Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Early Milestones - what do they mean?

I was just wondering why milestones such as sitting, walking, and rolling over, developing early is a sign of giftedness. I would tend to think that early ability of muscle control, and coordination would be a better indicator of future athletic prowess. So why, if so many of our kids did these things at a younger than usual age, do they then seem to more often lag behind athletically when they get older? Any ideas?

both sons were very delayed with all of these so to me these "milestones" don't mean a thing

My kids didn't have early milestones. Ds6 didn't roll until 8 months - it was so cold in our house putting him on the floor without wrapping him wasn't an option. Ds4 was on the early side but not exceptionally so. Most of the early walkers I have met have been solidly average academically. I do think kids with active involved parents meet milestones early and the parents of gifted kids tend to be active and involved. Ds6 is very competant physically and is >99.9 percentile but using milestones and the ruf levels I assessed him at the 94 to 96 percentile.

Eta. I've checked and ds6 rolled at six months not eight. Also I have been around a lot of just turning three boys today and mine did have more complex talking at that age. Also once ds6 learnt to roll he could get anywhere by rolling.

My sons followed all of the applicable early milestones, but I don't believe that late milestones can't equal gifted. Same as one or two early milestones doesn't equal gifted.

http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10106.aspx

According to my mother, I had very early milestones. I am HG+ (or was--middle age seems to be taking its toll).

My older son was average with regard to milestones except for speech. He didn't start talking well until he was 3 or so. He has dyslexia and a slew of other diagnoses and is HGish.

The younger one was fairly typical except for speech, where he was somewhat early (10 months with solid sentences at one year). He is HG+.

Early milestones CAN be associated with giftedness but are not required and do not definitely indicate giftedness.

Motor milestones obviously might be tied to physical giftedness - but I would suggest that advanced comprehension and intention is required in order to make early motor milestones happen.

My HG+ DD hated tummy time, she learned to roll very young in order to get off her tummy, the second you put her on her tummy she'd flip back over. At 4 months old she visibly decided she wanted to cross the room, and instantly changed tactics - the second you put her down she'd flip onto her tummy and start swimming. It took her about a month to master commando crawling. She was a menace in the cupboards from 5 months old. She's low tone and hypermobile, retrospectively it's quite an amazing feat that she could crawl at 5 months old and it was absolutely driven by desire to get somewhere and investigate more than by the need/desire for physical activity. In our OTs assessment there are many things my DD does (monkey bars for example) that simply should not be possible with the body she has, but clearly she is intellectually able to compensate for what does not come naturally and she's very determined.

My iPhone just trashed a considered post I just drafted. Here's the abridged version.

Researchers' Hypothesis: high motivation to move and access novel stimuli is correlated with intelligence, hence early physical milestones as a marker of giftedness.
- My caveat: Perhaps, but for a child to make early physical achievements requires not just the mental will to do so, but also the physical capacity to exercise one's will. There is an innate genetic ceiling here.

My thoughts:
- The subject selection criteria in the early gifted literature was reliant on identifying characteristics such as motivation and achievement alongside intellectual ability. I believe the research suffered from selection bias in choosing only a subset of the gifted population based on temperament, resulting in an over representation of high achieving gifties.
- More recent researchers are cognizant of the disconnect between an achieving temperament and giftedness. As such, inclusion criteria are defined more holistically, and sample populations are larger, so as to account for the fact that the only face of giftedness is not just the classic high achiever.

Anecdotally:
- DH, DS, and I were all the "motivated" sort and had early milestones.
- DS scooted about 3 feet over to me on the bed on his first day wanting to nurse. It was remarkable because babies aren't "supposed" to do that, especially when hypoxic after a traumatic surgical birth and anaesthesia. He was a baby who insisted on standing supported from about 6 weeks onward. He wanted to see the world head-on right away. Never crawled, like his Mum.

Silly idea to make you smile...

My friend has this idea that humans are born with incredible brains, like psychic powers and such, but that all the falls we take as children knocks it out of us. Following that theory, those who meet early physical milestones would be more intelligent. haha.

Anecdotally, my children both were born with incredible neck control, easily trying to look around from the first day. They were both walking at 9 months.

Milestones are meaningless in my 2E house. We threw out all the parenting books early on.

DeeDee