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How old was your child when you suspected that might be gifted?

How old was your child when you knew for sure, and what tipped you off?

How old was your child when, and if, you had them tested?

Just some questions out of interest! Hope you are all have a good week so far!

I finally figured it out when our older one was 3 and reading chapter book. I literally went looking for what was wrong with him and stumbled upon information about gifted kids. It explained so much and we haven't looked back since. We had him tested at 5 years 3 months after a rather unpleasant discussion with one of his teachers. That was a huge eye opener, he was more gt than we expected.

Our younger one did lots of things early, and lots of them earlier than his brother. He was early talker (in 2 languages), did puzzles well and we thought he could be gifted but then there were things he was falling short compare to his brother. When he started reading at the age of 2 we finally admitted that he was gifted too. He is 4 now and hasn't been tested yet. We will have him tested but we will wait till he is at least 5.

How old was your child when you suspected that might be gifted?: He was about 22 months -- knew his alphabet and a bunch of sight words, numbers to 12 or so. I was getting suspicious.

How old was your child when you knew for sure, and what tipped you off?: He was 3.5. We were pulling up to Target for some shopping, and I said, "Look, KG, we're at Target" -- pronouncing Target as "Tar-jhey," as we do, for fun. He said, "No, Mama, that says 'tar-jheyT!" with a hard T. That was when I knew we were in for it. He was already reading beginning reader books, but somehow that really drilled it home for me!

How old was your child when, and if, you had them tested?: We had KG tested at 5y5m, in November, when it became clear that public kindergarten wasn't going to be a good fit. Like LMom, he was more gt than we expected!

HTH!

How old was your child when you suspected that might be gifted?

People were always making comments about how alert DD was even when she was just a few days old. I thought they were just being nice. When DD was almost 2 mos. old, she said "hi" to a little girl in a store. The little girl said, "Daddy! That baby said 'hi' to me!" DD repeated the performance at home and also started saying "ickle" for "tickle".


How old was your child when you knew for sure, and what tipped you off?


When she was 3, we visited my parents' house for Christmas. One evening, we were sitting around talking after dinner and DD announced, "Now I will do an interpretive dance." Then she proceded to act out a seed sprouting into a plant and blooming into a flower. She also amazed relatives by reciting "The Night Before Christmas." At the same age, she asked me to teach her how to read. She started reading before she turned four.


How old was your child when, and if, you had them tested?


DD was tested at age 8. She is verbally HG.

How old was your child when you suspected that might be gifted?

DS also seemed to be taking everything in as an infant. He learned to kick his foot rhythmically to bounce his own bouncy seat when he was about 3 months old. As soon as he could talk (10 mos.) the questions started: Dis? Zat? Go tah?


How old was your child when you knew for sure, and what tipped you off?


DS was obsessed with letters and numbers from a very young age. As a toddler, he wanted to watch an alphabet video every day. By the time he was two he knew all the letters and their sounds. He started reading before he turned 3. He taught himself a lot about numbers by playing with legos. He had mastered all kindergarten skills except writing by the time he was three.


How old was your child when, and if, you had them tested?


DS was tested at age 4 1/2. He is HG+

How old was your child when you suspected that might be gifted?
It wasn't just one thing.... I had to be convinced to even suspect he was.
1. He started talking in full sentences before he was a year.

2. He gave me his bottle when he was 11 months and said,"No more of this."

3. At around a year, he would point to the sign on store like walmart and target when we pulled in the parking lot and say there name.

I guess the Ah-ha moment came when he pointed to a can of pepsi and said "pepsi" when he was 15 months old, we don't normally drink soda so it was a rare thing for him to see a can of soda.

At 17 months he started pointing to letters and not only saying the name of the letter, but making it's phontic sound.

How old was your child when you knew for sure, and what tipped you off?
We was 2 and a half and we were sitting in a McDonalds. He pointed to a sign ans said, "That says exit"
'Site reading', I thought. 'He uses my computer, its a common word to mover from one window to the next on the kids games..... he didn't really read it.'

"Yep, it says exit. What other words do you know" I asked.

He started pointing around the McDonalds, "That says 'on' that says 'go', that says 'Next'"

"All site words" I though.

Then he pointed to a large sign and said, "That says 'salad'"

I froze and then twitched...... 'Did I just hear that? ok, he's reading."

We went home and he read me Hop on Pop cover to cover.

How old was your child when, and if, you had them tested?
When he went to kindergarten he was 5. He is supposetly "off the charts in verbal and hg in math

How old was your child when you suspected that might be gifted?
Off and on throughout toddlerood, when he'd do a puzzle way over his age, and his drawings have always been above what I would expect.
Then not really for a while between 5 and 6. Then again when school was declared boring and he complained of not having friends. Now doing much better in pull out gt program.

How old was your child when you knew for sure, and what tipped you off?
Still there are days I am unsure! his test results were not unequivocal.
More testing is being done at school this year, so maybe that will firm things up!

