Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school Does the rate of development slow down?

Yes. This. DD and I both do this, as well-- not so much with numbers (and me even less so than her with digits), but with text, absolutely.

DD knew both upper/lower-case alphabet and phonemes by 20 mo, too. I'm not really sure how she learned them. Actually, she knew the letters by 18mo, and I know that because that is when we moved 3K miles, so I'm very sure.




Does the arc slow?

Well, it depends on what you mean.

Does it begin to resemble something more normative?

NO. It does not.

Does it begin to resemble something which would be normative for a child X months/years older than your own child? That is, can it be understood as a sort of-- tunneling phenomenon where your 2yo has "tunneled" into being a 5yo?

No again. Your child is still 2 physically, and maybe emotionally... and maybe in some ways even cognitively.

What that arc looks like is both:

idiosyncratic and even unique, and

asynchronous.



That means that from here forward in life-- and maybe life-long, actually-- your child is going to be out-of-sync with agemates AND with those who are peers in particular domains of development or interest.

This is a hard thing to live with for children. It's what makes gifted children "special" kids as much as those with developmental disability.

The world at large isn't built for asynchrony-- which means that your child moves through a world that is various degrees of ill-fitting or uncomfortable, and may well feel that he is "wrong" or that something is wrong with HIM-- which obviously isn't the case. He is who he is.

The most enjoyable things that we've gotten to experience on our journey as parents to a child like this are deeply private, quirky, and difficult to explain to outsiders.

Many are "you kind of had to be there" things, like her sense of humor at various ages (what other five year old "gets" Monty Python and uses quotes, chortling in that little-kid way about it all??), her insights which are informed by a highly idiosyncratic world view (Romeo and Juliet is a lot darker when you don't assume that "young love" is at the bottom of Juliet's actions, let me just say). The recognition of patterns in places/ways that adults have stopped "seeing" them. Connections between adult themes or works of literature/art to materials intended for children-- made possible because of the compressed timeline that means that for her, The Velveteen Rabbit and Great Expectations or Pericles do "go together."

The way that dirt swirls in a stirred mudpuddle DOES look like a fractal pattern...

That kind of thing has a quirky and intense magic all its own.


ETA:

The 'black box' learner thing is something that we've come to expect about DD, now 15, nearly 16. She doesn't "learn" so much as comes to master something via some internal process that involves stirring, and back-burner simmering until.... VOILA!

Mastery.

She claims (recently) that she never "learned" how to read, how to do math up through trigonometry, or to master physics or literature analysis. That she was sort of born knowing HOW to do those things, or picked them up osmotically over time, to the point that they all seemed rather obvious once the time came to 'display' her mastery of those things. If that makes sense.

She also has the stubborn streak of being "unteachable." It can be quite maddening to instruct her-- she doesn't make progress in any discernable way, generally speaking-- it either IS or it ISN'T.

We call this phenomenon "quantum learning." Don't know if that is the right term for it or not, but there is no other emotionally resonant way to describe just how shocking/jarring the phenomenon is.

She has always been like this. It's how she learned to walk, to talk, to ride a bicycle, tie, her shoes, to read, etc. etc.

It's as though the ability is inside her somewhere, and suddenly she breaks through and can ACCESS it.

I wonder if kids like this reinforced the concept of reincarnation in antiquity? I wonder if cultures that believe in reincarnation would be more accepting of knowledge by rediscovery instead of learning? Or condemn them based on past experience with people who knew those particular things?

Just wondering.

DS3.5 has passed through enough milestones that I'm starting to think his path is something similar, but with a warning tell. It's usually an early and short-lived manifestation of a new skill, followed by a seemingly fallow period of internal stealth testing with no apparent outward progress, then full (?) proficiency revealed. It's like he's excited at the idea of a new skill/interest and experiences emotional leakages of enthusiasm, but he wants to perfect "it" in his head before the big reveal.

Maybe. My one who learns like that (although not as early) was one of those babies everyone said to 'you look like you've been here before'. I don't believe in reincarnation but there is that look in some kids. My PG child actually learns I a rather obvious way with lots of persistance.

Have you seen the book A Parent's Guide to Gifted Children?

Yes, perfect strangers may comment that a baby or toddler is "an old soul."

YES.


DD did have that kind of "tell" with early motor (and verbal) milestones. You'd see a behavior only once-- and then not again for weeks/months. If you asked to see it again-- she'd PLAY with you. (Maddening, that.)

She held her head up unaided at delivery, for example. She rolled herself over (unaided, again) when she was less than 4 days old. We actually have the former on videotape, along with the gasps of disbelief from physicians and nurses alike. She didn't do either thing again for weeks and weeks. I mean, she was reliable with those milestones WAY ahead of schedule-- just not freakishly so the way that we knew she actually was (because we'd seen her do it deliberately at least one time).

She also tended to see consequences for her own actions (or those of others, more strangely) at ages that still boggle my mind. She didn't stand supported (other than with another human being) until she was about eight months old-- but then again, she had already worked out how to get back into a sitting position without tears, too. She definitely had the dexterity-- she was doing it with a person holding onto her hands by the time she was about five months.

She's always been a kid that wants an exit strategy. LOL.

She was definitely talking some by 6mo, and understood a truly awe-inspiring amount of OUR language at that age.

Demonstration of any of that, on the other hand, was never on demand. In fact, she almost seemed to take perverse glee in denying you what you asked for. Extrinsic motivation (or competitive motivation, for that matter, outside of a VERY few circumstances) is a nonstarter with my child. Period, full stop. She does stuff her way and in her time-- or not at all. Her nickname in daycare at 13-15mo was Little Ghandi. She was deceptively rational and easy to get along with-- but if your agenda and hers were at cross-purposes-- WATCH OUT. She wasn't a tantrum-pitching kind of child, mostly, and she was a keen observer of people. She learned that the path of least resistance was the best route forward most of the time, and that in any event, passive resistance or civil disobedience was a more efficient strategy than fit-throwing. I'm not entirely sure that people-pleaser is the term, even. It's clearly a manipulative strategy, this business of showing people only what won't surprise them unless it is necessary to do something else.

Until I saw DD as a baby and toddler, I seriously thought people that COULD believe in things like the reincarnated Lama, etc. had to have a screw loose somewhere. Having seen what some PG kids are like from birth, though-- I get it now. No, I don't think anything supernatural is the explanation! I just think that kids like this can make people reach for the supernatural as an explanation because it seems just as plausible as the truth of that kind of cognitive horsepower. Kids like this are deep, deep thinkers from birth, and they have a lot of raw material to work with. There's some thing a little alien-seeming about it.

Funny you should say that. My son now 4.5 used to talk about having lived before with great detail, down to imaginary siblings and things he said happened in select years, I.e. 1986 or 1812. Very strange to us but he has a rich imagination. We have no idea where he encountered the concept but he is emphatic that he has lived before and learned many skills in school in these past lives. Sigh. Some kids have imaginary friends... Mine has whole detailed past lives...

This is also the kid who was taking his hat off on day 1 in the hospital, repeatedly, even though the nurses kept putting it back on and who was walking around effortlessly, laughing at his 6 month well child visit as the nurses came by to stare at him.

Have you asked him about public events that happened during the years he claims he was previously alive? It might be a fun way to introduce history later!

Yes, we've had some great discussions. :-)