I have finally come to terms with the fact that DS is not like other children his age. For whatever reason I was really resistant to the idea that he is one smart kiddo but I am trying to embrace it and let my son do his thing (which is construction at the moment.)

Can I expect his rate of learning to slow down as he moves closer to PreK age? I often wonder if right now he seems to be learning at such a rapid pace because he is still so young and so many major milestones happen within the first two years or if it's because that's who he is.

At 18 months my son learned the entire upper case alphabet in 2 days without me doing anything. It was the same with numbers 1-9. About 2 weeks later we were out at a store (18.5 months) that had stickers on the window that read: SALE $7.95. We were inside the store so the letters and numbers were backwards to us.

My son declared that he saw letters and numbers and then proceeded to name them all correctly. It seemed to me like a big cognitive leap to be able to see letters and numbers backwards and still know what they are. Am I crazy? Is that as out there as I think it is for a kid that age? It seemed so incredible to me that in a span of 2 weeks he developed the ability to manipulate the image of numbers and letters in his head so that he can correctly identify them even if they are backwards.

I gave him a lower case alphabet puzzle at 19 months and though I really thought I was hallucinating I swear he knew them all after an hour or two. At least he was telling me what they all were so I assume this means mastered them.

He can also recall everything I tell him about a new book after reading it once or twice. (turned 20 months today! Maybe this is normal for that age?) And maybe this is also normal, but if I ask him to point to a bulldozer he points to the picture but if I ask him to point to the word bulldozer he will point to the word and not the object. It's like that for all things construction because he is obsessed! Again, it seems like a rapid acquisition of knowledge to be able to go from recognizing letters, to realizing letters form words, to recognizing the words for his most beloved objects in about 6 weeks.

I spend a lot of time trying to "get" my son. He seems to learn at an incredible pace but I don't know if it's his age or it's him. If it's who he is, what is life going to be like at 3, 4, or 5? Does it slow down?

Sorry for typos. I am on my phone.

For my son, it hasn't remotely slowed down and he is 4 and a half. Enjoy this time. It goes really quickly. :-)

It's all normal for your son. This is who he is.

When you meet another little one, watch to see what is normal for them. Every kid is different, and few will be like your son in the ways you described.

I perceive letters and numbers the same backwards and upside down. I can tell they aren't forwards, but it takes very little more effort for me to read mirror writing or a page someone across the table from me is looking at. Some people are just wired that way. It hasn't caused me any problems, that I know of.

The easy answer IME is no, it doesn't slow down. Buckle up!

My advice is
1. forget about normal (whatever that is anyway). Most kids I seem to know have their own version. Often ahead of what the experts say, sometimes behind. Asynchronous to the extreme seems to be the common theme in my little bubble, of course YMMV.

2. follow his lead. My goal was to try to encourage a love of discovery and learning wherever my kid's passions took us (of course this would be my goal regardless of their IQ). Sometimes this meant a lot of google searches, sometimes it meant going into topics far earlier than I would have chosen (existential angst in a toddler/preschooler is fun, so is actually answering "where do babies come from, no like exactly how? show me how!" after my vague high level answers weren't enough (although I did managed to avoid the show me part....)).

3. be prepared for other parents and kids to notice and be ready for it to not necessarily bring out the best in them.

4. enjoy

Nope.

What you describe is quite normal - around here! But definitely not an age-typical thing. Your DS does not sound like a child who will grow out of it. There may be periods of consolidation. He may even seem behind age peers at some times and in some ways over the years. But these kids who learn by "developmental leaps" rather than smooth growth seem to just keep on doing it.

I taught DS10 some algebra this year, and I am newly stunned on an almost weekly basis at the directions and leaps he has taken with that little bit of info at hand, from number theory to particle physics to speculations on the multi-dimensional nature of an infinite universe.... Honestly, I think he's just gathering momentum.

Not in my experience; it just changes course and proceeds in a more stepwise fashion, with larger, discrete appearances of content apparently mastered. For instance, DS hasn't been exposed to much math other than basic counting and numbers. We showed him a 5 minute Brain Pop Jr video on place value last week and he completely internalized it. (I know this because he was talking about it fluently in his sleep.)

