Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Bright three year old cannot count past four

I would feel foolish posting this anywhere else but many here have experience with 2e kids so I'm going to take that risk. I have a three year old who is obviously very bright but cannot count past four. It's so odd and incongruous with his other abilities that I can't help but think there is something going on. I will keep an eye on it but wanted to write and see if any of you have seen something like this before and what, if anything I should be looking for.

My son is almost 3.5. He has a gifted older brother (probably highly gifted but we don't have an accurate score because he didn't cooperate with parts of the WPPSI when he was four). Like his older brother, DS3 started to talk at seven months. He was speaking in sentences by the time he was 14-15 months old. He loves puns and makes up his own. His speech is so precise and his vocabulary so large that almost every day people comment on how "advanced" he is (even in the Bay Area, where there are lots of bright kids!) He is starting to read and spell on his own with no assistance from us. He is obsessed with puzzles and can quickly do 100 piece puzzles that are for kids twice his age. He does Lego sets for nine year olds (following the directions with little assistance). At the age of two he was able to run up to maps in public parks and find where we were and locate objects and then show us where they were in real life.

BUT. He cannot remember how to count past four. We don't go over it a lot or push it but it's so odd that we will count an object together and he always says, "1,2,3,4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 6, 7, 8, 9. . . " He can never remember that five comes after four, no matter how many times I tell him. Yesterday I was curious and we counted objects to ten and after a few repetitions, he got it but the following day he forgot it all over again. I don't think his memory is poor. He tells elaborate stories about past events and has parts of fairly complex books memorized. He just cannot seem to remember what comes after four.

The other fact that I find odd is that he has recently started to spontaneously do addition (adding up to five). He'll run around telling us the sums of various numbers and sometimes he says "3+2=5" or "4+1=5". This causes my older son to wonder aloud how DS3 can add up to five but cannot remember that five comes after four.

For context, my husband is a highly gifted mathematician and my older son seems to be, also. He was counting to twenty at fifteen months, multiplying and dividing in his head at three and doing factorials at the age of four (but is just starting to really read now in kindergarten). So I don't have a good way to gauge if this is normal for a three year old but it seems so off for this particular child that I wanted to check in for some perspective. Have you ever seen something like this before?

Maybe it is similar to my kids missing out 17 for quite a while? If was just like a mental block.

Definitely sounds odd, but not alarming. My PG son never had number stumbles like that, but his PG sister did. She didn't remember 12. She grew out of it. She's a language arts girl and doesn't enjoy math, so that might be why "12" wasn't a priority! If I were you, I would keep working with him (without him knowing) and put it in the memory book to chuckle about later!

I wouldn't worry about it too much at three. Maybe try playing some easy board games where you count spaces like Candy land.

My 2e dyslexic kiddo had/has similar problem where he will know/be able to remember something really complex but then completely space something like the months in the year. When he was three he did not like letters or numbers at all which is different that your son so perhaps you're just seeing a quirk.

From what you've described, she can count past four - she's just leaving out one number consistently. This happened with 2 out of 3 of my kids (not 4, but one number consistently left out), and has also happened with a lot of the other young children I've known. In each case it was just a phase. One of my 2 who did this is dyslexic, but looking at her overall development I don't think leaving out the number phase had anything to do with dyslexia, I think she just didn't feel it was important to include 18

If you're seeing other things that seem odd, then talk to your ped about it and perhaps pursue a further look. I do believe that listening to your gut feeling is extremely important (and I have two 2e kiddos, in both cases wish I'd had enough obvious clues to test when they were younger), but the leaving out one number is something that I've seen happen over and over again with very young typically developing children.

OTOH, I'm just a parent, not a professional, so take my advice with a huge grain of salt

Best wishes,

polarbear

Can you try to just give him five things? Ask him to count his fingers for example?

I wouldn't be worried about it yet. Middle kid didn't skip numbers, but at age 2-3 she always said eleventeen, no matter how many times we told her that was not a number. She had some other odd stuff going on too - she mixed up opposites, most notably hot and cold, until about age 6.

As I have mentioned at other times, we did not think this kid was advanced, and I declared her "not college material" when she was 4.

Middle kid is now a HS senior, awaiting college admissions decisions. Has two acceptances, both with merit, one is full tuition. She is NMSF (should be NMF soon) and she is taking Linear Algebra this year in HS. She figured out the eleventeen thing.

My child responded to animal stories well at that age - try making up a story about 2 monkeys on a tree and 3 more coming to play with them - then ask him how many monkeys are now playing on the tree. Vary this with a different animal or bird story for a few days. Make it very natural and ensure that he does not notice that there is any math involved here! If he gets it right every time, then, it is just a phase. Good luck.

