Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Is my 15-month-old gifted?

Hello, I'll try to keep this brief as possible. I'm a FTM and my son is 15 months old. There are a lot of odd things about him piling up that I simply can't ignore any more and would like some insight from others who may have experienced the same thing. Since I�ve never had a kid and I�m a WAHM, I don�t know how much of this is normal.

Here's what I hope is a succinct listing of his interesting attributes/abilities. Tell me if I'm crazy or if my baby is possibly gifted. I need a reality check! Thanks in advance!

Physical Dev:
- Skipped crawling. First steps at 8 mos, walked independently at 10 mos. Running at 11 mos.
- Able to feed self with spoon, since about 9 mos or so.
- Can now open and close, hold markers. Able to set the marker cap on its end on table, though difficult.
- Tries to jump. Seriously, he stands with feet apart, bends his knees, and launches. Doesn�t make it off the ground, but amazingly tries to �make up for it� by lifting each individual foot off the ground rapidly at the end of his attempt.

Cognitive Dev:
- At 11 mos, able to complete a wooden peg puzzle with 8 cutouts. Worth noting that this is a cheap puzzle (not a fancy M&D), so the base is blank�there are no �cheater� under-pictures. He is now able to do two simultaneously.
- At 13 mos or so, able to do a 3-piece jigsaw if I placed the first piece. Now, able to do all on his own.
- Can identify up to 8 colors when asked to pick from a set of markers.
- Follows one- to two-step directions with little or no gesturing.
- Knows certain books by their spines � once saw 15 seconds of a Disney movie, bolted out of the room and returned with the book version (worth noting that this is a book he didn�t even like and we never got more than 2 pages into it before then. Also worth noting he picked it from a shelf of 40 books).

General/Anecdotes:
- Had always been described as an �alert� infant.
- Fascinated with minutiae: clothing tags, screws (in doors, cabinets, etc.), loose threads, crumbs on the ground.
- Long attention span: once stacked cards for an hour straight (11 mos). Routinely gets engaged in an activity and will persist for 20-30 mins or sometimes more.
- Loves books, has favorites. Can point to named characters, animals, objects when asked.
- Has favorite tv shows and movies. I don�t like him to watch too much tv, but one lazy day I was curious to see how long he would sit and watch his favorite movie. We made it 45 minutes�he sat in one spot and actively watched the movie the whole time. We only stopped because I decided it was enough.
- He knows the choreography to the dance numbers in his favorite movie. He does his baby version of the moves even when I play the soundtrack without the video.
- Doesn�t talk much, but knows some sign language. Weird thing, though, he tries to sing songs from his favorite movie�knows the cue for the one note/syllable he is able to sing.

Welcome!

Reaching milestones early can be a sign of a gifted child... or not. It is helpful that you are keeping track of development.

A similar question was asked on a recent thread, possibly some of those replies may be of interest?

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Update - here is a link to a brief roundup of links describing common behavior characteristics, traits, and early milestones which may indicate giftedness in infants, toddlers, preschoolers, young children. (This list may be especially useful before IQ test scores tend to stabilize, around 8 years old.)

http://giftedissues.davidsongifted....p_of_traits_is_my_baby_o.html#Post248478

Maybe, maybe not. Come back in about 3 years. Honestly all kids are different (especially gifted ones) and they don't all progress according to the books. If crawling is skipped though you need to be really creative in finding ways to crawl now as the cross patterning is important for the brain - also other cross patterning stuff. Just try and enjoy you child and talk to them a lot.

I asked similar questions when my DS was 14 months. Here's the thread I started:

http://giftedissues.davidsongifted....ck_please_Is_this_normal.html#Post145218

You might like this book:

http://books.google.ca/books/about/Losing_Our_Minds.html?id=RnWY5TCJr1QC

Welcome to the forum!

Yes to the wait-and-see. Just have to mention, though, that the available research does not currently support crawling as a necessary step in brain development. Crossing midline and visual-motor integration, of course, are both quite important, but early walkers-who-skip-crawling generally find lots of other ways to cross midline without special treatment.

I have plenty of training and clinical experience in child development (so I do have some idea of what is "normal"--and it's a pretty broad range), and I, too, had to resist the urge to continuously mentally-assess my children. If you want, keep a monthly (don't overdo it!) journal of interesting milestones or anecdotes about him, in the event that it might be useful retrospectively, but put most of your energy into enjoying the innumerable moments of discovery and accomplishment that he is experiencing every day. You're clearly spending lots of focused time with him; he will show you what he needs for stimulation.

My take home on the every child NEEDS to crawl research which I base from my experience as parent of a child who had developmental delays in learning to walk as a toddler. Is that children who on their own go right to walking there really isn't a big issue with. But kids who have developmental delays and need intervention, should be taught to crawl before they are taught to walk. Often because crawling is one of the best ways to strengthen core muscles that make walking possible.

As to the original posters question. At 18 months is still very hard to tell if your child is gifted. You child defiantly sounds advanced in a few things, and certainly not behind in any milestones and must be a joy to see him learn new things. But nothing particular stand out to me but it's still a bit young for figuring this out. Not sure you need 3 more years, I could tell when my son was reading at 3. Kids are all different, they learn different things at different ages. Keep in mind that gifted kids aren't all alike and have different strengths and weaknesses and learn things at different ages.

blue, I get what you are saying now. Yes, there's a big difference between a motor-delayed kid, who may need the crawling to develop better core and upper body tone and coordination, and a motor-advanced kid, who almost certainly doesn't. I expect I was responding to an unfortunate piece of quackery that has persisted for several decades which purports to "cure" dyslexia by retraining kids to go through the gross motor stages. Sorry, soap-box reflex.


So true!

Thanks, everyone, for your responses. I'm definitely obviously not interesting in getting him tested or put in special classes or anything at all yet. I'm just with him practically 24/7 and was starting to lose sleep over his oddities recently. Any one thing would not bother me: walking early or knowing colors or long attention span or excellent recall, but putting them together and mentally listing them yesterday I was starting to get a creepy crawly feeling up my spine.

He's an absolute joy. And gifted or not, I love seeing the world through his eyes. We'll see what the next few years bring.

Thank you for the link, aquinas! Your thread brought up a few other things that I failed to mention on my list (I was trying to hit the most amazing stuff, in my mind). My son can also throw and kick a ball--since about 12 months. He's even been able to catch, on occasion.

He also has a fascination with buckles/buttons, and gosh I wish I could tell you when he starting buckling himself into his feeding chair. I want to say it was definitely by 10-11 mos. For a long time I could tell that he was trying to do such things and got very frustrated when his fine motor skills weren't keeping up with his mental understanding of how he knew the buckle pieces fit together.

He seems to have amazing comprehension even though he doesn't talk. He's extremely laid back/easygoing and really seems to understand when I tell him things that should be disappointing to other children his age, "Okay, we're going home now, so say goodbye to the (toy) train." I'm not saying he's never thrown a tantrum, but it's rare.

He played with a racecar track toy at the store with three cascading levels and after a few failed attempts at getting the cars to fall fast enough off the first level (by placing them too low on the incline), figured out that he had to place them higher on the track to gain enough momentum. It just seemed to me that he shouldn't be able to figure out something like that at his age.

On an entirely different note... he sleeps rather decently, thank heavens.

Definitely keep track of those milestones--you'll love looking back on them.