How old was your child when, and if, you had them tested?
7.

I was happily oblivious for a good long time, although I thought he was generally pretty clever. Cute too. But early signs were on the very-subtle side. He was more often late on the really obvious stuff...

So - he walked late (17mos), talked late (22-23mos), was generally late on all the gross motor stuff that dominates early development charts... but on the other hand he was really "engaged" with people really early and was always ALWAYS involved with what was going on around him, his fine motor skills were way ahead from very early on (although it doesn't seem to have translated into nice handwriting...), and he was obsessed with books from infancy. I didn't realize at the time that having to prop up your not-yet-sitting-independently 6 month old so he can look at his very favorite book AGAIN for half an hour at a time, carefully turning the pages and studying them... isn't really that common. It was a DK cat book, about 150 pages, hardcover, with pictures of all the various breeds. I still have it in the baby box.

But I think my first smacked-in-the-face-with-it moment was when he was two and we were visiting my sister and waiting for her to have her first baby (two weeks late!) We were in Colorado for the first time, and we had just decided to homeschool him, so I took advantage of the location to pick up some books we couldn't get at home in NC -- the Singapore Earlybird (K4/K5) math workbooks. I figured they were for later. I was mistaken. LOL It didn't really seem weird to me that he could do them, since it was pretty straightforward stuff, but there was one exercise about conservation of volume... which is a classic Piaget thing that isn't supposed to be "there" until something like 7 or 8 years old and I thought, "oh this should be good..." but not only did he get it, he got it without any kind of explanation, and explained it back to me! eeeek! I had never been a fan of Piaget, but that was the first time I thought, "uh oh..."

By the time he was six I was pretty sure -- he flew through curricula at top speed, he had been reading well forever (words at 2 or 3 and books by 4), and he was finally letting on bits and pieces of what he could do to others, so I didn't feel like Jimmy Stewart in Harvey anymore We were concerned that he had some verbal quirks though, which is what led us to test... and I wouldn't have guessed more than "MG" myself before then. Not that I knew there were sub-levels, but I never really thought he was "that high", and I fully expected him to completely take a dive on one section or another.

Even now I think, "Well he could take an AP test... but it's only Stats.. that's not really that hard... not like Calculus..." and I'll probably continue to do that forever! LOL I could probably pop along perfectly happily without considering IQ at all (I mean other than a fascinating statistical problem... lol) but that we have to deal with other people sometimes. At home on our own we just do what we do, but try to participate in anything else anywhere else and I'm glad I have a test report to remind me that I'm not making this up!

My dd (9), I beleieved was gifted when she began reading around 2 years old and would spend hours doing ALL of her wooden puzzles at the same time.

My dd(7), is still in question. She id not an academic kind of kid. School for her is "too boring". BUT, she won't show them what she is capable of. She will be tested in the next few weeks.

[quote=oneisenough]How old was your child when you suspected that might be gifted?

How old was your child when you knew for sure, and what tipped you off?

How old was your child when, and if, you had them tested?

Just some questions out of interest! Hope you are all have a good week so far! [/quote

First clues: 26 months old when he taught himself to recognize numbers 1-5 while staying at a five story hotel for 3 days and riding the elevator each day! Then shortly after that he was able to identify specific VHS tapes from the same series just by looking at the label on a black tape cartridge. He apparently was discriminating the font of the individual titles even though the rest of the label was all the same. It was a great "parlor trick" that fascinated friends and family - especially when he would play games with it and pretend to not know which was which tape. He also could recognize his favorite shows' title on the on-screen TV program guide and would tell us to stop the remote and choose a certain show!

Knew for sure: when we had him tested at 4 yrs 11 months and were told that he had already finished the kindergarten curriculum. That was the first time someone called him highly gifted.

Had him tested: 4y 11m (achievement tests); 5y 2m (ability test and out of level testing); 7y 5m (ability testing - repeated the SB5).

We knew DD13 was gifted since she was a baby. She was born alert and just had very intelligent eyes. We knew for sure when she started talking. She would give us directions in the car, count backwards from 20 etc. Her pediatrician also told us. She was tested at age 9 after we moved to FL (where we lived in NY state there was no gifted program). It turns out she's highly gifted in verbal and she's a talented dancer.

Now DS7 is a different story. We had no clue that he was especially smart. His K teacher told us and we didn't really believe it at first! His first grade teacher noticed after a month of school. So we asked the school to test him and after some "discussion" they did it. He is all around HG+. I started my research on gifted last year when he was having problems in school. We had never had those probs with daughter so it took some investigating to figure out that it was related to his giftedness.

DS5 hasn't been tested yet. But we're sure that he is gifted. I will ask that he be tested this year or next. So far he's happy and learning.

DS7: Suspected?

I knew pretty early that DS7 was GT, but I figured he was MG.

