Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums When did your gifted child talk/walk as baby???

The one thing I clearly remember is when my son was two and he would arrange his magnet letters into sentences across the floor. He would take the numbers and do problems such as 2+8=10. I went to many garage sales picking up buckets of letters and numbers for him to do this with. You only had to show him how to do something once and he would remember it.
When we would go for walks he was fascinated with license plates on cars. He would search for unique, out of state plates. This was difficult when we would go to the store or any place with a large parking lot. He would want to cruise the lot in search of license plates from different states. Then he would remember how many of each we noticed, 4 Washington, 2 Oregon and so on. Walking through the store he would repeatedly talk about the plates, color, how many had letters and numbers. He clearly had obsessions.
At about 3 his new obsession became states and capitals. In a few short weeks after he knew all of them by shape of the state he started talking about routes from one end of the country to another. He would create long lines of people at the store while he talked. I clearly knew at that point this wasn't normal. Then obsessions with shows and characters like Thomas the Train. Knew details about every train character and when they started on the show, color, favorite paths, etc. Obsession is still a big one. He gets obsessed with a subject and exhausts it then moves on. Like a tornado. lol
The subtle hints were liking older children, trying to teach others, wanting to discuss WHY about everything. Example, it's time for bed, why? The why's went on and on. Then in the end he would usually come up with reasons WHY NOT. lol
At school they finally moved him up because he was getting in trouble trying to teach first graders division. Because he was in the first grade gifted class they wanted to learn it. It was distracting. lol So now he is a small fry in an older class but loves it.
As time goes by there really isn't any way to ignore it. Ignoring it becomes harder to do than acknowledging it. That is what I've experienced. No way not to know.


Currently he is eight years old and in the fourth grade gifted classes for english lit, science, history and sixth grade math, Algebra. It's still amazing to me year after year. It's like the song that never ends. You can't help planning every step of the way. There is nothing traditional about it.