3 year old learning/vocabulary mix-ups

[Pretzel Twister]

My kids are 3 and have been mixing up a few things for over a year now. They cannot keep these things straight word-wise. It's the same for both of them. Is it normal to mix things like this up. They'll get a yellow shirt/toy/crayon if you ask them. Then if you ask them the color, they'll say red about 75% of the time.

These are their common mix-ups: ankles/wrists
yellow/red
giraffe/zebra


DH says he was a flakey little kid who couldn't keep things straight and I shouldn't worry too much.

[Disco Lemonade]

my ds gets yellow and red confused too.

i think it is a phase. :)

[AMG]

DS can't keep him/her, she/he straight :lol I think it's easier for him to say "she", so everyone is "she" :lol

[melissab]

My 3yr old can't keep he/she straight. My oldest had a friend over the other day and he kept asking her questions and saying he. The girls were getting a little annoyed with it.


and when asking a question he usually says "What it is?" He'll rearrange the words. When he does that I usually correct him.

[Beachmom]

Same here with the he/she.

[Chica]

Originally posted by AMG
DS can't keep him/her, she/he straight :lol I think it's easier for him to say "she", so everyone is "she"

Cassandra does the same thing. Also, dd can speak spanish and sometimes, she'll insert a spanish word into an english sentence or vice versa. It's cute but it confuses the hell out of my mother who doesn't understand spanish. :lol

[Pallas]

Cub, who is freshly four, still does this occasionally.

Mommy/Daddy were TOTALLY interchangable until very recently.
Shoulders/hips
Black/white STILL get reversed.

This is not a child who has difficulty in verbal skills. Dear doG, no. :lol

Now that he's reading, I've found that it follows the same pattern as his talking -- big words are read/recognized/spelled far sooner than the small, everyday words. He uses words like "irritated" and "incapacitated" but mixes up "shoulders" and "hips." He can read "neighbor" but glosses over "and" "the" "in" etc.

So my thought is that *unique* words are consistently used properly (verbal or reading) while words that are grouped (colors, family members, conjunctions) are more easily confused.

Since my child does this, I'm convinced that it's a sign of giftedness. :lmao

[Pretzel Twister]

Thanks for the responses. I have been feeling better and laid back about this. Those words or relationships must be stored in the same part of the brain or something. The mix-ups are so specific and consistent.