At 8 months, when he couldn't say much more than "no" and "truck," he very scientifically figured out the rules for playing with Hot Wheels cars in the house by trial-and-error: he banged one on the wall with his right hand, I said "no" and he stopped immediately; he changed hands and banged on the wall again, I said "no" and he stopped again; etc. It was very clearly *not* a case of testing limits or ignoring me; he was trying to understand precisely what I was saying "no" to. Once he figured out the rule, he NEVER broke it. NEVER! The idea that an 8-month-old could be that logical, that precise in his understanding and compliance at a time when most BABIES (since he was still really just a baby!) don't even get the concept of rules and following them made his GTness pretty obvious to me. It was the first time I thought to myself, "Huh. I don't think he's like most kids."

He has always showed remarkable persistence and patience. At around that same 8-mo. mark, he was trying to spin those Fisher Price stacking rings (the kind that look like fat plastic donuts). DH and I used to spin them to keep ourselves entertained while DS played, and he took it as a personal challenge to learn how to do it, too, apparently. He spent HOURS each day working on it, though naturally we tried to find something else for him to do, since there was no way he had the coordination to do it. (Not yet, anyway...Give him time!) It was amazing to watch his focus! Surprisingly, after a couple of weeks of practice, he figured out a way to spin the rings that actually worked better than the way that DH and I did it. DS's spins lasted longer.

That has been the hallmark of his brand of intelligence: he has an engineer's mind, so he doesn't necessarily do things faster, but he does them better and earlier than he should. He's a problem-solver for sure. His solutions tend to be brilliant in their simplicity. I can imagine his inventing something that people adore and can't imagine how they lived without, yet so cunningly simple that they all say "Now, why didn't I think of that?" It's how DS thinks.

He also learned all his letters and numbers by age 16 months (knowing many of them long before that) because of an obsessive focus on wooden letter and number puzzles. He was reading "real books" by 3.5yo. Still, I always thought he was MG. It wasn't until the testing that I realized I was off the mark on the LOG...

DS7: Tested?

He was tested (using the CogAT and the WJ-III) and IDd as GT by the public school with no effort on my part thanks to a WONDERFUL K teacher. I was just happy he was IDd; after all, I was still thinking he was MG. So I didn't even see his scores until he was in 1st grade (with a NOT wonderful teacher...) and having behavior trouble--something that was utterly unlike him! I finally saw his WJ scores and freaked out! Not MG! He looked like a candidate for DYS. Things changed all of a sudden!

We tested with the SB5, but had a bad test day thanks to not nearly enough sleep and an illness developing (and probably a bad test fit to boot). He tested as HG+ according to the expert tester, but he couldn't say where DS fell on or above that HG line. The tester recommended re-testing on the WISC, or honestly, we'd have dropped the whole thing. We really didn't want to spend the money or chase a score. It's not like us. But after getting LOTS of help and advice from this forum, we chose to retest on the WISC, and DS7 was ID'd for DYS. I'm very glad we chose to re-test, and I think I would have even if he hadn't gotten DYS-level scores. Testing gave me a much better sense of what I am dealing with.

So his first testing was at age 5y8mos (I think?), and his final testing on the WISC (with no plans for further testing) was at 6y7mos., I think.

*****

DS4 has not yet been IDd or tested. I do now suspect he is GT--more so lately, as his math interest is booming! The boy loves math! (He's adding and subtracting every chance he gets, and he's even been learning the times tables along with his big brother. Hard to miss how unusual that is, right? Even with GT denial in full swing! ) But I have no idea what LOG he is. For now, I'd guess MG, but it could be higher than that as there are some complications to his ID...

DS4 has some recently IDd "visual immaturity" issues that have possibly been masking his GTness. He just got glasses, and we're watching him closely.

I plan to ask the school to test DS4 in K next year. And with child #2, I'll ask to see the scores right away (!!!). We'll figure out what to do from there.

He doesn't present as obviously GT as his big brother. But the math thing is hard to ignore...

I'll get back to you!

How old was your child when you suspected that might be gifted?

Later than most... DS was born with an APGAR score of 0- we were told he would probably be behind for a long long time but that he'd probably catch up around school time. He was on medication that made him dizzy and drowsy until he was 5 mo old. He was either sleeping or screaming his head off to that point. He had maybe 2 words at his 1st birthday. Then he spoke in complete, clear, long sentences at 14 months. People stared at us.


How old was your child when you knew for sure, and what tipped you off?

We looked for daycare at 15 months and two places wouldn't take him. We ended up putting him in a K readiness program at 15 months... that was the big tip off- he could hold his own with 3 and 4 year olds. When she closed, we moved him to a center. He insisted on potty training himself at 2 years 4 months to "get out of the baby room and where the computers are".

How old was your child when, and if, you had them tested?
5 years, 5 months. He tested HG. We expected he'd score a little higher but it could have been ceiling issues.

How old was your child when you suspected that might be gifted?

