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

My daughter tried to stand up as they weighed her about an hour post birth, kicking against the table. I was out of it a bit but the nurses made a big deal. Other than that and early head lifting, she's not physically advanced. In fact I'm thinking about asking at her new doc about things like low tone or whatever, as she is only now at six getting into bikes and can't do monkey bars... She loves ballet though. She does well out of her sheer concentration, always the good student listening to teacher etc. When she was one she couldn't get up because she only butt scooted instead of crawling and didn't do levels. If she fell on her back she'd call for help (she had about 100 words) but was like a turtle lol.

My son did stuff like sitting and crawling and walking early. He's insanely physically able. He's cautious but can hit and throw and catch and has a great golf swing. He's putting hundreds of hours into sports, whereas DD put them into reading. So we'll see where they each end up. Besides making their feminist mother wryly laugh at their gender roles (DD is defies them, too, but juxtaposed they're pretty hilarious).

If you are interested in speculation, I would guess that timing of physical milestones is related to temperament, environment and parental involvement and the same environmental and parental involvement factors (as well as good overall health) that link SES to IQ probably link SES to early walking. However, there's such a big range of normal for walking (8-20 months) that I'm sure most kids who walk early won't be gifted, and of course you can be a late walker and have a high IQ.

Also, for many typically developing children there is a plateau in language acquisition while the child is learning to walk. Assuming this shows that learning to walk and certain stages of language acquisition are competing processes that can slow each other down, it's possible that gifted children who acquire language more rapidly better clear the way for early walking by reducing this competing process at an earlier age.

My DS6 walked around 10 months- not extremely early- but he pursued it! i used to sit watching him pull himself up again and again until he finally mastered it. I have never seen such will. I honestly think he wanted to go places and get to interesting things. He threw howling fits when he would grab something and we took it away. Now, DS is strong and fast but not particularly coordinated.
He did the same thing when he decided to talk (again, not early 18 month). DS would bring me book after book pointing to every picture and having me name it. During that time he would sit for 3-4 books, and we were reading up to 20 a day. By age two, he went from a bright talker, to extremely advanced.
It wasn't early milestones that had me thinking "gifted" - it was his "drive." Once he becomes interested in knowing/ doing something, he is so passionate. It's a quality that I love dearly, but it can be exasperating.

First, I am not sure that they are a sign of giftedness except perhaps when it is across the board so that your child truly functions as an older child. As to your question, it makes complete sense to me that mastering some basic motor skills at a younger age does not predict future talent in any particular sport. Just because you can run does not mean you can run really fast. Even in cognitive areas, just because you learn to read earlier than someone else does not mean you will read at a more advanced level than that person five years later.

My thoughts are that milestones as a rule don't mean much, but there are some 'signs' that seem to be more common among the gifted, though clearly is not definitive. For example, alertness from the get-go, and some early physical milestones seem to pop up a lot. My first, 3yo, had incredible head control from the beginning - he rolled over average time (3-ish months?) but everything else was early, crawled at 5.5 months, walked at 8.5 months...of course, he didn't talk till after he was 2! My newest, 3 months old, is also exceptionally alert and had the same amazing neck control. he started rolling over at 3 weeks and desperately wants to crawl...and gets clearly frustrated that he can't do much more than move sideways in teeny tiny increments. (I laughed at one of the previous comments about 'swimming'...my son moves around a bit on his back by 'backstroking' as DH and I like to call it!)

It's hard not to compare the 2nd to the first, I'll tell you that...we keep saying, 'he could be average, but that's ok, we'll love him all the same'. still, we can't help but wonder what he will become. (I wonder if this is a full post somewhere...how NOT to compare your child went at least one is gifted. I'll have to look around.)

"My DS6 walked around 10 months- not extremely early- but he pursued it!

He did the same thing when he decided to talk (again, not early 18 month).

By age two, he went from a bright talker, to extremely advanced. "

My DD6 is similar to this: not always early and sometimes slow to milestones, but then WHOOSH! rapid advancement to mastery.

DS4 could stand from birth if you let him hold your index fingers. He didn't use his knees to crawl and started walking (without falling and hitting his head even once) at 8 months. He's certainly an athlete. His teachers all comment on his intelligence, but we've not had him tested.

Is it generally accepted that gifted children struggle athletically?! Because DD doesn't She's advanced in swimming particularly, and was an early bike-rider, monkey-barrer, cartwheeler. Also very good at gymnastics and ballet. I think because she has exceptional listening comprehension, she understands quicker than anyone what she's supposed to do, and her great memory means she can follow all advice at once (rather than say swimming with straight arms but forgetting to kick, or whatever). Plus she loves learning new stuff, whether it's a science experiment or a dance routine or the rules of a team sport.
My guess is that gifted babies are quicker to see the potential benefits of rolling/sitting/crawling, are more observant, better at mimicking, keener to learn to skills, and better at remembering the do's and don'ts from earlier physical attempts
Perhaps the better question should be not why are they physically advanced as babies, but rather why do they stop (if that's not just a misconception)?

Because they tend (not always!) to spend their limited free time on intellectual pursuits, which means they have less time for physical pursuits, and in the end both the intellectual and the physical are as much about the perspiration as the inspiration?

In our family, the PG kids were later in physical mile stones than my 2e son, who is a twin to one of the PGs, but they were all early, sometimes dramatically early on their milestones.

Both twins could hold a bottle at 2 months. My 2E twin would follow me around the house in a walker at 4 months, he walked at 8 months and could run at 10 months. I felt like he was never an infant. He went from newborn to toddler. His PG brother didn't understand the walker until about 6 months, although he figured out a color/shape sorter the first time he tried it at 5 months. He learned to walk at 11 months. Both boys could do hand-over-hand on monkey bars at 3. They signed before age 1, and were great talkers by 18 months, although my 2e boy didn't talk nearly as clearly as my PG boy. My PG boy was reading isolated words by 2 and books at 3 1/2. At 18 months, he could always find a Starbucks for me!

My PG dd walked at 10 months, and could swim before age 2. She was advanced with fine motor skills. She was early with cognitive skills, but not as early as my twin boy.

My 2e son stopped being physically advanced by about 5, but now at 11, he's good again. Both twins are gifted athletes and take their sports seriously.

So, in my family, the only one who's not PG is the one who was super-advanced. I don't know what it means.

My DD10 purposefully tried to use her hands at 6 days old - to push an ultrasound wand off her chest - DH & I didn't bat an eye but the pediatric cardiologist was stunned "did you SEE that? they're not supposed to be able to do that!" (btw, her heart is fine )

She was pretty early with fine motor (drawing faces at 10 months, etc). She could recognize and identify the letters of the alphabet at 16 months although it took her another 10 months before she could write them with a pencil and paper. She was bang-on average with gross motor (except for the 6 day old stunt at the cardiologist's office )

DS wasn't quite as cognitively precocious and had some gross and fine motor delays, although he was interesting when he was three - his fine motor was delayed, but if you put a paintbrush in his hands, suddenly he could demonstrate the fact that he could write and spell a list of basic (3-4 letter) words.

I don't know. I think there are so many areas of development and so many ways that a brain can be configured and so many different types and profiles of giftedness that it can be hard to tie this kind of stuff together.