Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Did you know?

Yes, we expected him to be gifted based on our family history on both sides. We had a hunch from the delivery room when the nurses commented on how he was responding right after birth. We were certain by about 4 months, my wife was certain earlier than that.

I don't think it influenced our decisions very much early on. We were always going to parent the child we had, not the child that people were going to tell us we had. We were fortunate that we had the flexibility to do this - my wife worked 3 days a week so we used a nanny for the other 3. DS never had to move at anyone else's pace for the 1st 18 months.

It did influence our decisions later on. By the time he was 2, we had moved to a daycare 3x a week for exposure to more kids. Shortly thereafter, the daycare was having him help teach the other 2 year olds so he wouldn't be bored. We took him out again within a few months.

That's when we started looking at gifted education options more aggressively. We had him tested at 3.5y.o. just so we'd have some external validation when we started shopping pre-k options because we didn't have any teacher experiences for reference.

No real hunch. Like some here we just thought all kids were smart little sponges.
We were once sitting at a wedding reception with our probably 3 yr old son beside a lady we had never met. She kept asking him all kinds of questions and he would elaborate on his answers. She tipped us off.

Looking back we kind of knew I guess but we are a pretty nerdy group and he just blended in.

When he was three he was always wanting to read parts of the books at bed time. Anywhere we went he had to read everything at the library or museums. Every morning he would read the nutritional labels on boxes of cereal and trying to figure the percentage values for a full day of eating.

Again around three maybe four we went to a pool party and all the kids were swimming and the adults were sitting around with their feet in the pool. He pulls in several life jacket and was reading type code and warnings on the tags. Asking questions about certain words he was sounding out and asking questions about drowning. The others were looking at us like we were the most crazy parents, almost like we were torturing him. I remember just shrugging.

I don't remember speculating on whether my kids would be gifted, or even really having much awareness of giftedness per se, although I must have had SOME exposure to the idea (I knew my husband had been in school gifted programs, for example).

Looking back, there were a few early signs that made an impression on DH and me, but "gifted" didn't occur to us until much later. For instance, at about 8-9 months old DS watched me open a newly installed baby gate, just once. He then crawled over and perfectly imitated the rather complex two-handed maneuver needed to open it (luckily, his little hands weren't strong enough to pull it off!). At 18 months, he would independently insert CDs of story/song books that we had, press play, go find the corresponding paper book, and turn the pages at appropriate times to follow along with the story. This was his favorite activity for a few months. We thought that was cute and smart but that was about it.

I first started to realize something more was going on when he was about 2.5 and developed the first of a series of obsessive interests (musical instruments and orchestras). His extreme need to learn, along with his ability to concentrate for extended periods, quickly assimilate and remember massive amounts of new information, and apply it in new contexts then became very apparent. Also around that time I found the PBS child development tracker and realized that he looked more like an "average" 5 year old than a 2 year old by their descriptions. It was then that I started to research giftedness.

We knew from very early on... and so did casual onlookers.

Rather than go into detail, I will just share that lists like the following would have been a great comfort to us at that time... so I post (and re-post) the list with hope that it may be of some assurance to others.

A roundup of common Behavior characteristics and early milestones which may indicate giftedness:
- Characteristics of intellectually advanced young people
- Parenting Gifted Preschoolers
- NAGC's list borrowed from the book A Parent's Guide to Gifted Children
- Characteristics and Behaviors of the Gifted
- Characteristics checklist for gifted children
-Tips for Parents: Helping Parents Understand Their Profoundly Gifted Children
- Profiles of the gifted and talented which lists 6 different types, categorized by personality/temperament and achievement
- Bertie Kingore, Ph.D.: High Achieving, Gifted Learner, Creative Thinker? (hat tip to sanne)
- A common trait in gifted children, often listed amongst identifying characteristics, is alternately described as: "advanced moral reasoning", "well developed sense of justice", "moral sensitivity", "advanced ability to think about such abstract ideas as justice and fairness", "empathy", "compassion". Links to lists of gifted characteristics include several articles on the Davidson Database here and here, SENG (Silverman), SENG (Lovecky).
- ages at which gifted children may reach developmental milestones
- thread about Early Milestones - what do they mean?
- SENG video: The Misdiagnosis of Gifted Children
- book: Misdiagnosis and Dual Diagnoses of Gifted Children and Adults
- old post with link to article comparing gifted characteristics and ASD characteristics
- post with checklist comparing gifted and ASD traits (hat tip to BananaGirl)
- post with link to Gifted Resource Center of New England (GRCNE) article comparing gifted and ASD traits (hat tip to Nolepharm)

I *still* get surprised that my kids are considered unusual.

For example, my 6 and 7 year olds regularly play Settlers of Catan with us. I didn't think that was weird but apparently most of our friends didn't even think about introducing the game until 12. I'm still thinking they are just underestimating their kids, but who knows.

My third kid, 18m old, knows about 30-40 words and loves books. To me, that's completely normal. Dd7 had 200 words and spoke on sentences at that age and listened to me reading books starting at about 4 months. We didn't think Ds6 was gifted because he couldn't sit still for a book and only had 3 words at that age. So I'm still on the train of, "sure, he's not*behind* like his big brother so he's probably just average". Apparently he's unusual, according to anyone who spends time with him.

And at 18 months old DD7 started identifying letters, which my current 18m old absolutely is not doing. So everything keeps getting filtered through my experience with her, and I'm not convinced she's *very* gifted or anything.