It's hard for me to understand why people can't grasp the concept that a two year old little girl, nearly three would be speaking and showing their personality. At this age, they are repeating what they hear/see, pushing for more independence and very outspoken.
Respectfully snipped by me.
ITA. I'm really surprised to see people comparing children at Caylee's age to animals in terms of communication. No offense intended at all, just saying that is inaccurate. I worked in developmental psychology before having kids, and even working with severely communication-challenged autistic preschoolers who were right around 3, most of them could certainly express themselves better than a dog. If Caylee could understand how to get her own breakfast and reliably do so, clearly she has some level of intelligence & verbal understanding, whether it's average or not.
My daughter is 3, and since she was a baby we've been in a moms' group with a bunch of kids her age. DD is the oldest, and the youngest is about 2.5. A friend with an 18 month old joins us sometimes as well. The children have varying levels of speech ability. One of the boys is pretty behind in communication, and yet he can still say "Joey hit me" and "I don't WANT to share" and stuff like that. The 18 month old might come to us crying, and if we say "what's wrong?" she can point to her head and point to a table she banged her head on and say "OUCH" and whine. If one of the other children is a bit rough with her, she will start whining a lot and if we say "what happened?" she will point to the child who was rough with her, say the child's name (or her version of it), and say "OUCH." Huge verbal boosts happen between 18 months and 3.
IMO if Caylee was no more intelligible than a dog (or any animal that can "communicate" but not really) at nearly 3 years old - the age at which many kids are starting preschool, learning ABCs and numbers, etc - the pediatrician (assuming she ever saw one? I hope so considering CA's nurse background!) would have noticed warning signs by 18 months to 2 years.
DD often repeats things I wish she wouldn't. 3 examples from this summer, at 2.5 years old - disclaimer, we use normal body part names for private parts around here, which I know not everyone likes to do with small kids:
1) At my in-laws' house - me: "oh shoot" DD: "no mama, not oh shoot." me: "what, honey? I don't understand." DD: "not oh SHOOT, mama, daddy says oh S**T."
2) At a dinner with my parents and my in-laws shortly after announcing pregnancy #2: "mama, I comed out from your v...." My mom's response? "Did she just say she came from China?" No mom, she sure didn't.
3) When my parents visited for the holidays, DD was pretending that she was a dog and her little brother was a puppy. My dad said, "oh, does he have a tail?" DD looked at him quizzically and said, "No, he has a p...." ON VIDEO. A video I wanted to send to my grandmother. Needless to say, we cut the video there and tried again.
Sorry to ramble on and on. :innocent: I am such a nerd about this kind of thing. Basically - even if Caylee was significantly behind verbally, she would have been able to convey enough information to get KC in trouble. I do think CA could have been in denial about it, considering the amount of facts she just completely discounts. My daughter will sometimes tell my husband at the end of the day that she had a good day at school (on a non-school day) or that someone gave her a present that she didn't actually get, so it's not like everything out of her mouth is factual information. But she certainly can express herself.
Last thing to add - I was physically/emotionally abused as a child, and I know that when I was in preschool (I started at 2 yrs 10 months), I was very convincingly instructed that I better not tell anyone about it because the police might take me away from my mommy & daddy. Not hard to frighten a little kid out of mentioning certain things, but I remember various occasions where I got in trouble for simply answering someone's question honestly just because I didn't quite understand that what was happening at home was not normal.
OMG sorry to ramble so much abt myself when I'm a total newb here. I've been lurking here since July 2008 so I feel like I know enough of you to let my freak flag fly, I guess. I just wanted to clarify that Caylee could definitely have given up incriminating information in one way or another. She might have said something fishy here or there that you would not expect a small child to say, maybe things that she only could have learned at a no-clothes party or in a room full of 20-somethings drinking booze & smoking pot.
MOO
