Hello
Im a mom of two very young girls. 2.5y and 14m. I am very new to the "gifted" term. I was searching for help to better understand my oldest daughter's needs when I stumbled upon information on "gifted" children. There is no doubt shes advanced in certain areas, but until recently I hadn't considered intelligence as a factor. Kids develop at different rates, some kids walk early, mine talked early. I didnt put much thought into it and figured as her peers learned to talk things would even out and she would be back on the same page as her age group. So far that doesn't seem to be happening.
My question is about testing which I have seen mentioned often when reading. Is that something important? Is it important to know whether a child falls within the gifted range and where they fall? We homeschool so she doesn't need documentation for special cirriculum at school. I can choose her cirriculum at whatever level she needs. There is no NEED for a label for her, unless knowing allows me more resources to better understand her/teach her? If testing is important for a child who may be gifted how did you determine your child might be gifted?
A little about her advancements
*Within a few weeks of birth we noticed she studied faces. She only studied new faces, not of people she recognized/remembered
*By 2m my mom pointed out that she followed conversations and seemed to be studing the lips of each person as they talked (Honestly at the time I didnt believe her. I did notice she watched lips but I didn't think there was any way it could be significant at that age)
*Around 4m she could identify people by name. When asked "where is so and so" She would turn her head to look directly at the named person (or dog)
* she used basic sign language around 6 months to say "hungry", "more" and "all done" (Im not really sure if this is advanced or not?)
*Began speaking in two word phrases at 10m (She had some words before that but I dont remember what/when because I let family members convince me it was probably coinidence that her babble started sounding like words)
*She was speaking in complete thoughts by 15m and complete scentences around 18m. Currently at 2.5 she can carry a converstaion with adults, tell stories, describe events with details. She very rarely uses incorrect grammar and she tends to use more advanced adjectives like "wonderful", "terrible", "humongous"
Most of her advancements have been verbal, but I realized recently, when searching for our homeschool preschool for fall, that shes beyond most of it. She knew colors, shapes, animals and their sounds prior to turning two and at 2.5 she can identify all of the alphabet and tell you which is capital/lowercase as well as most of the letter sounds. Count objects to 10, recognize written numbers (1-10) and is beginning to write some letters. Im not sure if knowing preschool knowledge early is unsual? Dont many kids enter preschool already knowing some of these things? She also picks up random facts (most of the time Im not even sure where shes learned it), she knows about dinosaurs/fossils, planets, stars, and telescopes.But again Im not entirely sure if this is significant. Maybe shes cognitively on a different level than her peers, but maybe she just has different interests than other kids. She knows facts about those subjects simply because they interest her.
Thanks for reading if youve made it this far! That got much longer than I had anticipated.
