I haven't gotten all the way through this very interesting thread yet, but did find this discussion interesting:
I think another study that would be worthwhile doing was to look at kids that are specifically WAY ahead in milestones (not just slightly advanced but years advanced). So look at the kids reading at 2 or speaking 100 words at age 1. I'd be pretty surprised if they don't find a high correlation then!
I agree, that would be very interesting. It also might be doable, in a way: you'd have to publicise that [so and so] was interested in seeing children who [whatever]; if, on following those children, you found that they were far off the mean on some other criterion, like IQ, it would be reasonable to think there was something going on. You'd have the children seen by a psychologist at the time they were exhibiting the unusually early ability, so no recall problem, and you'd be able to eliminate problems like "does that really count as reading?" and "is that really a word?" by applying standard criteria.
The beauty of prospective studies is that you are not dealing with false recollections as many of you have mentioned. The difficulty when we are discussing confirming advanced behavior in a very young child is getting the child to be a performing monkey and do whatever it is on command. I very clearly recall dd9's doctor inquiring as to whether she was combining words at all at her 2 yr apt as dd sat there mute. Dd had been combining two words since 5.5 months and was generally a non-stop chatterbox around me, but not on command. I guess that there could be some videotaping involved at home to confirm. I do also have a friend who has told me repeatedly that her kids were speaking in sentences at 18 months which is absolutely false. I was around these kids a lot at that age and beyond & they weren't speaking in anything that resembled a sentences until 3.5 or so. Parental representation that a child was doing something without confirmation due to stage fright couldn't be relied on either, for that reason.
In re to the original topic, if this point hasn't already been made, I believe that ultimately the same children who are gifted at 10 or 15 are also gifted at 2 or 3. Whether we can accurately identify who those kids are based upon behavior at those ages is a completely different question. There are a lot of "good students" who are labeled gifted by virtue of advanced reading skills, for instance. There are also a lot of gifted kids who are never recognized as such b/c they aren't stellar students. However, the difference in brain wiring that is gifted isn't a transient thing.
In terms of the value of identifying gifted kids as preschoolers, I don't know if there is tremendous value b/c there is too much room for false positives as well as false negatives. I would only view it as important to distinguish which kids are truly gifted that early if the child was having some difficulty that could be better understood or treated if the giftedness was understood as well.
