Hi
I am new (obviously.) I googled gifted forum, and this came up first.

I am so intimidated by the number of posts some of you have. Holy cow!

So, I have a ton of questions.

First, My daughter is 22 months old. She is sometimes a stinker, but always a joy.

She has blown away any milestone chart I can get my hands on.

Gross motor:
-Sat unassisted at 4.5 months.
-Stood unassisted and crawled at 6 months.
-Walked at 10.5 months.

Language:
-first word (gorilla) at 8 months. (I am sure I discounted many small words before this, but nobody could ignore that one.)
-Speaking in short grammatically correct 3-10 words sentences by 18 months. She has always spoken with every part of speech. She never just combined words.

She has always been different. I remember talking to a girlfriend about attention spans and I was actually took me a couple of minutes to realize not every baby was born with an endless attention span.

She could sit and read books with us forever. Which is why she learned her colors, shapes, letters, numbers, and whole bunch of other stuff before she was 18 months old. It would be easy to know when she actually knew these if I actually had taught her, but that was not the case.

For example, she just came up to me showing me a seashell and said, "This reminds me of a cone." Cone? Where did she even get that? Ice cream cone? It indeed looks like a cone.

She also was fully potty trained by 18 months.

Now, at 22 months (on the 23rd) she is completely diaper free (even at nights), speaks like a mini-adult, and has a better memory than I do.

She also has imaginary friends and is constantly seeing things we do not see. She talks non-stop, is sometimes lost in the world of make-believe, but, does not like talking to strangers.

My husband was in the gifted programs. His dad is an uber-genius. There are extremely smart people in my family ie an engineers, a judge, doctors, but no one I would peg as a genius. I was not in any programs, but there were none as far as I know. I grew up on a farm. But, according to the military my IQ is 137 or 139. I can't remember, but it was enough to get me into some programs which required a top-secret clearance and intense training. But, I do not consider myself as smart as my husband.

Now, my questions:

-Does she sound gifted?

-What did your kids act like when they were almost 2/2?

-Do I need to get her evaluated. I can't see any reason to, but I am worried she might miss out on things without the proper ID.

-Is IQ hereditary?

-Her language is what really sets her apart. At 22 months, she talks nonstop in complete and complex sentences. I have counted over 20 words. Let's see, today she said, "I want to go to Jason's deli because I know I am going to get a lollipop after I eat my vegetables there." She also can say 4 and 5 syllable words near perfect. My question is" She is obviously ahead in the verbal area. Does that ever even out?

-I am a stay at home mom and devoted to her. We go to museums as she demands. We go to the playground. She loves playing in the backyard. But, that is it. No school. Do I need to get her signed up?

-Should I be teaching her how to read? She knows letters but I have not told her what sounds they make. (I wish I had way back when when she asked the names. I should have just told her the sounds, right?)



Thank you in advance for giving it to me straight. I am not on the internet often, so I am hoping I can get everything I need right here. That would be great. Obviously, I will still think she is awesome no matter what you say.

Welcome! Sounds as though you've found the right place. You may be surprised how fast the posts rack up :-) Let me have a shot at answering your questions with them in italics rather than boxes for compactness.

-Does she sound gifted?

In short, yes. Loads of caveats about not being able to be sure so young, and also about "gifted" not being a once-for-all attribute in the way the word suggests (see my recent book recommendation for Carol Dweck's Self-theories!), but she has all the signs.

-What did your kids act like when they were almost 2/2?


Glaring difference: mine was only just starting to talk! You'll get more out of comparisons with other highly verbal pre-twos: some parents of those will be along shortly, I'm sure. (He was always different, though. Endless attention span from birth, check.)

-Do I need to get her evaluated. I can't see any reason to, but I am worried she might miss out on things without the proper ID.


Don't worry about it until you have a reason to do it. It's very unreliable until 6 or so anyway - you'd probably only want to do it if you needed testing for early school entry or entry to a specialist school. It wouldn't do any harm to start thinking about educational options.

-Is IQ hereditary?
Statistically yes, quite largely.

-Her language is what really sets her apart. At 22 months, she talks nonstop in complete and complex sentences. I have counted over 20 words. Let's see, today she said, "I want to go to Jason's deli because I know I am going to get a lollipop after I eat my vegetables there." She also can say 4 and 5 syllable words near perfect. My question is" She is obviously ahead in the verbal area. Does that ever even out?

Depends what you mean. My DS, who had fewer than 5 words at age 22 months, "got" speech extremely fast once he got going, and by, say, 3, had language that was obviously far in advance of most children his age, as he still has. In that sense, your DD may even out with some children her age who don't talk yet. It is probable that she will stay unusual, though.