What you may see over the next few months is a shift in gears from learning basic literacy/numeracy to content areas of interest. I found the 2-3 year coincided with DS' burgeoning interest in life sciences (esp. immunology and hematology) and philosophy. For this reason, I'd urge you to get out and get active in your community and read widely together, to offer him a wide array of interests to choose from.

Good luck! That age can be exhausting but also tremendously enjoyable.

Gifted kids can plateau, and can also grow in leaps.

Some learning environments can thwart a gifted child's growth by lack of appropriate curriculum and pacing.

The challenge as parents may be to keep a gifted child's intensity channeled into positive activities.

Every kid is different.

For, my DD10 the curve has flattened she still makes impressive leaps at times and the gradient is still steeper than most kids even years older than her.

The curve is more of an arc with some bumps (steps) in it from what I have observed in my DD.

I think that the curve apparently flattens as they learn more and more about the world and develop broader and more varied interests. Sort of like the way that a river meanders as it reaches its floodplain.

But, as others have succinctly put it, when you have seen one gifted kid you have seen one gifted kid...

I also think that development can go stealth as our kids age. My kids were much less interested in talking to me about all their amazing non-stop questions once they hit late elementary school - so I kinda miss all the early developmental explosions.

OTOH, we still have absolutely fascinating discussions - I just have to start them much more of the time now

polarbear

Developmental leap was the term I was looking for in my brain! My Mom was an early childhood educator (3rd grade, 1st grade, then PreK) so I spent my entire life surrounded by the way kids generally learn and it always seemed gradual but steady and my son is not like that in any way. I am a gatherer of information by nature and there is very little information for me to gather on young toddlers that pertain to my son. I'll read a parenting article or part of a book and none of it describes what I'm living! I live in the Twilight Toddler Zone.

When he wants to learn something he does so instantly. If he does not want to learn it he won't. I claim that stubbornness comes from my husband but I am the same way.

I guess in some ways I'm still second guessing what I am seeing in my son though it seems ridiculous to do so when I think about it rationally.

Yes. This. DD and I both do this, as well-- not so much with numbers (and me even less so than her with digits), but with text, absolutely.

DD knew both upper/lower-case alphabet and phonemes by 20 mo, too. I'm not really sure how she learned them. Actually, she knew the letters by 18mo, and I know that because that is when we moved 3K miles, so I'm very sure.




Does the arc slow?

Well, it depends on what you mean.

Does it begin to resemble something more normative?

NO. It does not.

Does it begin to resemble something which would be normative for a child X months/years older than your own child? That is, can it be understood as a sort of-- tunneling phenomenon where your 2yo has "tunneled" into being a 5yo?

No again. Your child is still 2 physically, and maybe emotionally... and maybe in some ways even cognitively.

What that arc looks like is both:

idiosyncratic and even unique, and

asynchronous.



That means that from here forward in life-- and maybe life-long, actually-- your child is going to be out-of-sync with agemates AND with those who are peers in particular domains of development or interest.

This is a hard thing to live with for children. It's what makes gifted children "special" kids as much as those with developmental disability.

The world at large isn't built for asynchrony-- which means that your child moves through a world that is various degrees of ill-fitting or uncomfortable, and may well feel that he is "wrong" or that something is wrong with HIM-- which obviously isn't the case. He is who he is.

The most enjoyable things that we've gotten to experience on our journey as parents to a child like this are deeply private, quirky, and difficult to explain to outsiders.

Many are "you kind of had to be there" things, like her sense of humor at various ages (what other five year old "gets" Monty Python and uses quotes, chortling in that little-kid way about it all??), her insights which are informed by a highly idiosyncratic world view (Romeo and Juliet is a lot darker when you don't assume that "young love" is at the bottom of Juliet's actions, let me just say). The recognition of patterns in places/ways that adults have stopped "seeing" them. Connections between adult themes or works of literature/art to materials intended for children-- made possible because of the compressed timeline that means that for her, The Velveteen Rabbit and Great Expectations or Pericles do "go together."

The way that dirt swirls in a stirred mudpuddle DOES look like a fractal pattern...

That kind of thing has a quirky and intense magic all its own.


ETA:

The 'black box' learner thing is something that we've come to expect about DD, now 15, nearly 16. She doesn't "learn" so much as comes to master something via some internal process that involves stirring, and back-burner simmering until.... VOILA!

