Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school Confused or Humorous?

It would be interesting to know whether there's really a tendency for gifted children to go from nothing to real talking (one would have to define carefully what one meant!) faster than the average, separately from the question of when they start. Anecdotally it looks to me as though that might be the case, but it's hard to tell - it may be just that the process of learning to speak generally seems astonishingly fast to adults! It was certainly our experience: DS went from 5 individual words to 5-word sentences in 4 months, but he wasn't quite putting two words together when he turned 2, IIRR.

Interesting question, ColinsMum. Here's another anecdotal data point for you.

Both my boys were early talkers. DS6 is gifted, and while we don't really know about DS2.3 yet, we suspect he is. He didn't speak his first purposeful word until 13 months, but was using 2-word phrases at 15-16 months, and 6 months after that was rattling off 7-10 word sentences. When you ask him something, he answers in full sentences rather than one-word responses (e.g. "Who wants to go to the park?" ...answers "I want to go!" rather than "Me!")

How does that compare to "normal," or to other gifties here?

I don't know if our experience fits into the question ColinsMum ponders but it was clear from a very early age that DD was going to be an early talker. She was producing vocals from birth and even said 'hi' at two weeks. I just considered it stretching the vocals and not really a word. But right before turning 3 months she worked on elephant a syllable at a time and strung it together to form the word. By 6 months she was talking in complete sentences (mainly 2 and 3 word structures) and had a big vocabulary for such a young age. She even understood the proper pronouns to use and when. I stopped counting her words way before she turned a year because she had so many and by 15 months she was talking in 10+ complicated sentences.

Back when she was 15 months to around 3 there was such a huge gap between her and other kids her age that we always got the dropped jaws and the questions. Granted this was when DD was willing to talk in public and most of the time she was tight lipped, but when she did the scene that transpired was intense. Probably why she kept it to herself for the most part. But even as a 3 yr old I still get the questions, just not as often.

My dd (just turned 6) certainly fits the bill. Though she did have some words -- all nouns -- much earlier, her sentence speaking came on like wildfire. At the age of 22-months, she said her first independent sentence: "Get her out!" (regarding her baby sister sitting in a seat she wanted). By 23-months, she was saying, "I want to go sit on the upstairs potty and read library books." And, "I want to get out of the car and go to the beach with Mommy and Daddy." I actually wrote those down in her baby book because I was so shocked at the time!

DS7 was an early talker. He was 6mths when I saw him in quick succession look out the window onto the rooftop of the next building to say "buh" (bird) and then looking down the road to say "boowoowoo, kah" ("Car"). His nanny/helper had told me he was speaking and I actually brought out the "What to Expect" book to refute her. Till I heard it. (I was working so much at the time so I wasn't home much). By the 7th or 8th month, he kept pointing to things to say in our language, "what's that?"

And yeah, I totally vote "humour" to the original poster. At 12mths, DS loved doing the drop-the-toy-from-the-highchair-stunt. If anyone of us professed irritation, he'd say "chust choking!" ("Just joking"). Or to the person feeding him, he'd offer a piece of food and say "say please!", whereupon he'd pop the food into his mouth and laugh his head off. I remember having a conversation about why his nany had to leave when he was 14mths. Poor kid was really sad.

I never counted words - didn't know what to expect (despite owning the book :P) from a kid, and much less that there was something called giftedness, till much later.

DD7 is PG and went from saying only 10 words at just over three to speaking in full sentences and having in-depth conversations within 1-2 months. It was like she was just waiting until she could do it properly.

DS is 21 months and we have no idea if he is gifted or not. He only has 15 words and mostly grunts and points. Amazingly, he can string the few words he has together into sentences. "Uh-oh, uh-oh! Come, Mama. Come help!" He reminds me soooooo much of his sister at that age. I am expecting that he will just have verbal diarrhea any day now.

I'm definitely voting for humor here. I know another little boy who called his mom "daddy" for about a year before saying "mommy" and would laugh hysterically afterwards. He also wasn't a huge talker at first but showed some signs of being bright (no clue if he's gifted but I know the parents are smart).