18 months w/ #1, 12 months w #2, and 12 months w #3 (you just see the signs and believe once you've been around the block).

How old was your child when you knew for sure, and what tipped you off?

almost four w/ #1... I knew nothing of kids. Never spent much time with any before having my own... but when #1 started reading chapter books and everything pointed to kindergarten being a place to sure up your alphabet knowledge, I knew we were hosed. I just thought knowing her abcs, counting one-to-one, recognizing all colors etc at 18 months was cute.

but when #2 recited almost all the lines from mulan at 2.5 after watching twice and then started writting her intials in the driveway with chalk at the same age... well... you just start wondering were in the range of gt you might be headed.

How old was your child when, and if, you had them tested?

5.4, 4.1, and with the summer birthday I can't see why we would with #3 until 5.

If it weren't for issues with schooling... I'd be happy not to officially "know" - it seemed to add some layer of over thinking - some debate on my own choices when before I didn't second guess - added some pressure which I've become more comfortable with now.

How old was your child when you suspected that might be gifted?

We were pretty much clueless; DS 6 seemed bright but nothing different. One early clue may have been when he was 3. My wife and I were doing a slider picture puzzle on the computer, it took me wife about 20min (She�s more verbal) and it took me about 5 min (I�m more visual). DS3 played and did it in less than 30 seconds. We thought to be just luck, he never repeated it, but was able to solve in less than 5 minutes a few more times. We thought he was just good at puzzles, no big deal. It�s funny how your idea of what is average is.

How old was your child when you knew for sure, and what tipped you off?

DS6 had a speech issue, at around 4 we had the local school evaluate him on this, (We thought he would out grow it) they evaluated him and pointed out that he had a lateral lisp, and that he was hg. They suggested a private school that was a bit of a way from us. We called the school and asked if there was a closer school. They recommended the one he is attending now.

How old was your child when, and if, you had them tested?

In order to go to the private school they required testing, one requires an evaluation company to test using a wide array of testing (fine, and gross motor skills, speech, logic, etc...) The other needed a stanford-binet LM. Both done around when ds was 4.4. From that point on we investigated this new world. We where actually not teaching him about reading or math, we had a fear that if he went to school he would not have anything to learn. The psychologist that did the SB-LM, suggested that we start teaching him now, because he is teaching himself, and if he learns something wrong it would be more difficult to correct it latter. She also suggested that we push effort over product with him.

I think the reason it was hard to see at fist was the lisp, and the lack of references. Also DS6 tends to go with the flow. We also did a lot of enrichment at home while he was it Pre-K and public K. It wasn�t until he had friends in K that we could see the contrast.

Great question, it's nice to see how others discoverd their child was gifted.

How old was your child when you suspected that might be gifted?

I didn't have the word "gifted" in our vocabulary yet, but I suspected he was different when he hit milestones faster than the other kids in our early childhood classes, and I stopped talking about new milestones so I didn't make anyone feel bad. I had "What to Expect In the First Year" as a resource, and it said some kids just hit milestones earlier than others, and the others catch up eventually. I couldn't hide when DS started talking at 9 or 10 months. Since DS wasn't as physical as some kids (e.g., he didn't jump until he was 3 or 3.5), I just figured he was concentrating on thinking stuff first, and other kids would catch up, just like he would eventually catch up with physical. Silly me. DS was reading all signs at 2.5, and reading starter books soon after, and quickly progressing, without instruction.

How old was your child when you knew for sure, and what tipped you off?

So, basically, we knew he was different, but didn't think "gifted" until we read an article in the newspaper discussing gifted kids, with a list of ruf's signs of giftedness in preschoolers. I think DS had just turned 3. I then got Ruf's Losing Our Minds, and started thinking he fit into the level 3 pretty well. Then I looked at the kindy curriculum and started worrying, since DS seemed to know it all already at 3. We also started realizing, Hey, we were gifted too (even though DH and I discovered we were both in gifted programs in grade school, "giftedness" was not really discussed in our families, so we didn't think we were really different from other people. Turns out of course all our friends are gifted too.)


How old was your child when, and if, you had them tested?

DS was 4.1 when we had him tested on SB-V, to see if he would be a candidate for early kindergarten. DH was against early kindy due to his bad experience being youngest kid in class (for sports really), I was for early kindy because I was completely bored in school. I still remember sitting in the waiting room while DS was tested, thinking "maybe i'm wrong! maybe he's just a quick learner but not gifted!" We were very surprised to find he was HG+. He did not do math in his head, or act like other HG+ kids i've read/heard about. But we've since learned of all the different flavors of gifted. I cried when I got the report in the mail saying that DS would most likely not find an intellectual peer if we stayed in our smallish city for school, and that he would always need some type of acceleration. But now we try to look at the whole thing as an adventure! (Oh - the recommendation, based on our kid's personality, was don't do early kindergarten, let him play another year. That was quite a relief - one more year of not having to worry too much yet.)

