Anyone Read "Einstein Syndrome"
My son did not talk until almost 2 and 1/2 not even MAMA.
Then by 3 he was reading full books.
Weird but we were worried for a while.
He had speech therapy.
One phychologist said it wasn't typical to know the letters b4 speaking, said he was hyperlexic. Never even mentioned the possibility of being gifted.
Anyone else?

My 7 year old ds didn't talk until he was well over 3. I read several books on speech delay and Autism. Yes, he had many symptoms of autism. Except that he enjoyed interacting with people but just wouldn't speak. He communicated his desires and emotions through facial expressions, laughing and gestures. Then one day he started talking in complete sentences and asking ton's of questions. He has always been his own person even as a baby, we ended up figuring it was a quirk of his personality.

He is extremely observant and figures things out very quickly.
He taught himself how to read and picks up basic math skills with little of no repetition.

Sounds like my DS too. Since the main sympton of autism is not interaction w/people and not being social I guess we should have known not to worry. My son also very social, I dont get why that was never brought up. No one asked us "is he friendly is he social". He didn't look the therapist in the eye that day and he didn't point for her, oh and he was fixated on a puzzle, she thought that was not good like he was lost in the puzzle. I feel they were quick to label and didn't really test my DS just assumed he is not talking something is wrong.
Maybe better safe than sorry give all the services it can't hurt. But of course we worried for nothing.
Oh and a medical dr a phychiatrist did not make the same conclusion, and for him when he saw my DS do a puzzle he said "oh he can do that" and that was almost enough for him to say there is nothing wrong. So that did relieve us.
But 2 completely diff feelings about the puzzle , so weird.

My DS3 has Apraxia. It's sort of a disconnect between the brain and the vocal cords. The language is in there, slowly starting to emerge. He goes to speech therapy and the therapist told me that one day it will be like someone opened the flood gates, she said usually when kids are about 4.5. Got my fingers crossed!

The most common way to identify the possibility of Apraxia is a childs inability to stick out their tongue.

Yes, DS5 was late talking - at his 22 month check-up, I couldn't tick the box that said "uses at least 5 words regularly". I wasn't exactly worried, since he was communicating well, but not being worried was consuming more and more effort, IYSWIM!　We have no diagnosed ASD in the family, but I think both I and DH's brother might have been diagnosed with Asperger's today. DS actually seems less that way than I remember being. We talked with the health visitor about maybe getting him speech therapy if he didn't talk soon, but the HV was reassuring and she was right - in the next few weeks he had the most stunning language explosion, and was talking in 4-5 word sentences before he was 26 months. He could read at least a bit before he could talk - hard to say how much! Certainly knew his letters by name and sound, and many of his first words were numbers.

GT kids tend to do things in strange orders, so hold the worrying. My daughter was not interested in reading early. However, she wanted to write. Since then, I have heard of quite a few GT kids who write before they read. She began reading (or the interest of) afterwards and now is a huge reader.

Her Kinder teacher (who I loved) was perplexed, but went with it and did not push the reading and let her write. Her first grade teacher (who I also loved) let her learn cursive and once she mastered that, her reading accelerated several grade levels in a few weeks. They had both been around gifted kids quite a lot and learned to "go with the flow".

I guess she had to do it her way. If anyone would have forced her to read first, I have no idea of the outcome so no data there. I guess she needed depth to the symbols.

WOW I never even heard of Apraxia!

The Book was about kids exactly like ours, it was a good read.

Very interesting. Thank God our kids are fine.
It is weird thought how they spoke late.
I do recall early on how my DS did say one word but said it wrong, instead of Apple he said "Appen" and that was it, didn't speak at at until 2 and 1/2 about.
In the book "enstein syndrome" he suggests it could gifted kids have a higher standard and being perfectionists they don't want to make a mistake so therefore don't speak.
This is a possibility.

Mine DS was the opposite read long before writing.
He knew the letters early maybe at 1. But writing came after 3.
I had to push the writing.
We sat there every day for one summer practicing.
I had to get a dry erase board and practice saying stuff say for letter K (Down, kick in and then kick out), or H (Down Down and across) B (down around around). E (down Top Middle Bottom). I had to do this over and over before he could write them.

My daughter didn�t talk much until 2.5 to 3 years, however, it was clear that she understood language well before that time.

Later, when she was 4.5 she stopped using any word that began or ended with �st�. Her young pediatrician informed me that she was must likely a perfectionist and probably practiced in private and would begin again when her speech sounded �correct� to her. He was absolutely right.

At the time of the delay I never even thought my DS was choosing not to talk. I really dk if this was still the case. But maybe a possibity. I remember at 2 the pediatrician asking if he said 50 works. I was like WHAT?? He doesn't even say ONE!

