Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Toddlers

Being the parent of a gifted toddler, I definitely think they are an underserved population. Even if nothing more than additional resources available to parents of gifted toddlers would be good. Especially when you are a first time parent and don't realize things (like we never thought it strange when my son, then 11 months started playing the harmonica).
Also, knowing the things to look for in a daycare for your child and reading the signs when they are not thriving in an environment would be a big help.
Knowing to track and start a portfolio is also good advice parents of gifted toddlers should know.

You BETCHA!! Early detection of giftedness is a MUST. Not only are they underserved, but they are discriminated against, imo. You tell your doctor you think your kid is gifted and they tell you, "All parents think their kids are geniuses. Just let him grow up." You tell the school district you think your child is gifted and DITTO.

There are so few resources and so little supports.

My son could whistle at 7-8 months (Rite). I thought he just did it because I am a professional whistler. Well, yes, he got exposed to whistling a lot, but to be able to control the muscles and be able to whistle the scales at that stage...sheesh. Looking back, I wish I had known.

Then you finally get them into a program and they are so bright and inquisitive and as such too busy for the structured setting and the teachers freak out and call them discipline problems.

ok Willa...breathe breathe breathe

I agree that Toddlers are underserved. I would love to see Medical Doctors and nurses taking a more active role in early identification.

I agree. People shouldn't be afraid to say that a toddler seems advanced. Our pediatrician didn't even seem interested, or to necessarily even believe me, when I would describe the stuff son was doing at 2 and 3 years of age. Even the staff at the daycare center, supposedly early childhood trained, wasn't as aware of his differences as we were as parents.

I have a coworker who was identified as gifted in grade school, skipped a grade and TAG program and all. She just had a baby a few months ago and she commented how alert the baby was at birth - enough so that the nurses made statments about never having seen such a wide eyed and observant newborn. Now the baby is babbling and attending to what's going on, rolling over and reaching - 3 months old. I've told the first time mom to just keep a really good record of milestones, as I think that her daughter may be following in mom's footsteps.

Maybe we can all make that difference by educating as we go!

I remember when Rite was given the Denver II screening at 18 months, he was able to do most things at 4 years of age (plus) and he pointed out alphabet on the wall and colors and told the story of a fork lift dropping a load of boxes at the local Home Depot place (fos lif go up UP UP. blumpblumpblump boses all fall down. Oh Oh! bwoke all duh lawnmos -- accompany by hand motions and big eyes:^), etc. The Dr. after he was done, plotted the Denver II, while still squatting down by Rite on the floor, then rolled back onto his heels and said, "Wow!"

chuckle.

This was the same doc who, when Rite was born, thought he flipped over from back to front on accident the first day in the hospital then the next day, when the doctor took him out to look at his dislocated hips, he did it again and again and again. Oh! said doc, "he really can roll back to front already". He also noted that he could hold his head up in the hospital and lift it off the mat. He didn't doubt me when I said he smiled at his 1st week check up...cuz Rite smiled at him!!

This was the same doc who noted at 4 months that he'd never seen such an active and alert baby and that I was "going to have" my "hands full".

When I asked him at the 18 month check up if Rite was gifted, even after saying "Wow!" himself, he said, "I don't believe in giftedness".

We lived out in Boulder, Colorado then. It is a highly educated and very liberal town, but there was a very strong culture against "giftedness". Rite didn't have a chance. Even the fellow playgroup moms hated me for my worry over his precocity. We were ostracized when he started spelling his name at about 15-16 months.

When Mite was little his ped. noted his singing and vocab prior to his first birthday. He too said I was going to have my hands full. I never broached the idea of giftedness with him, though, because at 15 months Mite "shut down" and stopped doing everything for about 7 months. His ped, thank goodness, knew where he had been prior to the "stop" and immediately found intervention for him. I think it might have saved Mite from a descent into autism.

Anyhow...off on a ramble again....i wish someone had affirmed my suspicions and given me advice on how to mother these guys!!

Toddlers are sorely neglected when it came to identification and intervention by the medical and education communities. It amazes me that what money is spent in our district is spent at the middle and high school levels. IMO, by then we've missed the boat.

I never knew (before Dr. Ruf's book) that eye contact at birth was unusual. We probably would have been concerned if our second child had not been as alert. Even though I never kept a baby book, I actually have proof of eye contact in the hospital and our daughter engrossed as a book is read to her when she is two months old. We took a lot of pictures (of our first).