-I am a stay at home mom and devoted to her. We go to museums as she demands. We go to the playground. She loves playing in the backyard. But, that is it. No school. Do I need to get her signed up?

Not necessarily. As with any child, you might want to find her opportunities for being around other children and adults without you, but you might choose not to. You may find it easier to enjoy her if you have a break from her sometimes, too! I'd suggest that if you do look for such an opportunity, you're more likely to have a good experience if you go for something purely play-based.

-Should I be teaching her how to read? She knows letters but I have not told her what sounds they make. (I wish I had way back when when she asked the names. I should have just told her the sounds, right?)


I'd say, don't set out to teach her, but if she wants your help in "breaking the code" feel free to help her. You might for example want to introduce her to starfall.com and see if she likes it. If not, no hurry.

Have fun!

Welcome.


She could be. But she's still so young that I think it's really too early to draw any conclusions.


Like a crazy little monkey. Things haven't changed.


No. What do you think she needs at this point that she isn't already getting?


At least partially.


Well, kids do develop at different rates. So, sure, it is possible that an early talker might not end up being verbally gifted. But your DD's language skills seem more than just a bit advanced.


No. What is she going to get out of school at this age, really?


No. Just because she is very verbal, that does not mean that she is ready to learn to read. Even if she is ready to learn to read, that does not mean that she needs you to teach her. If she likes listening to you read, I suggest you keep doing that.

The testing is expensive and really not recommended until you need one to get her into a gifted program. If it's done in school, it's free to you. Paid private testing before that is more for big-city folks who need a score to get into a prestigous pre-school.
About systemacially teaching her, you'll get folks on both sides of the fence. I'd guess 1/3 says yes, 2/3 say no on the few boards I've looked at. And half of the ones who adamantly say "no" approve of offering her self-correcting educational software such as www.starfall.com. Even the 1/3 who say yes say don't make it a chore for her.
Pre-school, well. That's so individual. I read somebody once say that she was very happy to have her baby at home with her, until he turned three! Then he needed something more than she had for him and found a preschool.
I'm a stay-at-home mom. I like pre-school education. So, if you chose that you want to teach her something ask me about resources. Oh, you're so lucky to have such a fun-sounding girl who obviously makes you very happy.

Welcome to the board. Your DD sounds wonderful. I loved her logic about lunch location. haha

Is she gifted?

JMO but she definitely sounds like she is. My DD will be 4 this next month and she was very much like your DD as a baby. First word right before she turned 3 months: elephant but very verbal before that and technically said 'hi' at 2 weeks but I still don't count that one as her first word. Talked in complete sentences by 6 months and crazy long complicated sentences by 15 months. She always understood pronouns and used them correctly from the start. She also always had an amazing attention span and such imagination. She, too, was all about someone reading to her and took it to the extreme. If given the choice of a toy or a book she always wanted a book.

Do I absolutely know if my DD is gifted? No and when I first started to figure it all out I quickly jumped to we need to have her tested but came to realize that it was unnecessary because who was the test for? It was more as documentation to prove it was true when I don't really need that. I know she is in the highly gifted range just as I know she is a blond hair, blue eyed little girl. When and only when I need to test her for school or because she might be having emotional issues or whatever will we test her. But until then I will just accept her for who she is and enjoy her.

Enrolling her in school:

I was in the same boat as you are now. Shouldn't she be in a preschool to help socialize her was my question and I raced to find one but all of the preschools in our area had a waiting list so DD didn't go to school while she was 2. I don't think it hurt her one bit. We did other activities such as dance and she got to know some little girls that way. When she finally did go to school she was standoffish but with time she came around and gets along with her classmates.

If you feel that she isn't getting enough socializing then maybe you consider it but you might just find some hour activities through the week that works for you too.

As for teaching her to read; just be careful with this one. She might be like my DD and resist any attempt. My DD started reading right before age 2 which made me think, okay she is ready to learn to read. (And by started to read, I mean word recognition in books and signs) But the minute I sat down with her to 'teach' her, we hit a big wall and she out and out refused and we spent the next year pretending like we didn't notice that she just read something. Then a few months back she came to me showing me she could read and asking me to sit down with her and teach her some more. I still wonder if we didn't make such a big deal about her abilities back when she was 2 if she would have been reading a long time ago. She had all of the tools since before 18 months.