I had two good friends growing up who were both very gifted. One said he didn't talk until over age 3. This friend was pretty introverted and just did not talk unless he had a reason to. The other friend said she didn't talk until she was 4.6. This friend was very social and outgoing, talked constantly. Neither had any 2E issues that they were aware of.

Moi. I didn't talk until I was 3.

Our DS4 has not been officially identified as gifted but he didn't talk until just before 2. He said "in" and "out". We knew he knew his colors, letters, numbers and shapes at around 9-10 months old but we were still amazed when about a week after he turned 2, he read the freeway signs (just the letters and numbers at first) and cigarette and gas prices. About a couple months after that, not only was he talking in short sentences, he was also reading and writing. Even now, he speaks and asks questions appropriately especially with adults and has a huge vocabulary but sometimes he has a difficult time putting his thoughts into words especially the more complex thoughts.

My guess is that, for the most part, the late talkers described in the book tend to be VSLs (possibly with some left-brain weaknesses).

There is a whole yahoo group devoted to this subgroup of late talkers (as described in the book). The last time I was reading it (quite a long time ago) there seemed to be a lot of effort spent on getting a correct diagnosis, and fending off incorrect diagnoses (usually of a spectrum sort). http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/NaturalLateTalkers/ I have no idea what proportion of these kids turns out to be gifted. I think that recognizing the kids' VSL strengths might give these worried parents a little more confidence.

I have three late talkers so far, at least one of whom is gifted. I think one of the other ones, who had no words till 3 y.o., and is still in speech therapy at 6 y.o. for articulation issues, is likely to be the brightest of the three in the long run, but I guess only time will tell. Talk about a late bloomer...

My Ds is 3 and half and is just now starting to talk in sentences. The only way we knew he was advanced was he would point to stuff when we asked him. Sort of a fluke thing. Anyway, he had OT, ST and DT. His speech therapist could not get over the stuff he knew. We also have a librarian that we have become close to and she has 3 GT kids and said her Dh didn't talk until he was 3 and he was GT too.
Even though he is talking now we are still having trouble understanding him. I am trying to decide if we need to take him to ST again (he aged out of the state one).
I did read the Eistein syndrome book and I don't know if it can really apply to him. We don't have any really musical people in our family and he doesn't really seem musical yet.

Yep, us too. DS said a few words here and there, but didn't really take off until 2.5 or so. We used sign language with him from pretty early on - he picked it up quickly. We had DS evaluated by a ST to make sure there wasn't a problem and thought maybe the signing was hampering speech. Finally, it was as if one day, he decided he was ready to talk and just did - proper pronunciation and grammatically correct for the most part, too. I just figured that he wasn't ready, but when he was, he did. In hindsight, I can see that DS does everything in his own time and not a minute before.

this thread hits home. my DS7 was diagnosed with autism/PDD at 2 because he did not speak and had poor eye contact. The change has been remarkable over the years, however. Now at 7 he was just seen by a psychologist who tested him and found that he is gifted, does not meet criteria for autism at all, and since his IQ has risen about 51 points from two years ago (was 89 at 5, now GAI of 138 at 7), he may end up in profoundly gifted range by the time his brain is fully developed. Sorry i dont' have the source but i read that some PG kids brains actually continue developing much later than typicals. His speech didn't take off until he was 3 1/2. We also found that he is a visual-spatial lerner.

Whats funny is someone tried to give me a copy of the Einstein Syndrome when my son was two. I thought "ugh that would just be denial!!" and never picked it up..sigh.

irene

Well, I am not sure if she is GT yet but my DD 22mo just started really talking with any regularity. Even with that she does not have 50 words yet. The prospect of ASD's was a significant worry for me as DH's brother has Asperger's & MR. Still, DD is so affectionate & communicative (even without words). For what it is worth, she is also hugely musical. DD was dancing before she walked & whistling at 18mos.

I was glad to see that there are other kids more interested in writing than reading. That is how my DS5 is. He has no interest in reading at all but enjoys spelling. Really likes to IM daddy at work too. What gets him started on words is fine by me.

My DD7 had only a few words until she was 3, then in one month she went from Mama to multi-word sentences.

She also walked late (19 months) and has always lagged in gross and fine motor.

She was not an early reader, but at age 5.5 went from a couple sight words to chapter books in 3 months.

She definitely tends to be a kid who does things via the explosion method LOL!

Two of my sons were speech delayed. Second son (now DS12) had a "0" articulation score at about 2.5 yrs or 3 diagnostics but was perfect on nonverbal score (equivalent to 6 yr old). We put him in speech therapy and he started really talking about 3.5-4, but had an impediment. He had therapy again in grade school and it was corrected pretty quickly.

Fourth son also was delayed and started speech at about 2.5. We were not as concerned because of older brother's experience. He has a more pronounced impediment and will likely be in speech therapy through elementary school.

Other 2 sons started speaking around 10 months and have no impediments. Isn't that weird?