How old was your child when you suspected that might be gifted?

DS5.5 was around 3 years old when I started to get that idea that he may be GT. We knew he was very verbal (sentences by a year old) but he had a gross motor delay that seemed to overshadow his verbal abilities.

I do remember one occasion in particular when DS5.5 was around 22 months old. He reminding me about the time almost 10 months prior that he had fallen off my bed and bumped his head. It was remarkable! He has always had a great memory.

How old was your child when you knew for sure, and what tipped you off?

When DS5.5 started reading without instruction at age 4. I couldn't believe how quickly he went from being a non-reader to reading anything. It happened in less than 6 months time. He also never really did phonics to learn to read. His ability to manipulate numbers was also a sure sign. He learned all about negative numbers with no instruction at the age of 4. He can figure out complex patterns and is a great at computation.


How old was your child when, and if, you had them tested?

DS5.5 was 4 years 9 months when he tested HG+ on the SB-5. He was tested on the WJ-III at age 5 years 1 month to qualify for the DYS.

I also have 2 younger children--DD4 and DS2. Both are already showing signs even though they are soooo different than their older brother. DD4 draws amazing pictures and DS2 can already assemble difficult puzzles. I don't plan to test either one until they are at least 5 or 6 and we need to have testing done.

How old was your child when you suspected that might be gifted?
DS6- I think part of me always assumed I would have smart kids, DH is smart, I'm smart, so it seemed logical. When people started commenting on DS6 when he was 6 months old, I thought they were being polite- DH and I both remember being told how smart we were as kids, it just seemed like the thing people say when they don't want to say your kid is cute, lol. Really though it was a non-issue for us, he was so intense and frustrated so easily that we figured we had bigger problems than him being smart. His preschool teachers all tried to tell us that he was really smart. We smiled and nodded, thinking that "Yeah, but what good is smart when he throws hour long tantrums because he doesn't want to have to pick up his toys?" It never occurred to us that the two went hand in hand.

DS4- I actually thought he was a bit slow because he did everything so much later than DS6. He didn't say a word until he was 2 and then he just started talking in full sentences. I realized afterward that when he started talking, he was speaking exactly like DS6 did at 2, the difference was DS6 had started practicing at 6 months, DS4 *never* practiced. I didn't even realize how much he had going on when we took him for speech evaluation at 3 (his vocabulary was amazing, but he was almost completely unintelligible). The school district starts with a global evaluation and the evaluator told me he was completing tasks they didn't expect 6 year olds to be able to understand. I smiled and nodded, thinking "oh, good, he's not slow then". At 3.5 he was completing 150+ puzzle pieces, that made me really sit up and take notice.

DD2- I'm still in the "suspect" stage with her. She is so different than the boys that it's hard for me to tell. She can use a screw driver to take things apart. When DS4 was learning the sounds the different letters make a few months ago, she was picking it up with him. She wakes me up in the middle of the night to show me new things she can do. At 15mo, when she wasn't really talking during the day even in single words, she woke me up to have a conversation with me. DH told me I dreamed it until she did the same thing the next night and woke him up talking. She woke me up at 17mo to count to 5 for me, then a few weeks later, again to count to 11. I think it's because it was the only time she could get a word in edge wise between her older brothers, lol.

How old was your child when you knew for sure, and what tipped you off?
DS6- I didn't realize just how different he was until he started Kindergarten and the curriculum seemed crazy. The school he was at was supposed to be one of the best and really advanced for a public school, but he knew how to do every single thing for the whole year and had been able to for years. But, even then really, I thought he just needed 1st grade work. When we decided to homeschool him because regular school made him so miserable, that's when I really, really got scared. I went looking for curriculum materials and realized that except for math calculation he was easily working at a 3rd grade level.

DS4- I've just in the last few months really realized just how advanced he is. It occurred to me that he keeps up with DS6, easily. He understands DS6's insanely complicated games, he makes up his own, he discusses things with DS6 and understands the explanations. He listens to my conversations with DS6 and gets what we're talking about, adds his own thoughts, just actively participating in topics that are crazy to be discussing with a 6 year old and doubly so for a 4yo to follow. But, the thing with DS4 is that he's quiet about it. If you aren't paying attention to him, you would totally miss that he's saying anything. He won't talk unless he has your undivided attention and with DS6 demanding all the attention, it's really easy to overlook DS4. It's actually the ways that he's different than DS6 that really highlight to me how advanced he is. DS6 is the kid who asks "why?", DS4 asks "why not?". DS6 will explain in great detail why something isn't possible, DS4 will tell you all the ways you could make it work. I absolutely love the dynamic between the two of them. Add in DD2 with her constant drive to try new things and her fearlessness and the 3 of them will never be bored, lol.

How old was your child when, and if, you had them tested? So far, only DS6 has been tested. He had achievement testing about 3 months ago. We're going to have the boys IQ tested soon, we're just debating on whether to do group testing through a local gifted charter school or to pay for it privately.

