Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school Gifted 22 month old?

Welcome to the boards 10Apples!
I agree with a lot of what the pps said!
Here are some of my thoughts/comparisions for you.

Your LO sounds very similar to mine, and I've not had him tested yet, but I'm thinking he's most likely some level of gifted.
Very verbal, first word at 6 mos, walked well/ran by 10 mos. Very alert at birth. COmplex sentences 10-12 words by 22 mos, and advanced cooperative and imaginary play skills.

He's now about to turn 3 yo.
I just enrolled him in preschool because he is SO ready! He is very active and fast paced. Loves to be read to, but loves physical movement and a changing environment- he just needs more than what I can provide for him at home during the day. That is what lead me to preschool, he's too social and curious, and just ready for the next step. I'm sure that when your LO is ready, you'll know.

What was he like at 2 yo? Highly inventive, curious, nonstop talker, still wanting mama- but with one foot in babyhood and one foot in preschooler skills (I'll do it myself! But frustrated when his fine motor skills failed his best laid plans LOL). He was/is not tantrumy, I was able to tap into his reasoning skills and calmly get down on his level and explain why, answer questions and redirect in most cases of an impending emotional storm. He's only had 2 major meltdowns in a year.

Right now he's working on reading skills- I'm not instructing at all. I read to him daily, he names all the letters and knows what sounds they make- he tries to write and uses magnet letters on the fridge to "spell". He has been sight reading many words for over a year. I'm letting him crack that code on his own, and if he ever asks for help/info I supply it. I know I was a fluent reader as a 3 yo, and I remember just KNOWING how to read. I never had to sound things out, even unusual spellings, etc. It really was like cracking a code and BOOM I could read. So, I'm letting him go at his own pace and explore/enjoy words and language. (I'm a Speech Pathologist, so maybe his verbal skills are in the genes??)

welcome and I agree, your LO sounds delightful!

Thank you everyone so much for your input.

I looked around the davidson website and realized very quickly that it was not for us. at least not yet. But, the forum here is great. It has even answered some questions I didn't even think to ask yet. I can't believe how incredibly smart your babies were/are. They blow my girl out of the water. I would love to see a 12 month old speaking in sentences!

My daughter also really enjoyed starfall.com. We will explore that more in the near future.

Regarding school:
You all have made me feel so much better about my *not* putting her in school yet.

This summer has been great, because we are in a great routine of going to a museum, zoo, science center, aquarium, or library, one day and then running errands or relaxing the next. we have been to each place more than once, some places 10+ times. It is just great because we can focus on little things each time and we are experts at getting around.

I get so many stares from other people for explaining things to my little girl. It really makes me feel self-conscious, but she just sucks it all in. My favorite thing to do is tell her all about an exhibit, and then the next time we get to that exhibit she will say something like,

look mom, there is the red and black anemonefish. It is called that because it hides in the anemone. Oh, and up there is a blue surgeon fish. (We just got back from the aquarium. She actually said this about 2 hours ago.)

That makes me feel a little less silly.

We also live next door to (soon-to-be) 5-year-old triplets. (How lucky are we?) The girls just fawn over her. They get along so well. My neighbor confessed she can not get them to go on any other playdates because they just want to play with Gillian everyday. The triplets are admittedly small, and I have a big girl (28 solid lbs) so it is hard to tell there is a whole 3 years between them.

So, there is a part of me that really does not want to mess our nice routine up. We are also thinking about adding to the family and I got horrible morning sickness with Gillian, to the point of being hospitalized. I would not want to have to get out of the house everyday to take her to school.

But, I still get moments of panic thinking that I am failing her. I already feel bad for never teaching her to sign and not doing that Your baby can read program. (I am also worried about getting pregnant again. I am already feeling guilty.)

As far as the reading thing. Maybe I am being selfish. I must read her 50 books a day. How many times do you think I read 10 apples up on top a day? It would be nice to have her sit quietly in the corner reading away.

But, I will cont to take a real laid back approach to everything. It would be horrible to mess up what we got going for us now. She truly loves to learn. I don;t even think she knows she is learning.

It is so much fun.

10apples,

You shouldn't feel guilty about wanting more time with your daughter. Your reasons of why you haven't put her in preschool are not only valid but important. It sounds like you do a lot of activities with her and what fun for a naturally curious little one to explore! And nothing is more magically, for me anyway, than revisiting a place and seeing it through DD's eyes.

I completely understand where you are coming from with the constant reading. Most of DD's life has evolved around books and it has become an obsession for her. Might be the reason I was rushing her to read... to give myself a break!

I forgot to mention one other thing:

We were/are huge fans of books on tape. We always get some from the library, that way DD2.5 can "read" them to herself while DH does what he needs to, or simply gets a break.

We got so tired of some of the stories that we actually found an old walkman for DD7 when she was about 2 so that we wouldn't have to listen to the same books on tape over and over again. She loved the idea that she got a "big kid" thing with having her own tape player - and it gave us some quiet time. - Always a plus with a jabber mouth.

My dds were a lot like you describe your dd at that age except that neither of mine had early gross motor skills. My dd11 actually had somewhat slower than avg gross motor skills & dd9 was pretty average. They were both early potty trainers, too (16 and 20 months respectively), but I don't know if that is related to giftedness or just my being lucky !

Both of my girls were speaking in sentences at 18 months like yours and both started using single or two combined words btwn 5.5 to 6 months. Neither of my girls is PG (profoundly gifted, Davidson Young Scholars level), but one of them at least is HG (highly gifted).