Mine was referred for formal speech testing, having "flunked" the quick screeners both at 18mo (for insufficient words) and 24mo (no 2-word phrases). Nothing else particularly interesting, at least not in my recollection. There were one or two weird things that made me wonder where they came from, but no clear indication of anything other than "normal bright kid."


In the absence of something specific she might miss out on, I vote no. We contemplated sending DD to the preschool program for the local gifted school, which would have required an IQ test (at around 34mos), but it was not a good personality fit for her, so we didn't test.


More or less. I've seen some research saying that hereditary influences have more effect, and environmental influences have less, as we age. So a kid in a highly-enriched environment might have a higher IQ as a kid than you'd expect from heredity, but would lose that advantage as he moved through adulthood. Alternatively, a kid in a very deprived environment might score lower as a kid than as an adult.


As a 16yo, she's unlikely to be as obviously as ahead of her peers as she is now. So in that sense, it does even out. She's unlikely to ever have below-average language skills, barring some illness / accident.


If both of you want her to be. Mine was desperate to go to preschool, so went at 3.


Based on my sample size of one, I, at least, have no ability to teach anyone to read. My kid read when she was ready to read, and no amount of teaching got her to read before then. Your kid may vary - mine is exceptionally stubborn (both about not doing things she's not ready to do, and in learning things she feels the need to know).

10Apples - (I love that book by the way) Welcome!

When DD7 was 1 she was speaking full sentences with multi-syllable words and perfect pronounciation and amazing everyone (us included ) However, since she is our first, we didn't know how unusual this was. She has never stopped talking since! She too would sit for hours and loved to be read to and had an amazing attention span. We did not have her tested until we needed accomodations at school. She went to preschool to have playtime and give DH a day free from being a stay at home dad

DD2.5 is another story. She talks as much as her sister, however her pronounciation is nowhere near as good. Her attention span is also not nearly as long, but, when she has something to say, she blows everyone away too and talks to everyone who will listen. She is a mover and a shaker - she is on the go from the time she gets up in the morning to the time we throw her in bed at night, and is already wanting to give up her naps.

As far as teaching her specific stuff - follow her lead. If she asks about the words, help her sound them out, otherwise don't stress about it and continue having a great time with her - these are fun and exciting years.

Taking into consideration everything you wrote, my bet would be on her being gifted. Don't worry about school for awhile. Just let her be a little one and have fun playing and learning as she plays. My DD4 was very challenging at 2.5: highly intense, opinionated, restless, etc. but also funny, enthusiastic, and charming. At that age she was beginning to read and to draw pictures that looked like what they were suppose to be.

-Does she sound gifted?

Certainly could be. You have genetics on your side and a lot of early milestones. I still have yet to meet a kid that was WAY advanced (I'm not talking about walking early but massive sentences like you said, super early, untaught reading etc.) at an early age and then evened out. Every now and then on these boards you hear a rumor about such a kid but I've never met one in real life or read any articles/research about such kids.

-What did your kids act like when they were almost 2?

DD is 18 months. I would say she's not obscenely verbal but certainly has over 300 words between signing and speaking (her speaking is slowly catching up to her signing) and can sign up to 4 word sentences. She also is exposed to 3 languages daily so I wonder if that affects her speaking, though, to some extent...

-Do I need to get her evaluated. I can't see any reason to, but I am worried she might miss out on things without the proper ID.

No, or at least not yet. Like others said, I think 5 is the absolute earliest for a semi-accurate result and something like 7 or 8 is better? But I'm certainly not an expert here.

-Is IQ hereditary?

Yeah, and my *guess* since women are more likely to study now and getting higher degrees it will probably become more so in the future (because in principle smarter people can meet and reproduce and aren't forced to marry someone more locally). But that's totally my assumption there.

From my own personal experience both DH and my families are filled with gifted adults and we live scattered across the globe so it's not just in the water.

-Her language is what really sets her apart. At 22 months, she talks nonstop in complete and complex sentences. I have counted over 20 words. Let's see, today she said, "I want to go to Jason's deli because I know I am going to get a lollipop after I eat my vegetables there." She also can say 4 and 5 syllable words near perfect. My question is" She is obviously ahead in the verbal area. Does that ever even out?

I'd doubt it. I work with a number of gifted adults and basically I've seen two camps the early talkers (sounds like your DD) and the late talkers (one that didn't talk until 4). The early talkers never seemed to slow down.

-I am a stay at home mom and devoted to her. We go to museums as she demands. We go to the playground. She loves playing in the backyard. But, that is it. No school. Do I need to get her signed up?