That is familiar.

Instead of what age did you suspect your child was gifted, I'll report instances of: "Ummmm, that was really weird."

As an infant strangers stopped, a lot, to engage her and talk to her. I heard a lot of comments about her eyes and much about how alert she was.

At six months obsessed with phone. Always seemed to get a hold of it and seemed to be trying to figure it out. By two she always had someone's phone(real- a toy would not do) and was having imaginary conversations with her "friend", actually pausing at points to laugh and say things like, Oh, I know. If you didn't know better you might have thought someone was actually on the phone.

Nine months would sit and watch an entire Disney movie without stirring and would laugh at the exact same parts every time-This from a colicky baby who spent her first six months screaming bloody murder all the time!

Okay, I'll add this one cause I think it's typical. Used to sneak over to the receiver for the stereo and turn volume all the way up. Then laugh when I turned on the T.V. and almost deafened both of us.

At 10 months she seemed to be communicating with her stuffed animals, hard to explain, you had to be there.

Shortly after and I can't remember(could be up to 14 months) the exact age because I had convinced myself I imagined it, she sight read a word from plain text, no give-away pictures.

Maybe around 15 or 18 months she was counting but not just counting. She was counting backwards and doing other little game like things, clearly playing with them.

More, but dare I bore you.......I will say these events always caused me to have a very "unreal" sensation.

DD6 seemed more "normal", thought she would be the class clown, the "athlete".

At maybe 9 weeks literally spent two days laying on her blanket grunting and turning red and eventually just flipped over from her back to her stomach, or the other way around I can't remember!

I always sang a certain lullaby to her(each girl had their own special one) and she started humming it repetetively at 8 or 9 months.

Started running at 10 months old.

Other than that, she pretty much blended. Except for when she pretended she was a dog for a few weeks at around 2.
We had company from out of town at one point. On old buddy from investment days past and family. She remained in character. That was.....awkward.

DD8 was referred by ped for gifted testing around three. Tested again at age 7.

DD6 was tested right before 5. Test scores were a little lower than sister, but psyd expert opinion, she is the same, bad test day. FWIW- 2nd DD doesn't *look* anything like big sis. Sad to say, I might not have believed it without proof. But that's only because I am an idiot.

It seems like a lot of these are "hindsight is 20/20" things ...

Yes, the doctors and nurses told us that ds6 was crazy alert at birth -- I thought they probably said that to all new parents. He *did* scream at the slightest change -- from the day of his birth, he'd scream if anyone other than ex-h or I held him (try explaining *that* to the doting grandparents! My parents just thought he was b*tchy). He rolled over three times at 3 weeks old and then stopped. People commented on how observant he was while we were out shopping with him as an infant. He was very high needs -- lots of yelling when he wasn't being held, freaking out at noises, etc. "High needs" is a nice way of saying what sort of infant ds6 was.

He tested HG+ when we did have him tested.

But I didn't *suspect* he was gifted until he was at least a year and a half. It just wasn't on my radar. And he wasn't an early talker (lots of ear infections, though he may have talked late anyway), so that wasn't an obvious tip-off for us. That's an important difference, in my mind -- looking back, there certainly were signs, but they didn't make me think he was gifted, just an weird baby!

Did others really think "gifted" at birth because of high awareness? Did you have experience with other gifted newborns, that made your thoughts went right to "gifted"? Because even though there were signs back in the newborn phase with my ds, my first thought certainly wasn't "gifted"! It's definitely more a hindsight thing.

-Hellooooo!

I think that may be it, the second, third, etc. child isn't as obvious because the attention isn't solely on them. They are much sneakier!

I actually remember now, Ped bending down and saying to big sis: "You do NOT do the talking for your sister......" I think ages 3 and 1 or 4 and 2.........

Totally H! Wasn't that brutal? I'm surprised I didn't totally lose my mind!

Seriously, it was awful. I felt so bad for them! And I couldn't do anything to fix it, and he shut his little yap the minute he was back with me or ex-h. It was seriously embarrassing -- but he was a newborn! What was I *supposed* to do!?!

No, I meant me,,,,,,,and you! I literally could not set her down for like, six months.....Argh!

I left her with a neighbor at six months, she foolishly took pity on me. She told me the child SCREAMED for almost two hours without ever stopping. Needless to say, I was never seperated from my child until she was closer to two!

LOL! They sound very similar as babies. He even had a fit with dh when he couldn't nurse ... hours of screaming, and finally I had to come home from my job (I was working at the college newspaper) and nurse him to sleep. It took about 3 minutes and he was out.

I remember walking endlessly around the block, with him in his Snuggli ... and then sneaking him out of his Snuggli onto the bed, and then sticking a pillow next to him so he thought I was there, and then creeeeping out of the room ... and enjoying the 15 minutes until he realized I was gone!

