Studies in Parrot Speech

I have been reading about parrot communication. It has emphasized to me how much there is yet to learn about parrots and what they understand and how they are able to communicate with people. This article indicated that parrots usually learn "a few words" before a year of age, and that they rarely learn anything new after 8 years of age. All of our handfed babies have started to talk at around 4-6 months of age and have had incredible vocabularies by 8-12 months. I feel that most of the words they use are things they heard in the first year or two and it seems like new things are acquired more slowly after that. Coco and Charlie are twenty and I continue to hear new words and phrases from them. But I do agree with one thing that they say, and that is the more they learn early on the bigger capacity for vocabulary they will have as they grow older. Alex, the African gray, is one of the few parrots who has really been studied for his capacity to learn language is still learning new words daily and he is 20 years old. He is exceptional because he is worked with for several hours each day.

I wish I could share the reference for this article, but I did not write it down. She says that when our birds ask us questions, if we want them to go beyond mimicry, then we need to treat that question seriously and answer them. I do that, and sometimes I feel silly, but Coco and Charlie are always asking me questions... like "What are you doing?" "What's the matter?" "Are you OK?" So I answer them, but sometimes I wonder if people would think I am nuts when I am explaining to a parrot why I am mopping the floor! They seem to understand that "What are you doing?" is a question they ask when someone is doing something, performing an action. They don't ask me that when I am just talking to them.