spillover from her son to her husband, such as the times she unconsciously tried to put a bib on Chris, or served him a drink in a sippy cup, or asked him when he was headed to the bathroom whether he was going to pee or poop.<\/p>\n

Parents<\/p>\n

Finally, there are times when Everett is upset and we can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t gather enough clues to figure out what is bothering him.\u00c2\u00a0 At this point we usually attribute his mood to things that each of us experience often: Chris thinks he is overheating, while Melissa thinks that his skin is dry and he \u00e2\u20ac\u0153needs lotion\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Everett is the child of two researchers who at times experience him as an ongoing experiment.\u00c2\u00a0 However, he is not always a cooperative research subject, and so in many cases we must rely on observations alone to answer two questions … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dromomania.net\/Blog\/Blog.php\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dromomania.net\/Blog\/Blog.php\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dromomania.net\/Blog\/Blog.php\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dromomania.net\/Blog\/Blog.php\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dromomania.net\/Blog\/Blog.php\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.dromomania.net\/Blog\/Blog.php\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dromomania.net\/Blog\/Blog.php\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dromomania.net\/Blog\/Blog.php\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dromomania.net\/Blog\/Blog.php\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}