PS: Animal story problems work very well for subtraction concepts as well.

I would find it odd as well (if this was my child). That being said my kids had (and still have) inconsistencies in development, with some things seeming very advanced and then simple things going over their heads. They are both 2e, for whatever it is worth.

The nice thing about number 5 is that you can see it easily in daily life, and talk about it a lot. Like 5 fingers, 5 toes, 5 points on a star, etc.

Just coming back to add i would read counting books. 1, 2, 3 peas was one of ds6's favourites.

Thanks for your observations. Just to be clear, he leaves five out but often (but not always!) knows that 6, 7 and 8 come next. But he doesn't get to ten and instead starts to repeat numbers at random after 8 or 9. My older son also skipped 13 for a while but he could count to much higher numbers (I think he had a hard time pronouncing it). This one seems like he cannot really count to ten. In fact, he cannot consistently and accurately count past four. We will continue to practice counting as it comes up but I find it so odd that, of all things, this won't stick.

For what it's worth, he seems to get other age appropriate math concepts. He has one to one correspondence and can manipulate numbers up to five. He can even add three numbers that have a sum of five (he often tells me that 2+2+1=5). He can identify most numbers up to 100 (he loves to look at book page numbers and identify them). The problem seems to be remembering a sequence of numbers or something like that.

I think with most kids it is the opposite. They are very good at reciting the string of numbers, but have no idea what it means.

My son couldn't count reliably to ten (or beyond, for that matter) until he was 7. He also had trouble with other sequences (days of the week, months of the year, the alphabet). He is has dyslexia.

Just want to mention that none of these are age-appropriate math concepts--they're all well above chronological age level!

This. It sounds to me like he gets what numbers mean (they represent quantity) and has a natural feel for how they can work together to figure out other quantities and patterns and representations. He's just not too good with their names yet.

DS8 has always been fluid with what numbers represent and are for. Based on his experience, the only red flag I see for your DS is - watch out for Common Core in early elementary! DS has broken pencils, shredded paper and bellowed in frustration at questions like "how did you figure out that 9+7 = 16?" In his words - "I didn't FIGURE IT OUT. It just IS!!!" (Visualize fist pounding table).

Side note - I'm actually not bashing Common Core here. It's an OK system for teaching what numbers actually MEAN to children (and teachers) whose brains don't have that innate sense hard-wired from the get go. But it's pull your hair out annoying to those kids who do. And honestly, beyond a certain level of brute force mechanical learning, I think if it's not in there, you can't force it into existence, using any teaching system.

Mine always claimed he quessed. It was a problem when teachers unfamiliar with him took him at his word. Mostly after he had "guessed" correctly 20 times in a row they worked it out.

How if your son's speech and articulation? On par or better/worse than your older's?

With your son's good number sense, I'm wondering if the problem isn't related to speech. My oldest also skipped a number (seven I think) for quite a while, and he's now the math whiz of the school. He had lots of articulation problems that didn't really clear up until age 3, so the effort in making sounds probably made "remembering" the simple order more challenging. His memory is stellar now, by the way, for everything except spellings, as he struggles with writing.

Little brother had very clear speech from very early and counted much higher much earlier. I don't think the difference results from that dramatic of a cognitive difference, but from the advantages of mastering good speech early.

@Diana- his speech is great- precise, large vocabulary, etc. He's very verbal and chatty. My older son was similar but he had a hard time pronouncing "thirteen" it sounded like "firteen" and he started to leave it out altogether. I don't think it's a speech problem for this one.

My DD who just turned 8 is highly capable in math had a similar problem when she was 5. I did not teach her how to count much less add when she was little but the summer before kinder, I decided to go through 1 to 100 with her. She had taught herself how to count, add/subtract, simple multiplication and division, but for some reason could not count past 39..she would go from 38, 39 then 90 and miss out all the numbers between. It was bizarre and it took her a little while but ultimately it was some of sort of glitch that worked itself out. Now she is about 4 to 5 years ahead in math and has excellent algebraic reasoning, understands concepts extremely quickly and often times instinctively. She does have an odd habit of substituting numbers or words sometimes when she talks, but she is also verbally gifted and scored above 99.9% on expressive language on the WIAT so I have no idea what that is about.


Suev, I wanted to say that this is EXACTLY how DD was in kinder and 1st grade and and ultimately the reason we pulled her out to homeschool. I agree, common core is good for most kids in expanding their understanding of the whys in mathematics, but horribly slow for mathy kids who have great math reasoning to begin with.

Hmmm, it was a thought. On the plus side, you can understand him well (which I'd rate higher than remembering number 4 on the scale of importance!).