Oh, those days ... I still loved the newborn phase, but he was a little twerp. I'm glad I didn't realize at the time what a difficult newborn he was!

That was DS6, exactly! He literally screamed for his first 6 months. He wouldn't let DH hold him for more than a few minutes at a time, my mom was the only other person he would be ok with and even her it was for an hour max. I did everything 1 handed, the sling was my best friend and to this day I sometimes talk out loud to myself because I got in the habit of narrating my activities. I remember the rest of my family thought that I was just overprotective and needed to let someone else take care of him for awhile so he would "get over it". For some reason, no one ever offered to babysit again after the first time...

It was so frustrating because I was constantly being told it was my fault he was screaming, that if I would just ______, then he would stop. The only thing that cured it was when he started talking and crawling. I think he was just supremely pissed that he knew what he wanted and we were too stupid to understand, lol.

Huh. I'm zeroing in on the early rolling over. Both my DSs rolled over early--like within a few weeks of birth. They didn't do it regularly or reliably, but they both did it, and more than once. We figured it was a fluke and didn't even include that in their early milestones lists, but now you all are making me wonder if it was more intentional than I thought and may be a more common GT trait than I was giving credit for...

Weird.

Kriston -- I totally didn't believe it when he rolled over -- I thought it must have been a mistake! I have a pic of him fighting to roll over at 3 weeks, and then he did it ... it was nutty. And I have witnesses!

I didn't think much of it at the time, other than a nifty party trick ... but it could be there's more to it!

Yes. That was DS4. Fighting all the way. I just figured he was trying to poop and flopped over along the way! :p

DS7 rolled in a way that seemed more accidental...or easy...or something. But he did it more often. It didn't seem like he could control it, but it also didn't seem like he was trying to do something else and accidentally rolled over. It seemed like he just suddenly found himself rolling over. It was odd.

DH yelled at me for putting the baby down on his stomach for a nap once--SIDS being our greatest fear at the time, of course. But I KNEW I put him down on his back. I pointed to the kicked-all-over blanket and DH agreed that it looked like DS must have rolled over. Then DS did it a couple of times while I watched him. It freaked me out!

This was also the kid who got mad and literally threw his pacifier across the room at a few months old! (3mos, maybe? Less than that? He was nowhere near sitting up yet, I know that for sure.) We got the hint and never gave him a pacifier after that, obviously. But that was pretty freaky, too!

This was the weirdest tip off. One day when my DD was about 3 a friend said "she finally grew into her head." I didn't realize she was a big-headed baby.

How old was your child when you suspected that might be gifted?

My eldest's pediatrician kept saying "99th percentile!" starting when my son was only a month or two old.

Also, strangers kept saying "What an awake baby!" Being a brand new mother, I had no idea what they were talking about, and would think "Well, of course he's an awake baby, I mean he's AWAKE, right? He's not sleeping!"

Finally, my mother came to visit when he was 5 weeks old and SHE said it. At that point, I verbalized what I'd been thinking all along and she explained that "awake" really meant "alert." I still didn't fully get it and she explained that most newborns aren't terribly interested in their surroundings. Then I took a nap while she gave Mr. Awake a bottle.

The next one was born 3-4 weeks early but met all the milestones for alertness, including the one-month ones. He was different though: he wanted to stare and stare at stuff starting around 2 months for faces and 4/5 months for animals/books. He would look up at my face nonstop for ten minutes or more when I had him in a Baby Bjorn carrier when he was only 8 or 9 weeks old (people would comment on it). I used to worry that he was going to give himself a muscle spasm.

He wanted to learn about dinosaurs from an extremely early age (1 1/2? ) but we didn't fully get it until he was around 2.

The next one was basically alert on the day she was born. I think the first one may have been too, but I was way too out of it to notice or comprehend. I finally knew what to look for by the time she came along.

My kids aren't PG (not self-taught readers at age two for example); they're probably high MG or HG. Though if you can be PG at prehistoric creatures, my six year old paleontolgist might just fit the bill. He could learn from BBC paleontology documentaries before he was 3.

Silly stuff: one of my cats is kitty-gifted. He can open doors and drawers (especially if they contain food) and flip things over (especially if flipping things will result in him getting food). He also learned our (cat food-related) slang terms within a few weeks of moving in with us. He's a bit overweight, yet knows exactly how to convince people that he is just a Poor Starving Kitty in need of a good meal.

He also squeaks when you pick him up. This is unrelated to his giftedness, but is darn cute.

How old was your child when, and if, you had them tested?

Haven't had the kids tested yet. We may or may not do this.

As for the cat, we just hide the food in increasingly difficult-to-reach places as he figures out how to reach each hiding spot.

V.

Oh, do I ever get that. Mine did this with his baby bottles. They had dinosaurs on them (see my post of a few minutes ago).

I want to add that he does NOT have an obsession with dinosaurs; he simply loves them --- so much so that others around him come to love them too. It's the most amazing thing.

