Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums GT Research Gauging the intelligence of infants

Studies tend to exclude 2e kids precisely because they are unpredictable....

They were probably excluded, but DD has a ton of special needs and is still PG.

DD (8) has Aspergers, ADHD, SPD, low muscle tone, and terrible vision, and didn't walk until she was 20 months old. But she was still markedly PG as a baby. She was interested in books from the first day I started reading regularly to her, at 2 months of age. She said her first 5 words in the same week at 8 months, and at 19 months, Early Intervention rated her expressive & receptive language as being around a year ahead.

She did NOT hit any physical milestones early or perform any extraordinary physical feats, and as a first-time parent, I had no idea if she was extra alert. She WAS a champion sleeper, compared to my DS. She hit her physical milestones on time until walking, which she didn't learn until 20 months. One day I remember her physical therapist (through Early Intervention), saying, "She't too busy thinking about all the ways she might fall down and hurt herself." She has definitely muscle tone and balance issues, but she still definitely thinks herself out of doing things.

DD & DS both did a number of baby studies through the University of Washington, through the Institute for Learning & Brain Science and some other research departments. I wish, in hindsight, they gave you info on your kid's results and a copy of the final paper, because now I wonder if you could see a correlation with IQ or achievement with those early studies. But alas, they don't.

Aquinas, that is a very sweet pair of stories.

One of my sibs tracked immediately at birth. My #2 also was soothed on hearing #1 sing, within hours of birth (#1 sang non-stop to mama's belly-button during #2's gestation). I suspect, based on the respective birth circumstances, that tracking and alertness at birth have a great deal to do with the use of (or rather lack thereof) anesthetics during the birthing process.

DD 2 3/4 from the moment she was born could see clearly. During the entire hospital stay she looked around the room. I know everything that I have read states early infants can't see clearly, but she most definitely could. She would track movements across the room.

When we brought her home one of the first tricks she learned was to get her arms out of the burrito wrap, followed by not letting us wrap her up like a burrito. She spoke her first understandable words at an age that I feel uncomfortable to state. She used the correct words for what she wanted at a very young age, again I do not feel comfortable saying the exact age because it seems almost impossible.

At 5 months she knew her chore was to bring the mail in and give it to her mother for allowance. Of course I carried her to and from the mailbox. She did have the dexterity to put the coins in her bank by herself. She fully understood the cause and effect of Bringing in the mail meant getting to put coins into her piggy bank. Her favorite pass time was to have daddy carry her around showing her the world. At that age she seem almost scary advanced.

Now, even though she does still seem advanced, she does not seem that advanced, except on theses certain occasions when she says something that is absolutely brilliant that reminds me, oh yeah she is smart.

I think this thread has hit a resonance frequency of parental bragging.

I expect that this is because, while the research on reliably assessing intelligence in infants as a class is rather open to debate, we all know exactly what our own infants were like.

Aufilia - we've got a similar situation. My 2e pg ds8 was born with with special needs - including severe sensory processing, hypotonia, dyspraxia, and gross/ fine/ speech/ visual deficits. And yet, at the same time, ds was a very alert baby with a head on a swivel sucking everything in.

IF parents or professionals just focus on those motor/speech skills then a child like Helen Keller would never be identified as gifted. And I could list many, many others who would fit into this category. Herein lies the problem for 2e parents.

Super advanced motor skills in babies may be an indicator of a super high IQ or intelligence, but it's only one indication and doesn't seem to apply to some 2e kids. This can become a huge problem for 2e parents because their kids have delays and/or deficits and yet their brains/bodies seem to compensate or overcompensate for these delays and deficits in spectacular ways.

Please let's not forget the number of 2e parents who do not fit into this category and still have children who are gifted but with special needs.

My kiddo has dyspraxia with a left sided hypotonia but we still knew he was bright. I just didn't really understand he was gifted until much later. We figured out the dyspraxia first.

The only early indicators we had of giftedness were...

When he was 8 months he looked at me and said 'cock a doodle doo' and 'where dada go?' (Then he didn't speak again for months.)

And he smiled at 2 weeks.

He started interacting with books at 4 months. Turning pages and seeking books out independently.

And he was just super alert. People commented on it all the time. He NEVER napped. OMG. NEVER. Didn't sleep much at night either.

I remember the daycare people told me one day the babies were sitting at the table together and all crying except for my kiddo (4 mos). They said he was gaping at the other babies like 'WHAT is wrong with you? This is awesome!' He loved daycare. Loved the stimulation.