Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion When did you figure it out?

We had no clue, DS10 had a speech problem when he was younger, and so at 4 we had him tested by a speech pathologist who stated that he had a lateral slur and that he was highly gifted and that we should consider a private Gifted or HG school. We then had him tested to confirm and moved forward from there. With no yard stick to use we did not see any signs. In looking back there was only one instance that stood out. I was working on a slider puzzle on the computer and I was able to solve in about 2-3 minutes. I was teasing my DW because it took her about 6 minutes to solve. DS10 (Then 4) tried it and solved in under 1 min. At first I thought it a fluke, but he was able to solve them about as fast as I could sometimes even faster. At the time I just thought, he was good at puzzles. It never really sunk in (Even after testing confirmed it) until we had a K party and the kids wanted to play Life. DS (now 5) and I have been playing for the last couple of years. I ended up having to read all the cards and places the other children landed on to them. I got that none of them could read yet, but what surprised me was that when DS and another boy wanted to play battleships, the concept of a grid was too difficult for the other child, but DS picked it up immediately when he was 3 or so. I guess when you live with something you just assume it’s the norm.

I have a theory (based upon a minimal amount of subjects - well 6 to be exact) that girls often "show" their giftedness earlier; and furthermore, even non-gifted girls may even appear ahead of gifted boys.

Like Edwin above, our ds spoke "late" and was very hard to understand. He also bounced off the walls and wouldn't sit still for even a short Disney movie. We have smart friends with smart kids, so we weren't all too impressed with his reading very early. It was more like a party trick. In retrospect, I see a lot more signs. But I don't think we really understood the breadth and depth of his thinking until his speech improved around 4.

Now that I have a dd2.5 who did EVERYTHING early, we're equally hard to impress in the opposite way : sure she spoke in sentences shortly after she was a year- she's a girl after all. AND she doesn't read yet the way ds did. I was pretty excited when I realized she could count to 20 at 18 months. Time will tell how thingss sort out.

We figured it out fairly early. DS always had amazing concentration for long periods from a very young age (especially with books)but when he had a larger understandable vocab at 9 months than some of friend's toddlers it hit us. When he started reading at 2 we realised he was further out there than we thought!

Our dd barely hit the speaking milestone (6 words) at her 18 month check up with the pediatrician. 7-8 months later she was both speaking and reading well. She was obsessed with reading (then and now), and I believe reading helped her learn to speak. (To this day, now 12yo, she makes pronunciation errors due to a huge vocabulary learned from reading.) At the time she was a toddler, there was some fanfare in the press about hyperlexia, and we did consider for a while that her reading could be a sign of that rather than giftedness.

We thought her twin brother ("the control sample") was not gifted because he didn't learn to read until he was 3.5 yo. But it turned out he is too! -- I guessed we figured that out early in elementary school.

When dd6 was about 3 years old when I was asked by two different teachers if she was gifted. Then I research it and it was like an "ah ha" moment because it sure explained all of her quirks! And I didn't realize all of the things she was doing was beyond normal (she was our first).

I've been wondering pretty much since DD was born. On everything but speech, she's always been about 50% ahead of whatever the milestone charts said she should be...

Sitting alone at 4 months and intensely studying and manipulating complex toys, walking at 8 months, paging through books alone by 8 months, "reading" alone by signing the pictures in her books at 12 months, 350+ ASL signs by 17-18 months, knew all her upper and lower case letters by 17-18 months.. Now, by 22 months, I think she knows most of her colors, counts to 3 - one to one, easily does 25 pc jigsaws and helps me with the 33 and 48 pc, knows a few sight words (I haven't asked in awhile), and everywhere we go draws my attention to writing and seems to want to know what the writing says. She also makes a lot of observations that surprise me - like months ago when she asked if my diamond earrings were stars, or when she bit a chunk out of her banana and told me it was a chair. I think that stuff happened before she hit 18 months. She also seems to have a good memory.

But... She's also speech delayed, so all we have is her signs to figure out what she knows and what she's thinking.

I just missed the gifted cut-off at 6, and my husband breezed through school to become a Software Engineer, so I would be surprised if she doesn't at least test close to a gifted cut-off. But at the DYS level? Probably not. It would be great if she could have DYS opportunities, but I don't think hubby or I are that level, so our kids might not be either.

I've been here awhile now and I see myself, my husband and my daughter in so many of the stories on this site...It explains a lot lol.

DD9's cardiologist first noticed when DD was 6 days old - she was having a cardiac ultrasound (her heart is fine, btw ) and she tried to push the ultrasound wand off her chest twice. DH and I were too worried about her heart to notice but the cardiologist was impressed: "they're not supposed to be able to do that at this age."

Fast forward through months of precocious interest in books and comprehended vocabulary to about 11/12 months or so when she could draw faces, and a friend of mine said "you should have her tested."

Then when DD was 16 months I consulted the baby/toddler books to see when kids typically master the alphabet and realized how far ahead she was. That sealed the deal for me, and advanced became the "new normal."

Poor DS came along and mastered the alphabet at 24 months, so I thought he was delayed, lol. Chess at 6 (which I though nothing of - he made it seem so easy - I was stunned when none of his classmates could handle it) and precocious math ability made me think he might have some extra gas in his tank as well.

I'm quite certain neither one are at DYS level... my guess is MG/HG maybe (I'm HG, so there may be a genetic similarity). With DS it's so hard to tell because he has diagnoses (ADHD & language processing deficits) that roadblock him.

A friend of mine had no idea her son was HG until he was tested in grade two - the school thought he had Asperger's (he doesn't). This mom was quite shocked

Isn't it funny how they can all present differently

On a related note: we have an upcoming scheduling conflict between DD9's pull out math gifted program and a class field trip to the airport. She chose math "If I want to know how the airport works I can just google it."

Mmm...purple.

Ah. You have my children living at your house, I see...

I guess I never really thought about it.

Maybe when Mancub was sorting out the baby locks before he could walk (by watching his teenaged sisters manipulate them). OTOH, he was also trying to eat everything from Comet to Vanilla Extract once he'd done it, so it didn't strike me as the most intelligent thing he could have been doing at the time.

I thought it was strange when she spoke two syllable words very clearly way before her first birthday, but didn't give it much thought. She had an unusual interest in books and people said she would probably read early, but I didn't think that much of that either, but when she learned upper and lowercase letters and their sounds at 1.5 and was reading by 2.5, I started to wonder. Her vocabulary was huge, she was able to do hard puzzles with no effort, count, had a frightening memory, could identify shapes very early and on and on and on. She was also intense, actually rather hyper, so we had testing done at 3 and they brought up her giftedness. She has been tested twice but some part of me still doesn't believe she is gifted even though she is performing many years ahead of her grade, but then she will say, write, read, or know something that makes it clear that she is unusually advanced.