I get the same question all the time re: DS4's dairy allergy, "so, he's lactose intolerant?" At least when people ask, I have the chance to try to explain the difference between a true allergy and lactose intolerance.
Speaking of allergy, I had an interesting conversation with DS's pediatric allergist last week. I tried to discreetly get info about why HG children have high incidence of allergy (I wrote the question in a letter and asked her to email me), but she started talking about it anyway. So much for not using the "g" word in front of DS4!
I'm really going to be paraphrasing here, because DS4's asynchronous development was running high in the doc's office, but I tried to pay attention. So, she talked about how there's probably not a cause and effect situation re: allergy and giftedness, but rather how it's just one of many factors, and a combo of nature and nurture. She talked about how there is virtually no incidence of allergy in poor, underdeveloped countries (but they have other things to worry about, such as parasites, etc).
I also did a little PSA, and gave her the link to the SENG brochure (in spite of drawbacks mentioned on another post), because it does say what docs can do to help in identification. I said that it would be helpful if parents found out about giftedness issues before school, and pediatricians might be a good resource. I acknowledged that giftedness sometimes isn't the easiest thing to notice, since my 4-year-old was defintely in fine 4-year-old form that day!
But the most wonderful thing she said was that she thought gifted kids got short-changed in schools. Yay for DS4's doc!