As for Collinsmom question. DH and I both had that. DH went from no words to talking in paragraphs at age 2. My mom said I went from saying words sporadically to speaking in full sentences also (but she doesn't remember the age).

As for DD she's sort of had mini-spurts. Also, while she has a large vocab (140 words at 18 months), she's still not speaking in sentences (but she does sign in them).

I go for humor also. My little one, 21 months, loves to play with us with this kind of thing and has been for a few months now. She is constantly calling green purple or the other way around. She likes to call chairs couches and couches chairs. It took me a little bit to realize she was playing with us. I thought she was going through somekind of re-practicing or learning. She calls her sissy mommy and that one bugs me because her sissy is ten years older and I don't want her to be in the mother roll. I have younger siblings who I felt over responsible for...anyways now that she has some indication that it bothers me ohhh wow she pulls it out of her hat at times...

As for the language thing... my little one had over 300 words at 18 months and she hardly spoke in sentences or put words together. It got a bit hard to tell when she was just naming something and when she wanted something about what she was naming. So with a bit of encouragment I asked for more and she actually started to give it to me. Like I want such and such instead of just naming it. It slowed some of the temper tantrums down. She did a 6 word sentence about a month ago and now she is doing 4 word sentences more regularly with the occassional long knock your socks off kind.

She signed her first long sentence (5 signs) when she was like 16 or something months and I held onto that through all the one word utterances. I think that the use of sign is the use of language and takes the same cognitive skills to put together a signed sentence as a spoken sentence it just takes different muscles. I have not read anything to the contrary but if someone has info that way I would be interested in it. My older daughter was immersed in ASL for the first year and half of her life. I have this video of her signing a beautiful poetic signs when she was like 16 or so months... It was only a few signs but the facial expressions and movement was like wow. All about the birds that lived in the trees.

Flower:

We planned on teaching ASL to DD when she was a baby but dropped it when we realized she was an early talker because I read that ASL can slow verbals down.

I meet an adorable little 18 mth at the gym pool the other day who uses ASL to communicate and the mother said they are having a hard time getting her to speak because she prefers ASL to communicate with. She knows about 50 words in ASL and clearly signs in sentences. The other concern she had was that while away from mommy at the daycare she is running into problems of communication because the teachers don't know ASL which leads to frustration for her daughter.

Do you find that you have an issues such as above? I still plan on teaching DD ASL later on because it is a wonderful language. I learned when I was around 5 because my mother was a nurse and had this one patient who was blind and deaf. I was always excited to go see her and my mom taught me the basic abcs to communicate with her. What an amazing woman and an experience 30+ years later that I still remember vividly.

With my older daughter, she signed up to about 21 months and then dropped it like a hot potatoe when she got her voice geared up and went to talking sentences. At least that is how I thought of it... I did not know anything about gifted and when people commented about her talking and shocked at her age etc. you know the drill...welll I just said that she learned ASL and it was easier to sign than to talk and so she just had more time with language than the other kids.... She was talking in paragraphs when she was just over two...So I don't know what to make of that...If she would have talked more fluently earlier, I don't know. She never attended day care at that age. She went to work with me and I worked in the Deaf community so she was really immersed in it. With my youngest I did use sign and voice together and she was not immersed. I no longer work so deeply in the Deaf community. But she used sign when she was very young. She would ask for more of stuff when she was 9 months old. (Using two signs together) She no longer signs of her own choice although at times I wish she did because her articulation is hard to understand. Did it slow either child down.... I don't know now with this new gifted stuff.... I have thought for so long that it accelerated my oldest. I think I have to think on it some more... With my oldest she came to work with me so she really had no choice but to be exposed to it pretty intensely. I'd love to read where you read about it slowing verbal kids down. I think if I knew I was going to use day care I would not have used it so much maybe. I also wonder and this is sort of off the cusp here but it may also depend on if a kid is a visual learner/thinker or not. I am a pretty strong visual person I think. I think my older daughter is as well... Things to contemplate.. thanks for the response.