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My four month old started talking at six weeks old. He is fascinated with words and letters and is currently trying to say the alphabet - he will stay up all hours of the night trying to say a difficult sound until he has it right.

I really need some advice on how to provide enough stimulation for him - but also how to get enough sleep to stay sane! I feel that he is bored with his toys and with what we currently do but have run out of ideas!

I have searched the internet for advice on this but have not found anything helpful.

Any ideas?

Any insight into how to bring up this little one would be greatly appreciated.

Welcome -
try looking at Losing our minds by Deb Ruf.

Seems you should also try to contact this lady: CRITICAL DIALOGUE: Inequity in equity: The paradox of gifted education in Australia.: An article from: Australian Journal of Education by Miraca U. M. Gross (April 1, 1999)

Let us know if it works out
smiles - Trinity

Thank you very much Trinity. I will try to find the book and article you mentioned, as well as trying to contact Miraca Gross. I've heard her book, 'Exceptionally Gifted Children' is good also, so I will try to find it.
Much appreciated! I will let you know how it goes...
Rachael

Trinity, I contacted Miraca who was no help at all! She suggested I contact my local Gifted and Talented Children's association, which I have already done, and have had no response from them either! She did not offer any suggestions. I am wondering whether her book will be of any assistance.
My local library is very small so I will have to see whether they can get the book or article from another library.
I think the best resource is people like yourself, who seem to know a lot from experience.
This forum is great!

Miraca's book was helpful to me as it gives a sort of longitidunal history of a bunch of PG and EG kids. Not the same as the BTDT advice of the bulletin boards, but interesting nonetheless.

I'll give you my own philosophy though - don't worry about keeping your child challenged. Worry about following his lead. That will keep him interested - which is even better than challenged at this young age.

We didn't really have a clue until about 11 months that there was anything that special about our DS - although we should have known earlier. Hindsight 20-20 and all.

He wasn't an early talker though - and most of our early games involved him crawling around the room. I haven't much idea what to do before then.

We had some plastic fish that we tossed on the floor and he would fetch them and count with me. We would play hide and seek in his books - find a picture of this or that. Find a picture of a red truck next to a green tree, etc.

Dr. Seuss's ABC was great for teaching letters.

What about getting books with lots of vivid photographs? Look at pictures of fish and mountains and planets and stars?

We didn't realize it at the time, but that first year that DS spent watching the weather channel while daddy took naps turned into a fascination with meteorology. Maybe you can spark a lifetime interest by getting some good coffee table books and going through the pictures and talking about them.

All I can say is good luck.... I think I would have been terrified if my 6 wk old started talking....

Mary

Terrified, astounded and completely baffled about how to help him!
I had no idea he was capable of talking, except that I knew he was interested as he would watch our mouths intently, and later would mouth the words.
One night he was crying incessantly and I could not work out why. I said, "What do you want?" and he said, "Drink, drink!" I was stunned, shocked, awestruck. I am not surprised when people don't believe me. Especially as 'drink' is not an easy word to say. I didn't believe my husband when he told me that he looked at himself in the mirror and said his name and hello. And I wouldn't have believed anyone who told me their baby said, "I love you," as clearly as you or I can say it.
He has been trying for over a week to say "Beautiful" clearly and he is getting frustrated. I have no idea how to help him - whether I should try to distract him from trying to say it or to help him by repeating it. Maybe it's not even physically possible for him to say it and I'd just be adding to his frustration if I encouraged him? I don't know!
Good advice about letting him take the lead.
Thank you for all of the good ideas. Think I need to go and buy some more books...
Maybe I shouldn't be so worried about him watching TV! That's all my husband seems to have the energy to do with him...I wasn't very happy about that but maybe I should relax!
Much appreciated Mary.

Wow - I'm so bummed that you got the brush off from Dr. Gross, and your local gifted assocation. Is there Mensa where you live?

Do you have a video camera? Try to get this on tape.

I have an idea for beautiful. Try teaching him a handsign for it, and say it with the handsign whenever you would normally use the word. That way if he can't actually say the word, he can at least do the communicating. I'm sure it won't be enough, but at least it may help.

I don't have a clue what kind of handsign to use, as long as it's something he can do and you can remember - LOL! Perhaps I'd tap the corner of my left eye near the temple?

Does he say more? If not this was a very fun sign to use, as DS could use it abstractly. One of the Mom's of the kids at the day care used the right index finger pointing to the left palm. Of course my DS was a bit older at the time - still it was fun.

Smiles - Trinity

There is no Mensa in my state, but I contacted Mensa Australia and a lady contacted me via email. She gave me some good advice: get in touch with parents of gifted children and learn about gifted issues.

Getting it on tape is difficult as he tends to say the word perfectly once and doesn't repeat it. The only word he says often is 'drink' which now comes out 'nink' or 'jink'. As soon as he sees a video camera he shuts up and just stares at it! I have heaps of tape of him doing absolutely nothing!!

Handsigning is a good idea... but he has now forgotten about trying to say it!

Can I ask your story with DS?

Also, I have ordered Maraca's book through interlibrary loan.

Rach

The handsigns do help with frustration. DS didn't have the coordination to speak well for a long time (hence slow speaking) - but we used a few hand signs that helped us all a lot with the frustration. Good one Trinity! I had forgotten about that....

I had a cousin who was an early talker. At 9 mos he couldn't say 'mary', so I taught him to call me 'cousin' because he could say that. I would attempt to introduce synonyms that are easier to say. Otherwise, try for a similar sound. My son couldn't say 'Pearl', but could say 'purple' - so he called his sister purple. Bootiful is probably easier to say than beautiful.

Just a thought.

Good luck,
Mary