Mastery.

She claims (recently) that she never "learned" how to read, how to do math up through trigonometry, or to master physics or literature analysis. That she was sort of born knowing HOW to do those things, or picked them up osmotically over time, to the point that they all seemed rather obvious once the time came to 'display' her mastery of those things. If that makes sense.

She also has the stubborn streak of being "unteachable." It can be quite maddening to instruct her-- she doesn't make progress in any discernable way, generally speaking-- it either IS or it ISN'T.

We call this phenomenon "quantum learning." Don't know if that is the right term for it or not, but there is no other emotionally resonant way to describe just how shocking/jarring the phenomenon is.

She has always been like this. It's how she learned to walk, to talk, to ride a bicycle, tie, her shoes, to read, etc. etc.

It's as though the ability is inside her somewhere, and suddenly she breaks through and can ACCESS it.

I wonder if kids like this reinforced the concept of reincarnation in antiquity? I wonder if cultures that believe in reincarnation would be more accepting of knowledge by rediscovery instead of learning? Or condemn them based on past experience with people who knew those particular things?

Just wondering.

DS3.5 has passed through enough milestones that I'm starting to think his path is something similar, but with a warning tell. It's usually an early and short-lived manifestation of a new skill, followed by a seemingly fallow period of internal stealth testing with no apparent outward progress, then full (?) proficiency revealed. It's like he's excited at the idea of a new skill/interest and experiences emotional leakages of enthusiasm, but he wants to perfect "it" in his head before the big reveal.

Maybe. My one who learns like that (although not as early) was one of those babies everyone said to 'you look like you've been here before'. I don't believe in reincarnation but there is that look in some kids. My PG child actually learns I a rather obvious way with lots of persistance.

Have you seen the book A Parent's Guide to Gifted Children?

Yes, perfect strangers may comment that a baby or toddler is "an old soul."

YES.


DD did have that kind of "tell" with early motor (and verbal) milestones. You'd see a behavior only once-- and then not again for weeks/months. If you asked to see it again-- she'd PLAY with you. (Maddening, that.)

She held her head up unaided at delivery, for example. She rolled herself over (unaided, again) when she was less than 4 days old. We actually have the former on videotape, along with the gasps of disbelief from physicians and nurses alike. She didn't do either thing again for weeks and weeks. I mean, she was reliable with those milestones WAY ahead of schedule-- just not freakishly so the way that we knew she actually was (because we'd seen her do it deliberately at least one time).

She also tended to see consequences for her own actions (or those of others, more strangely) at ages that still boggle my mind. She didn't stand supported (other than with another human being) until she was about eight months old-- but then again, she had already worked out how to get back into a sitting position without tears, too. She definitely had the dexterity-- she was doing it with a person holding onto her hands by the time she was about five months.

She's always been a kid that wants an exit strategy. LOL.

She was definitely talking some by 6mo, and understood a truly awe-inspiring amount of OUR language at that age.

Demonstration of any of that, on the other hand, was never on demand. In fact, she almost seemed to take perverse glee in denying you what you asked for. Extrinsic motivation (or competitive motivation, for that matter, outside of a VERY few circumstances) is a nonstarter with my child. Period, full stop. She does stuff her way and in her time-- or not at all. Her nickname in daycare at 13-15mo was Little Ghandi. She was deceptively rational and easy to get along with-- but if your agenda and hers were at cross-purposes-- WATCH OUT. She wasn't a tantrum-pitching kind of child, mostly, and she was a keen observer of people. She learned that the path of least resistance was the best route forward most of the time, and that in any event, passive resistance or civil disobedience was a more efficient strategy than fit-throwing. I'm not entirely sure that people-pleaser is the term, even. It's clearly a manipulative strategy, this business of showing people only what won't surprise them unless it is necessary to do something else.

Until I saw DD as a baby and toddler, I seriously thought people that COULD believe in things like the reincarnated Lama, etc. had to have a screw loose somewhere. Having seen what some PG kids are like from birth, though-- I get it now. No, I don't think anything supernatural is the explanation! I just think that kids like this can make people reach for the supernatural as an explanation because it seems just as plausible as the truth of that kind of cognitive horsepower. Kids like this are deep, deep thinkers from birth, and they have a lot of raw material to work with. There's some thing a little alien-seeming about it.

