One of the earliest signs I saw with my particular HG+ child was an incredible persistence when he was interested in something. He learned his letters early--he had most of them down by 14 or 15 months--but not because he'd seen them once or twice. He had wooden alphabet puzzles that he OBSESSED over! He'd play with them every waking moment if I let him. I'd try to put them away and get him to play with something else--anything else!--but he'd throw a fit if he couldn't use his puzzles. He HAD to learn how to put the puzzles together AND what the letters were. I think the complexity of the problem the puzzles posed to him were why he loved them so much. It was all he wanted to do, and he would not be dissuaded.
Most toddlers that age are far more distractible than that.
This was my DD. She found some little board books for letters and became obsessed with them at age 6 mths. Hours of 'What's this?' and 'What's that?' as she would bring the book over for us to go through. I really had no idea that she was learning the alphabet but by 9 mths she made it clear that she knew all her letters and a few months later she knew all the sounds each letter makes. There is just an intensity with the HG+ kids. Their attention spans are amazing. We would sit in awe over DD's ability to be absorbed in something and wouldn't move from that task for 20 to 30 minutes. And this was when she was still a baby. As she got older her attention span just got longer and with her imagination she can spends hours entertaining herself.
I don't think I could say she showed what your son did with the spinning of the rings because we have a perfectionist and she expects to just be able to do it the first time which I think has been part of our problem when it came to potty training. It was not until recently when I talked to her about practicing and how with practice she will find it comes easier that we turned the corner. And when she finally gave in to that idea she was potty trained in less than a week. But what a struggle it has been to get her to even try.
I also want to say that I think what has been described has more to do with kids that are in the higher range of gifted and if a child does not show this intensity it doesn't mean they are not gifted or even HG+ because it isn't easy to lump them all in one category. I remember reading some posts in reference to Ruf's book and how a lot of parents with HG+ kids did not see the signs during infancy that Ruf talks about which is yet more proof that every child is an individual.
