"Take chances. Make mistakes. Get messy." Ms. Frizzle, The Magic School Bus

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Context: "people" and "body"

Many, many words cause communication problems for us. Two of those are "people" and "body." As much as I try to define and find a "context" that she can understand, I cannot get her to understand what these words mean.

When she hears the word "people" she yells: "No people!" or "I'm not a people!" or "You're not a people, Mommy, you're mommy!" (yeah, no kidding)

As for body, she understands the names for all the parts of her body, except for the concept of all of them as a whole being called a "body."

And then we have double trouble when I use the words "people" and "anybody/nobody/somebody" too closely together.

That kind of talk sends us directly into the realm of the abstract, and nothing good ever happens for us there.

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