Funny you should say that. My son now 4.5 used to talk about having lived before with great detail, down to imaginary siblings and things he said happened in select years, I.e. 1986 or 1812. Very strange to us but he has a rich imagination. We have no idea where he encountered the concept but he is emphatic that he has lived before and learned many skills in school in these past lives. Sigh. Some kids have imaginary friends... Mine has whole detailed past lives...

This is also the kid who was taking his hat off on day 1 in the hospital, repeatedly, even though the nurses kept putting it back on and who was walking around effortlessly, laughing at his 6 month well child visit as the nurses came by to stare at him.

Have you asked him about public events that happened during the years he claims he was previously alive? It might be a fun way to introduce history later!

Yes, we've had some great discussions. :-)

This was me as a kid! My Mom told me that when I was 2-3 I would spend hours talking about living as a woman in the early 1800's in NYC. She said I would go into great detail about what I wore, my other mother, and what life was like. Apparently I had astonishing accuracy in what I described.

Everyone in my immediate family has bought a one way ticket to life's final destination so I can't call my Mom up and ask her about it. I often wish she was still here so I could compare my son's development to my own. My IQ was tested at 8 and I came back normal gifted (139) and there was never any discussion of grade acceleration or gifted programs back then. I wasn't even placed into the honors track until years later after my mother threw a gigantic mom fit at the school.

I was a lot like my son though in my demonstration of knowledge because if I didn't want to show my skills I would refuse. The only reason I was ever tested was because the school had me in the lowest reading group and wanted to hold me back! I found some other tests from that that same time showing I was reading at an 11th grade level. I remember resolutely staying silent when called upon to read simply because I didn't want to read out loud. If my son is anything like me it's really going to be loads of fun in elementary school.

I've noticed periods of time where my DS8 hibernates. I've learned that his brain sometimes needs a break and a few weeks of going to the park and reading nothing but Calvin and Hobbes is rejuvenating.

I used to think that he "slowed down" but I've realized that he teaches himself things that he didn't learn at school or from me-- so I'm not always fully aware of everything he's learning. For instance, his teacher got him into an online math program and now, he seems to be doing things that he's never been explicitly taught or he's taking it to the next level without overt instruction. I've also learned that his interests are not always going to be academic but are intricate and interesting to him. Right now, he's learning Magic the Gathering which looks like a lot of fun.

My DS will have a learning explosion when something grabs his attention-- however, his interests don't last as long as they used to, so I would call them enthusiasms rather than passions/obsessions. That is kind of a nice change because DS is becoming a bit of a renaissance kid with his file cabinet of knowledge.

It's kind of a long answer- DS was like your little one. He learned letters, numbers, advanced shapes before age two and entered K reading fluently, knowing how to multiply, divide, etc. It was quite a dramatic difference compareed to most of his peers- I don't think it really slowed down. He can solve word problems at age eight that have my husband and I scratching our heads.

Short Answer: Doesn't slow down.
Medium Length Answer: I asked the same question, thinking it was only temporary. It wasn't. Began using these forums at age 2, he's now 4.
Long Answer: I personally just couldn't believe what I was seeing. Thought that of course all children must be doing these things. Went through a long denial period. Then by 2.5, someone looked me right in the face and told me he was gifted and I finally got it. For the next year, I was grieving that my parenthood with him wouldn't be "normal" but challenging and exhausting. At 2 and 3, he became so intense I lost my mind. Now at 4, the learning hasn't 'slowed' down, but it's different and more mellow because he can read, write, spell, and do math (not that your child or any gifted child needs to know these things at four, but for mine, he worked everyday to understand these skills and he is thrilled to express himself and have these tools to work with). He's about 2.5/3 years ahead academically (read a book tonight, I look at the back, it's a second grade level reader, into multiplication among many other topics that he talks about from sun up to sun down).
You'll find your stride as he grows and you grow as his parent.

Our experience has been that it becomes less shocking as time goes by. Plus, your child will gather friends who are similar in rapid learning or other talents and it kind of dilutes the craziness a bit. If other kids are doing it...right?

Enjoy the ride!