So this means, there is no stereotypical high IQ child? And yes, many will hit milestones at these points, but it not exclusive?
That's how I read the book. These are case studies, not "rules of GTness." And her sample size was too small to say "This is true for all GT kids, no matter what!" She's offering generalizations based on her observations, but the point, I think, as delbows rightly pointed out, is to help parents to see that what we see as "normal" for these kids is NOT normal for most kids.
Alert, intensity, OK, but I wouldn't have noticed, I thought it was normal. It was the fact that strangers came up to me when she wasn't even 2 months old and commented about her intensity of observing the room.
Yes, exactly! For my part, I thought nothing of my DS saying "BBBBB" when pointing to a "B" at 15 mos., but it totally freaked out the other moms in our Kindermusik class! It was perfectly normal for him, so I was really surprised by their *violent* denial of what was common behavior for him.
Ruf helped me to understand why the moms reacted as they did--DS was doing PG stuff! What was normal for DS was very much not-normal for most people. Aha! The light bulb came on for me.
When you live with these kids, I think GT denial becomes a way of life. Dottie and I (and others) are still struggling with it, despite everything we know and see.
I didn't mention this, and it's another whole can of worms, but I also felt like Ruf's book gave me permission to try other school options for DS. It made it clear to me that in our situation, public school--even in what's considered a "good" school system--wasn't necessarily going to be good for DS. This validated my feelings, gave me permission to skip advocacy, and allowed us to go straight to homeschooling and then a special arrangement with a GT school for part-time attendance next year. I think we saved DS a lot of heartache and me a lot of headache by not swimming upstream in the public school, and I'm not sure I would have been brave enough to do that if it weren't for Ruf's book.
Ruf's take on public schools is controversial. I just know that her take helped us.
