Newmom, thanks for taking this on. I can't wait to see how you synthesize the findings, but I don't envy you figuring out the coding....
DD is 4 y, 1 wk, so this is still very much all "in progress" -- if it's not helpful, just throw it out.
1. When did you first expected giftedness in your child?
Hmm... That's kind of hard. At birth, we all knew she was going to be smart. She was very alert from the get go, hit most milestones early (not all the physical ones) so that, like other people here, I kind of started ignoring them because I figured they were red flags for developmental delays. People always used to comment on how intense/observant she was when she was a baby; I don't remember when she first started looking at books, but she was clearly "into" them at 6 months, etc. It was always a no-brainer that she was "smart". BUT it didn't really hit me that it went beyond that until she was 3.5
2. What milestones/traits (gross motor skills, fine motor skills, verbal skills, literacy skills, mathematical sills, social) really made you suspect giftedness?
At 3.5, I took her out of daycare for financial reasons. I'd been saying for a while that I thought pre-k would be pointless because she would know everything by then. Well, having her around the house, I realized she already DID know all the pre-k stuff. So, I thought, ok, let's see what they do in Kinder. And after a couple of weeks, I realized, hmm, she basically had all the kinder stuff down (she still has a few gaps -- like, she doens't know coin values).
In retrospect, there were a ton of other signs: It's NOT normal for a 2 yo to want you to read them 20 books a day; or for them to be able to logically argue their position (or against you). Then there's the fact that she'd flourish the first several months she was in a new (age-grouped) room at day-care, then stablize, then flounder so that we'd be asking "Would they move her up already, for goodness sakes." But, really, it was just the fact that I realized she could do stuff that was considered 1st grade at 3.6 y that made me think, ok, the normal educational trajectory is NOT going to work with this one.
3. Did your child have any delays? If so what area (gross motor skills, fine motor skills, verbal skills, literacy skills, mathematical sills, social)?
Nope.
4. Is your child 2E? If they are did they have other signs besides the obvious, more quantifiable ones?
No.
5. Has your child been tested?
No.
6. Is your child across the board gifted or quite asynchronous? If so what are his/her strengths and were they obvious from a young age?
Both? She's above age-level at everything (except gross motor), but she's not at the same level with anything. The things that really stand out I guess have to do with general cognitive skills: she's got a fantastic sense of humor, she's very observant, very analytical; she's got great comprehension skills (~ 3rd grade level) across various disciplines -- science, literature, history.
7. When your child was young (baby/toddler/preschooler), was their development fairly even or did they excel more in certain areas (gross motor skills, fine motor skills, verbal skills, literacy skills, mathematical sills, social)?
Verbal skills stood out first. She was always amazing and amusing dh and me with what she'd say. I remember filling out milestone charts for her daycare and thinking (ok, I didn't phrase it anything like this at the time) "I'll see your two-word sentences and raise you six" or "I'll see your four-word sentences and raise you eleven." But even then, I was still thinking "really smart/bright", not gifted.
