Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school First signs of giftedness

It is funny to look back at all the "signs" we ignored. But I'm glad we were so clueless... we just did our thing. Now with dd#3 I've been thinking back to #1's 3rd birthday when the kids had to go upstairs and find princess shoes one with their first name and one with their last name... and thought it was so silly the moms went along to help their kids... or why none of the 4 year olds liked their Junie B books we gave out like candy for bday gifts that year. Duh.

But the first... a librarian showed #1 a picture of a lobster when she was 16-18 months old and said "crab" and my dd kept shaking her head and saying crustacean (like, lady I don't know what that is but it isn't a crab). I tried not to laugh and pretended like I had no idea what my crazy kid was talking about.

I have an 8x10 on our bedroom wall of DD age 4 days looking at me/the big ole camera with open, intense eyes and a little bit of a knit brow. It's clear she's thinking, "What the heck is that black thing stuck to your head?" I wish I could post it, because there is so much expression in her face. I felt like I became a mom in that moment, when DD looked at me with complete recognition.

Well, I am fairly confident my DS will test out as gifted, but I'm not sure what level at this point. He's now 23 mos.

First signs for us:
extremely alert/attentive baby.
Repeated the word "hi" back to DH at 4 weeks old,
attended to books well from 3 mos on, and turned pages at 5 mos.
Refused to crawl- seemed "insulted" by it- wanted to walk upright desperately and did so at 8 mos, ran very well by 10 mos...It's so hard to accurately describe his frustration here- but I have videos of him arching his back to a stand- he definitely was MUCH happier once he was walking.
First word "cat" at 6 mos 3 weeks,
Could point to "nose, hat, mouth, eyes, chin, cheeks, ears, toes" by 7 mos,
Used to open the cabinets at 8 mos and look at the screws that hold on the knobs- could use a screwdriver by 14 mos, and LOVES tools/mechanical things. Built a mini simple seesaw out of scrap wood (no screws/nails, just a simple fulcrum)
Started to ID letters at 14 mos, sight read first word (that I know of...) at 18 mos.
Knows colors, shapes, can count item up to 5 at 20 mos...
At 18 mos had vocabulary of 500+ words, and now at almost 2 yo. I'm not sure, has to be over 1500, knows words like exhaust, vulture, dangerous, slippery...

I'm a bit lost as to what to do with him somedays as he's SUPER active, energetic, and seems to have some psychomotor overexcitability...

Thanks for this thread, feels really good to share this in a safe place.

I figured it out at about 2. Someone had given G a toy caterpillar. On each leg was a letter of the alphabet. On one setting, the caterpillar said the name of the letter when you pushed the leg. On a different setting, the caterpillar would say the sound the letter made. G memorized all of those when he was a bit older than 2.

At about 2 1/2, I used the word "cat" to show him that different sounds formed words. That was it. Literally one word.

He was reading full books (Biscuit, Spot, etc) by 2 1/2.

Math, numbers counting, etc. is exactly the same way.

I agree that having a safe place to talk about this is so valuable. I can't discuss this with my friends.

Our biggest clue was at our 4 month well-baby visit when the pediatrician couldn't stop raving how DD was the most advanced baby she'd ever seen.

Some of her major milestones were:
Smiling/head control/alertness almost immediately
Repeating "hi" somewhere between 4-6 weeks old
Turning pages in her books/pushing buttons in her electronic book to play songs at about 3.5 months
Sitting up for extended periods of time alone at 3.5 months
Crawling backwards at 4.5 months
Taking first (assisted) steps at 6 months
Has a vocab of 3 words at 6.5 months (up, eye, hey)
Can sign about 5 words at 6.5 months and has some other gestures she's made up to get her point across


Now at 6.5 months some of her favorite activities are playing with building blocks (mostly she just knocks them down still...), pointing out facial features to get their names, practicing walking, taking out and putting back in the numbers in her floor mat, having books be read to her with an insane intensity, playing peekaboo where she removes a cloth from her face or my face, and posing for the camera.

She's way too young to be tested but since DH and I were both gifted growing up and most of the things she's doing are just too obvious to ignore we have our suspicions.

Hmmm... I was too tired during the first few months to really recall much - LOL! He was running and climbing by 10 months - that I do remember!. I never gave early physical development much thought. Is there empirical-based research that supports early physical development equals a gifted IQ? Maybe after I finish my summer reading list I'll look up some articles.
A few things do come mind though I don't recall which, if any, being the first time I noticed.
I recall parking in a public garage and ds saying "G4 orange" over and over. Then I noticed he was pointing to the section marker infront of my car which was orange and labeled G4. He wasn't quite 1 yet. I was shocked bc we were not teaching him these things. No fancy flashcards...
Somewhere between 1 & 2, he correctly pointed out the colors on the pediatrician's tie which led to the good doctor dropping the "G" word. Around the same time he spelled out the phrases on my Uncle's t-shirt, including numbers -first time he ever saw the shirt. I remember thinking then that having a gifted child would be a breeze in terms of school.

Lot of things we have missed as we thought that it was normal development At 5mo I had her with me at the office holiday party. She was sitting on my lap the whole 2 hours reading Elmo peek-a-boo book. I did not understand why everybody kept asking how old she was. I thought that all the 5mo can turn pages and enjoy looking at books. At 7mo she started crawling so I placed all the books close to the ground and she might sit there for 30min to look trough all of them. Lot of the books had normal thin pages and she was able to turn the pages anyway. When reading the ruf scales, I realized that it is not normal.

DD is bilingual and started to walk early. So with DH we were sure that it would take while for her to stat to talk. MIL visited us when DD was 9mo and noticed immediately that DD was talking several words. We thought that she was only imitating us and could not really talk LOL

I started to think that she might be gifted when she suddenly learned abcs (uppercase, lower case, sounds and the song) without really any teaching. At the same time she amazed us by learning to count to 10 in two different languages and actually understanding what the numbers mean by commenting how many things she is seeing (like two busses driving by, 5 markers etc.). She also finds is hilarious to look numbers or letters from different angles as they might look like something else (6&9, 7 & L, M&W). Then at 23 mo she started to write letters like A, I, S and M.

She also started imaginary play at 18 mo by pretending to be someone else or doing something like going to the grocery store. I think that it might not be normal for an 18 mo old.