Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Early puberty?

I've been doing a lot of reading about giftedness recently and hadn't run across anything about differences in puberty until now. In the book High IQ Kids, it says, "Like many other highly gifted children, particularly girls, she reached puberty earlier than her age-peers." I haven't heard of this before, and there's not reference given for the statement. I'd like to hear more about this.

certainly wasn't the case for my girls.

I was looking for this the other day, and couldn't remember what book I'd read it in. So I went back through all of the books I have. Of all the books on giftedness I've read, High IQ Kids is the only one I remember mentioning something like this. I've been thinking about this as my HG DD9.5 grows and as I compare her to her older classmates and her agemates. I'm curious to hear if others have experience with this.

Interesting. I got my period in 4th grade at age 10. I was always small for my age, then shot up between 4th & 5th grade and was within a half inch of my adult height by 11. At least I didn't really need a bra until 8th grade or so.

My daughter has always been on the tall side, but she's definitely in the middle of a growth spurt as she approaches 5th grade. Plus, she got her period as well this year--4th grade, age 10.

So there's some anecdotal evidence for you.

I haven't read anything like that -- and I've been reading a lot. The only thing that came close was from Annemarie Roeper's partial list of gifted characteristics that states that gifted children have...

"Friends of both genders, later sexual interests"

So that's not especially about the physical side of things, but it's part of the whole puberty picture.

Some of early puberty has to do with obesity. Obesity tends to push girls into early puberty. That doesn't necessarily have to do with giftedness, of course, but there are ALOT more obese kids around in general.

Everything I have read, early puberty has nothing to do with giftedness. One study showed that girls living with the non-biological father entered puberty early. It was a natural selection type of thing where a girl living with her biological father entered puberty later.

Also, almost all countries have been experiencing earlier onset of puberty, including China, except Scandinavian countries.

And a lot of it is genetics. I entered puberty at 13, despite being with girls a year older at school. My mother was late also.

Obesity is a large factor. Fat has more estrogen, hence why we get belly fat at menopause.

Ren

I appreciate hearing everyone's responses. It sounds like I'm not the only one who hadn't heard this before. I have a nephew who is autistic, and his mother says that many autistic kids go through puberty quite early. Is it possible that there are enough kids with Aspie in the higher IQ range that it would skew things---that the early puberty might be related to ASD and not to giftedness? (Of course, ASD is more common in boys, right? So maybe that theory is already out the window.)