Did your friends kids turn out to be gifted?
Yes, I'm sure some of our suspicion was due to family history. However, I suspect we also sought out information because there was an odd and confusing mix of behaviors. It was hard to know - are these sort of tricky savant behaviors or signs of something more indicating giftedness? If I read the first book I found on the subject didn't bother to discuss 2E kids or presented a list of milestones like in Ruf's book I might have been more inclined to dismiss it.
It has been a while since I read it, so correct me if I wrong, but it was not my recollection of Ruf's book that she says that one specific ability in a sea of developmental delays would still place a child at a high level of giftedness.
It was really late when I wrote my initial comments and I was thinking of just delayed in general, not necessarily 2E kids. That being said, one of the parents sets are both gifted (probably more in the MG so not quite at the same level as your son) and their child now that she's older seems to be more in line with possibly being gifted although it's still too early to say (the kid is 3). Now that the speech delay is over, they're starting to look into giftedness but initially, no.
I wonder, though, just from a scientific perspective. If there aren't signs for 2E kids also. DH certainly had a lot of signs despite a speech delay (he actually fits pretty well into the Einstein syndrome at least from what I've read online). It seems like a lot of this would be alleviated if Ruf would just mention at the beginning of her book that she's not including 2E kids in her study.
There is no book that can adequately "diagnose" all gifted kids as gifted. Ruf's book resonated with enough of us--warts and all--that I get very nervous when people start sounding like they want to throw out the baby with the bathwater.
I'm just going to quote the top part but I agree with a lot of what Kriston said. Like I mentioned before, I think a lot of Ruf's stuff would be more useful if she'd give a disclaimer about her research (and, seriously, as a scientist it's important to explain exactly what your research covers and what not... not that every scientist does that, many do overclaim their results but that's not the way it should be).
As for the newbies. I see what both sides are saying. One one hand, a parent of a gifted child has a good chance of being gifted themselves and, well, most of the gifted adults I know rarely just accept the first answer. But I totally understand the emotions behind trying to find the right answer. I can just say from my own personal perspective but if I've ever suspected something I never just looked at one website (or one book) but that might very well be my personality.