Like others, I'd assume based upon better hindsight than foresight and the similarities btwn your dd and mine, that she is probably gifted. I had no idea that I had gifted children until my oldest was 6.5 or so. I don't think that it did them any harm for me to not be doing anything special when they were that age.

It sounds like you are an active involved parent who is offering a lot of great experiences for your dd, like the museum, so I'd say that you really don't need to worry about anything more at this point. In our experience, the worrying begins in ernest when they start school if you choose to send her to elementary. Kindergarten really wasn't an issue. Both of my dds had fun in K.

1st grade was hard for both in different ways and we wound up homeschooling dd11 for part of 1st. I've heard that from a lot of parents of gifted kids -- 1st is a hard year due to the major focus on reading and things that gifted children often already know well.

I have been lurking around this forum for several months now, trying to figure out if my son sounds like any of your kids. He's now 22 months and my first child. Right from birth, people used to say "he's so bright! Look at his eyes. They're looking right at me!". Being a first-time mom, I didn't know what they were talking about. Now, after reading a ridiculous number of posts in this forum, I'm pretty sure he's, at the very least, of above-average intelligence. I won't go on with a list of his abilities and achievements, but he sounds a lot like many other kids talked about on this site.

What I really want to talk about is hyperlexia. Does anyone else have kids who have been diagnosed with this? I wonder if this might be something that my son may have, as he is now and has been for over a year, obsessed with numbers. He started with numbers and letters, but now all he really likes is numbers.

Does anyone have any experiences with kids who are facinated with numbers? It has been suggested to me that he has an 'unhealthy attachment' to them and I should take away all exposure to them for several weeks and force him to focus is excitement on something else. This sounds crazy to me, as he is learning a lot from our play with the numbers. Has anyone else encountered this sort of advice before and if so, what did you do with it?

Sorry if this is a little jumbled, but I have so much to say and so many questions and not very much time!

Thanks for whatever advice you may have for me!

I am not an expert, but do have a suggestion based on a similar experience. My dd (now 10 yo) was an unusually early reader - her reading really took off just around her second birthday. So hyperlexia came up. Also, due to the reading and other personality traits, friends raised concerns about autism - in a way that was hard to avoid. As a result, rather than rushing to specialists as our friends suggested (insisted?), we brought it up with our trusted pediatrician at a regular check up. She was able to do some basic screening tests in real time and concluded there was nothing to worry about. Time has borne out her assessment - dd is now a wonderful tween. And while her obsession as a toddler with letters was by any measure extreme (one of her first spoken words was "readabook"), she is now happy, well-adjusted, still loves the written word and is a blazing fast reader. And in her case, the interest in reading turned out to be correlated with giftedness, now confirmed by testing.

So while her fascination was with words, not numbers, I think our strategy could still be applicable for you. If you have a good pediatrician, especially one who knows your child, discussing these concerns with them might be a good first step. Best wishes!

Hi 10 apples,
Your comment that you feel guilty about maybe getting pregnant again struck a chord with me. I think we ended up delaying getting pregnant again partly because of the energy my DS required of us and partly because we thought we'd fail him if we didn't keep putting in the same amount of energy. At the time I wondered how many gifted children end up being only children. In the end we decided it would be really good for him to have a sibling.

When I did fall pregnant we thought we'll manage, others do, only to be completely thrown when we found out we were expecting twins. Our panic and guilt immediately doubled. The reality has been great though. DS loves his sisters and was so mature about it from day 1 when he had just turned 3. The only slightly -ve comment we had from him was around the 4 month mark when he suggested that in future I might want to only have one baby at a time!

We still feel a bit guilty about the reduction in the time spent with him but my girls are hitting milestones around the same time he did with much less input from us so I worry less that I now share my time between 3 not 1.

As for book obsessions we too had them for DS and now the twins who are 18 months. We picked out 20 books at the library on Sunday and earlier this week I read the same book at least 30 times to one girl. This morning at 6am I had both twins on my lap and we worked our way through the pile of books. Yesterday I found my other little girl with DS on his bed while he read a book to her. He's doing this regularly now and it makes my heart swell with joy.

If your DD likes Starfall I recommend readingeggs.com.au which is similar but more graphically engaging. DS loved it. It's not free but if you mail me I have a 5 week free access code so you can trial it (the site itself provides 2 weeks free trial).

Here's a list of websites with free online audiobooks to supplement the reading you do. It can be really helpful when mommy's had enough.

http://www.magickeys.com/books/
http://teacher.scholastic.com/clifford1/
http://wiredforbooks.org/kids.htm
http://www.mightybook.com/story_books.html
http://www.bulaja.com/FAIRYTALES/index3.html
http://pbskids.org/lions/stories/
http://www.storylineonline.net/
http://kids.nypl.org/ (Click on Tumblebooks. You can't link to the tumblebooks site directly because you need paid access)
http://kids.aol.com/KOL/1/KOLJrStories
http://speakaboos.com/

I have been reading this board for awhile but never posted. My daughter is only 14 months so I really don't know if she is truly gifted (to me she is ) she is obsessed withbooks since six months. Said her first sentence this week (pee pee on the potty) was able to point and say her body parts by 10 months. I just rreally wanted to say thanks for making see she is normal I have a lot of friends with children same age and she is the only one that will sit and watch tv and ask u to read. She knows here name and were she lives a couple of colors and numbers. Thanks so much for being able to read all this helpfull info. I just wish I was home with her so I could do more.