Not unless you want to or she desires it. DD has recently started daycare, it's been interesting... BUT it seems like FINALLY she's gotten the stimulation that she needs and has been sleeping way more (14 hours a day when before it would be somewhere between 10-12 hours). It's a multi-age daycare where most of the kids are quite a bit older AND in a new language so she's had quite the mental input there along with tons of free time to play.

-Should I be teaching her how to read? She knows letters but I have not told her what sounds they make. (I wish I had way back when when she asked the names. I should have just told her the sounds, right?)

I'm definitely in the no camp and tend to think actively teaching a young child does more harm than good. That being said, I see nothing wrong with introducing DD to activities that she likes that are reading related and also answering her questions. So, for instance, DD loves starfall and I let her play on there. She also has some sight words and points at other words to learn them and I always tell her what they are. I just don't actively sit down and teach her phonics/grammar.

You described my two as well. DS6 was like your oldest. And DD4 is STILL like your youngest.

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.

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.

Most people just think I'm crazy. We wear DD on our backs often because we use public transit quite a bit and there aren't any elevators/escalators for all those stairs. So many people see this lady with what looks like a backpack on walking down the street talking to herself and pointing out everything around her. But if I don't DD freaks out, so what can you do?


I can really relate to the pregnancy thing. We've basically decided to wait until DD's older because there is just no way we could keep up with 2 of her! We definitely want more kids and I think DD would love a sibling but she just demands so much of our attention right now that unless we have a happy surprise it's just not going to happen right now.

Welcome to you too.

My two are 22 months apart, and DS6.5 was the demanding one, but DD4.5 was so laid back that we were able to keep up with DS6.5's demands.

Thanks!

I get comments from people to i explain everything to her also. I just smile at them most of the time. One friends husband made comments that she is probably so smart from all the infertility medicine I took (we did ivf). I just bite my tounge and laugh.

That's what I'm certainly hoping for when we do try for another!!! I've heard a lot of people say the same but I'm still worried about getting a mini-DD again. Not that we'd love him/her any less but I am just not sure my sanity would hold up!




Hahhahaha! Ok, that's definitely a new one!

That's funny!

I got a comment recently that I am teaching kindergarten materials to DS20mo.

I think some people don't know what to say but can't resist saying something.

Thats good to know they make audio books for kids. It is annoying sometimes but so cute. She just started sitting by herself flipping through the books even magazines does help when trying to get things done. She wont let me read Good Night Moon anymore she has to look at it herself just that one for some reason. LOL! I'm enjoying it.

Thanks for the advice, amylou. I have been reading a bit on hyperlexia and it seems like the main diagnostic is that the kids can read the words but do not understand what they're reading. WMy son is not reading yet, but I would think that the same info. would apply to the numbers and his understanding of those. I know that he understands the concept of the one to one correlation and gets that the larger the number, the more of something there is. I'm thinking that hyperlexia may not be something I need to worry about, but at least I know a bit more about it for the future. I have mentioned my son to my doctor and she ran through the autism checklist with me. I am 99% certain that autism is not a label that fits my son, but other than that, he hasn't seen a doctor since birth. So maybe a healthy baby visit is on order. I just kinda feel that a 10 min. visit to the doctor is not really gonna tell me anything. My son is a little shy and 10 min. is not gonna be enough to get him to warm up enough to be himself. I don't think the doctor will be getting an accurate representation of what his personality is really like. That's really why I haven't taken him before, although the doctor did suggest it when I spoke to her before about my son.

I am anxious to see how the reading will go once he starts. He can now recognize a few words, but I wouldn't say that he is reading by any means. I guess I'll just have to wait and see!

I think it's safe to say that this advice is nuts. IF IF IF his number fascination is a symptom of something (like autism), it's just that -- a symptom, not a cause. Taking it away from him would do nothing to change the underlying issue.

As for whether it IS a symptom of something, I wouldn't be too worried unless you see other signs. As Amylou suggests, a quick check in with your pediatrician may set your mind at ease.

I'm happy to hear someone else say that the advice I was given is crazy! I lost so much sleep over it, figuring it was bad advice, but not sure what I should be doing, wondering if I was fostering some sort of bad habit in him. And you're so right about it being a symptom. I didn't think of it like that, but it's true. Thanks so much for the advice! I should have posted here ages ago!

Thank you Clay! �The Tumblebooks was the awesomest<3. �I loaded a few stories on a favorites page and bookmarked it. �It's sooo much more awesomer than Super Why! And Between the Lions. �And Starfall. �And all the other similar programs he loves.

It breaks my heart to think of you losing sleep over this advice! But that's the nature of parenting, isn't it? We take everything to heart!