Language Comprehension

Henry is, as we've likely mentioned before and elsewhere, non-verbal.  This means that despite his age, he hasn't spoken an intelligible word.  I idly wondered how to characterize this or describe it in another way so that it's more comprehensible to the uninitiated.  We've said before that Henry may be non-verbal, but he's not non-communicative.  Most times, he finds a way to get his message across.

We also know that he comprehends certain words -- he knows "dinner" and "bath" in both English and Japanese.  He knows "bedtime," and hates it.  He knows what I mean when I say "let's change your butt" (diaper change).

He'll pantomime what he wants and he also knows who will play certain games or do certain activities.  I'll play basketball with him on his little basketball toy, Mom plays "showerball" and "basementball" with him.  Lori is his comfort zone.  He also knows not to go to Lori with the Japanese books :)

What this reminds me of is akin to an average person being in a foreign land and hearing a foreign language around us without any interpreter or guide or even lessons from high school to fall back on.  I have enough of a background in Spanish to where I could likely make my way in Spanish-speaking countries.  I may stumble for a little while, but I'll eventually pick up on it.

But suppose I was in Finland (and forget for a moment that Finnish people speak English well enough and are accommodating to non-Finns).  I've heard songs in Finnish, I've heard Finnish people speak.  There is, to me, no discernibly familiar verbiage upon which I can even base an understanding.  It's all a bunch of gibberish to me.

Now let's say I'm part of a Finnish family.  I don't speak Finnish, they don't speak English.  How do I communicate with them?  How do they communicate with me?

We'd have to resort to pantomime, right?  I would need to physically indicate something and work through the communication in that way, and maybe if I did say a few words here and there, they'd sound like just meaningless noises to my Finnish family.  And vice-versa,  But if I began associating a certain sound to an action, they would start to understand what I'm trying to convey.  Likewise, if they started saying one particular word -- for example, one that sounds to my ears as "pie-vuh-linen" ("pie" as in apple, "linen" as in fabric) -- and then serving me a meal in the evening, I'd soon associate "päivällinen" with "dinner."

But those heavy-metal umlauts make it difficult to pronounce, so it's going to take me a while to pronounce it correctly.  But in the meantime, if I get hungry, I'll go to the table, sit down, and look to my family with a hopeful expression, hoping that they'll understand that I'm hungry and want to eat.

This is what Henry does.  He grunts his common "ah," goes to the kitchen table, pushes out his highchair, and then looks to the nearest adult with an expectant expression.

He wants to eat.

Or he'll go to the basement door, look at it, then turn around, look up at me, and raise his arms to be picked up.

He wants to go downstairs and have me walk around while carrying him.

But this is still pretty basic stuff, and in reality, my Finnish family and I wouldn't have too much trouble coming to an eventual understanding about these basic needs like food, shelter, clothing, and sleep.  It's because we have these life experiences.

However, our 2½ year old does not.  So let's take this context out further.

Put me in an automotive manufacturing plant.  Again, I don't speak Finnish, they don't speak English, and I don't have an automotive-manufacturing background, so we don't even have common life experiences to draw from.  How do they warn me of danger if I don't even know where to be cautious?  When do I look up?  When do I look down?  Where do I wear a hardhat and where do I not have to?  What are these things hanging from the ceiling that are slowly moving from one point to another?

All I hear around me is Finnish, and specialized Finnish at that (and then to enhance this analogy, add the loud noises and hum of a manufacturing plant that makes hearing difficult even when language barriers aren't an issue).  When the plant manager points at a käytetyt next to the kori on the other side of the plant floor, what exactly is he pointing to?  And what does he want to tell me about it?  Which is he pointing to?  I see a big rectangular thing, a circular thing, some shelves, a window, a big machine with sticks in front of it, a big machine without sticks on it, and a rectangle thing on top of some circular things.

Maybe he's not even trying to tell me anything specific about whatever is over there.  Maybe he's trying to tell them to do something, even if they're on the other side of the building (I have no idea that those things may or may not be able to understand him).

I can see Henry's mind working often.  He may have very basic interests and sometimes a hyper-focus on certain things (we knew this would be a chance of a characteristic) but what I can see from the outside makes me desperate to know what's going on in his mind, what he's thinking.  I'd love to hear his voice make words to explain his world.  But until then, his babble and pantomime will have to suffice.