I remember reading 'The Lorax' during Dr. Suess week at my son's daycare. I still shake to think of the longest 15 minutes of my life! DSs sat in my lap and lectured the 3 or 4 year olds on the meanings of words or phrases that weren't obvious, in the same exact intonation I used with him for that purpose, as if this was the most interesting thing in the world, and wouldn't they feel great to learn this? On every page. The peers were struggling to sit still, and clearly (to me, not to DS) wanted it to be over! I found it so painful to keep going, and tried to keep DS from 'contributing' because it was so very clear that this wasn't working for the other kids. I think I was having a flashback to my school days when my peers looked at me blankly. I asked myself: "Why hadn't I known to read 'hop on pop?!?"
Being inidentified gifted can make a person do dumb things. DS was as convinced as I was that his peers would love the story and the 'insider tips' - it was heartbreaking. I wished that a hole would open in the primary colored rug and I could dissapear into it.
I imagined that all the other little kids were having deep conversations with their Moms in private just like us.
This sums up my experience with the difference in a gifted child perfectly. Dd13 and I have been discussing things like spirituality and the theory of relativity and how the energy that is seen in a person's body on things like EKGs must go somewhere after the person dies b/c energy and mass never totally disappear from the universe, whether that energy continues as sentience or not... for as long as I can remember. It's not so much knowing shapes or colors or when she read that makes me look back in hindsight and go, "duh, why didn't I know what was going on with her?" as those types of things.
I guess that NT kids just may not have the same interest in many of these things and, like others have mentioned, may also have NT parents who aren't exposing them as much b/c they, too, don't think to discuss things like that with their little kids. I guess that things can be hothoused into a young child -- ranging from color names to letters to the meaning of life, but again as others have said a good parent won't do that to their child and nature is smart that way to often place a child with a parent whose innate wiring is similar enough to enrich his/her child with the types of things for which the child is developmentally ready.
Grinity, I had nearly the same book reading experience as you. When dd13 was in K, the kids were supposed to have their parents bring in their favorite short picture book to read the class (the parent read it to the class) on the child's bd. So, dd's 5th bd rolls around near the start of the school year and she has me bring in Who Moved My Cheese for kids. It truly is a quick picture book, or at least we thought so. It only has maybe one or two sentences per page but it is something like 65 pages long, which apparently was way, way too long. Dd was explaining the moral to the story, clearly not getting antsy...