The only thing I really took note of was that our daughter walked at 91/2 months and our son walked at 9 3/4 months. Apparently this is not correlated to intelligence.

Here are some interesting oddities of our daughter�s early development (which is/was easily level 4 in comparison to the examples given from birth to six years in the book. She really doesn�t appear THAT different from her peers NOW):

Our daughter had to be held constantly. It�s a good thing she wasn�t a heavy baby because she rode on my hip her entire first year. She wasn�t interested in cuddling. I was simply a means to have a more interesting vantage point. I carried her around with one arm supporting her as she sat on my hip-face out. On one occasion, a concerned woman approached me in public to advise me that I should turn her around for more effective bonding.

Our daughter had a team of imaginary friends! She was always conversing in a sing song voice with �nobody. This spanned from approximately one year to 101/2 years. Now (at 12) when I hear her upstairs by herself and ask who she is talking to, she says �herself�. Almost all of her �friends� were sweet young girls like herself, but one time, I overheard her (just 4) in the bathroom arguing with �Carlie�. She stated, �No! I love my mommy and I�m not supposed to play with matches!� That sent chills down my spine.

When she was 41/2 she completely stopped using any word that began or ended with the ST sound. For six months, she talked around things to avoid making the sound. For example she referred to �stars� as �those sparkly things in the night sky�. As far as I know, she never accidentally used the ST sound during that time. I consulted her pediatrician because I was worried. He said that she was probably practicing in private and when she was satisfied, she would start using it again.

I don�t know if this stuff is related to giftedness or not (although I think I have heard that imaginary friends may be). I did wonder if she was abnormal so I thought I would share the weird stuff to assure other parents who may be experiencing unusual behavior.

Delbows, I was stunned when I read that little tidbit in Ruf's book. Immediately I thought of the night DD6 was born. I held her all night long, and kept waking up every hour or so to make sure she was okay...and every time I opened my eyes, she was staring at me, gazing right into my eyes with the most intense look.

Now, if you can picture this, what made it comical is that she had one eye somehow shut tight so it looked like she was winking at me all night long--and yet the look in her other, open eye was deeply serious and intense. She also had one ear that was flipped forward on itself--it must have been pressed against something in utero that way--and every time I gently pushed it back where it belonged, it would SPRING forward again and stick like that. She looked quite homely that first night. It made me chuckle every time I looked down at her...but I was truly amazed by the incredible (one-eyed) eye contact.

Oddly enough, she was the one of my three kids who mastered winking at a very early age--long before her brother, who is two years older, could do it. We always tell her she was born winking.

LOL, Delbows, and did you ever manage to bond with her? She probably would have been bored if you'd turned her around.

she let me know what she wanted. I always described her as high maintainence rather than fussy.

That's a cute story about your daughter being born winking.

Our daughter was born pretty and pink, so when her brother came along (larger at birth), I thought "poor kid" because he was also so homely and I didn't realize it was temporary.

That intensity about a sound at such a young age, Del, sounds like one of the "over excitabilities". The imaginary friends at age 1, too....that's an unusual ability at that age. I can imagine the "matches" sending a shiver down your spine!!!

Both my boys did the deep gaze at birth. Now I'll have to get Ruf's book from the library again and look up that part. I musta missed it. I have pictures of both boys at less than a week of age staring intently at the camera. I remember with both of them how they watched and watched while I was taking pictures of them.

As for goofy looking, both kids scored high there the first few hours. Rite was a high-level-forceps-turned-cesarean birth. His head was shaped like a cone, with a huge hematoma, a cut over his eye brow from the forceps, and dislocated hips. I swear he came out flipping back to front and staring at the world because his birth had caused such distrust. He was scared!

Mite came with this gob of hair that was above the ear on the right side and about an inch below on the left! The right side looked like it had been cut straight off like a bowl cut. Plus it stood on end on top. His face was just perfect, but his hair was absolutely humorous. A friend of mine came to see us in the hospital and spent the whole time she held him just trying to discretely smooth down his hair. chuckle. Rite used to tell Mite, "You sure are beautiful, but you have funny hair!!!"

chuckle. INteresting how you can just adore them no matter how goofy they look, eh?!

Oh and both boys liked to be on my hip facing out, too!!! That's interesting! I never thought about it before. I guess they were just too busy to be cuddled!! But they did like their snuggle time at night.

Gosh! I just love this group. It's so cool to find people who are like me with odd little kids who are like mine!!! chuckle.