Language Skills

We have been working a lot with Elise and language skills. We started signing with her, and she's up to between 20 and 30 signs that she uses, or responds to. And has many many words she responds to if you just say them. She also likes to do hand motions for songs like "once there was a snowman" and dance to music, so her hearing is great. The only thing is, she doesn't really verbalize any words....She babbles all the time, and occasionally will have sounds that sound like 'mamamamam' or 'dadadada', and will imitate sounds sometimes, but mostly it is indecipherable. Well, about a week ago she started saying one 'word' consistently, over and over, and over! She points to things and says it as a question, or a statement, or just when she is 'chatting' with me. The word, her first, is THIS. That is the word we hear all day long,....this?, this, THIS! What a great choice of words! I'm not sure why this one has caught on, but she is definitely saying it a lot. She is still using all her signs when she really wants to communicate, and they are becoming more understandable the more we use them. I'm going to keep signing with her, and teaching her new ones, especially because it helps head off any tantrums when she feels she is communicating, but we're hoping the verbal skills can catch up soon! It is amazing to me how quickly she picks up a sign, or responds to verbal words, like toes or other body parts when you show them to her a couple times. She is absolutely not a little baby any more!!! She's a grown up little toddler!