I suspected he was bright (not gifted yet) when he was 12 months. He said about 100 word already, picked out books to read all the time, and carried letters around in matches that looked similar (M & W, B & P, E & F, etc.) He would always carry matches around of everything. Then at 15 mo he knew his ABC's, colors, shapes, numbers, etc. He played with that leapfrog learning bus one day for 30 minutes and learned all his phonics...and never played with it again. He started reading at 19 months. When he started reading and playing songs on the piano by ear and recognizing composers (and memorizing all our cd tracks)...we knew something was up. (yes I know we were a little slow to catch on because in retrospect that was only half of the obvious stuff). I used to go on a message board for children my sons age and when I posted things about my son doing stuff, people had strange remarks. I didn't understand that the things he was doing was THAT out of the ordinary. Then someone said the word "gifted" and suggested some websites. Before that I had never really known what "gifted" meant or how it presented itself.
DS hasn't been tested yet, we are planning it in the spring shortly before he turns 5.