V.

DS8 rolled onto his side when he was only two days old. I remember seeing him and thinking "Hmm. I remember putting him on his back. I didn't think little babies could do that, but what do I know? I've only been a mother for 48 hours."

He rolled from back to tummy when he was ~10 weeks old. He taught himself by lying on the floor, kicking his legs, and saying "Ah! Ah!"

He'd roll over in his crib when I put him to bed. I got wound up and would put him on his back and he'd just flip over again. When he did this in his sleep, I finally realized that he hated, hated sleeping on his back, and this was what motivated him to roll so early.

The next one was the opposite: he would scream if we tried to give him "tummy time," so we never really bothered. He never seemed to want to roll over. Then when I was waiting for the doc at his four month checkup, I decided to see what would happen if I laid him on his tummy, and PRESTO! He rolled over onto his back. Trippy.

V.

Okay, I found DD 6's baby book. She actually rolled completely over at 11 weeks!



Val, love your cat! Did you pick him or did he pick you?

Val, did I get this right: Your kids are not PG, you have not had them tested?

I know I was totally shocked when I had them tested and I hadn't even been to this board yet. Don't you *see* them here. It seems like it to me ((shrug)).

Well, that number IS just a number, anyway. Your kids just sound like a real joy.

I was at the vet's office the other day and I heard this baby say CLEAR as DAY; doggie.
I turned around and asked the mom how old. If I recall correctly she said 6 months. I said: "your baby just said doggie!"

She was like, yeah, sometimes it sounds like she is actually saying words....
I told her I was pretty sure she clearly and purposefully said doggie and that she had a very smart baby.
She was so young.......I didn't want to say anything else, but I walked away chuckling....seemed like she was in for a wild ride!

Hmmm... my kids didn't meet any amazing milestones as babies. I knew there was something different about my eldest girl, but couldn't quite put my finger on it. And didn't put my finger on it until we tested a few months ago (when she was 7). And when my youngest started wanting to read at 3, I kinda thought that was normal. It still stuns me that she has a reading age 3 years above her chronological age. I just assume that all kids love reading as much as she does. Apparently we normalise a lot in this household

I wish I had trusted my instincts and tested earlier...

jojo

Yes, jojo, I'm pretty sure there isn't any conclusive proof of babies hitting milestones early and giftedness. I'd assume there are lots of gifted kids whose families didn't notice anything unusual or different. You can't say your child is not gifted if you read this thread like a checklist....no, no, no, maybe, yes, no, no, no. LOL!

The only study I know that studies this baby stuff in connection with giftedness is Ruf's work. If anyone knows anything else, I would love to read that, too.

I so agree! I think you can probably tell your child is GT if they do a lot of stuff early, but I definitely do NOT think you can determine that your child is NOT GT from a lack of early milestones.

Ruling in? Possibly, yes. Ruling out? No!

Wow - i forgot about this - DS was always craning his neck to look at me. I worried about his neck too, and figured the Baby Bjorn must have had some design flaw to allow this! DS's tiny neck could also support his giganto head from day 1.


That's what I thought about my son BT (before testing)... (Actually, just thought MG.)

My DS also turned over early, very early! OK - pulled out the baby book. He flipped himself in the bilirubin incubator at age 2.5 days. He really didn't want to be there! At home, he rolled over officially at 3.5 months.

DK (Dear Kitty) picked me and I picked him. He was a stray; we think someone dumped him. He was extremely shy and so I made a huge effort to persuade him to like me by leaving food for him and calling him. Eventually he warmed up and moved in. Now he's very outgoing and loves to meet new people. He's sleeping in a sunny patch next to my desk right now.

I suppose I'm making assumptions about my kids based on what I read here, but I could have a case of denial!

My kids are a real joy a lot of the time. They are not a real joy when they are beating each other up. That said, my eldest was a real terror when he was three. The child development people talk about the terrible twos, but no one ever tells you that three is worse!

Val

LOL!

All part of his master plan! Mwwuuuuhh haaaaaa haaa haaaaaaaaaaaaa!

Don't you wish giftedkitty could talk?

My mother and sister both want to take him home. He's such a darling kitty.

We also have two Siamese. O sisters and brothers, do they ever talk. As I type this message, one of them has just entered the room to tell me something. He's saying "Good morning. I want...and you're not..." <pause> I have now given him his special treat (Feline Greenies) and laid the soft blanket on my side of the bed. It's time for morning nap.

Guess I'm pretty well trained.

Val

I knew right from birth that DD was bright because she was soooo alert - she was born with wide open eyes and the first thing she did was to look around and then reacted to my calling by her name.
By two I was pretty convinced that she was MG....

Now I am pretty sure that she is EG.

But because of the multilingual education (four languages from birth) and her visual issues she is not an early reader. She is in fact learning to read now at the school.

The things that tipped me were mainly her alertness and her staring down at people when she was only one week old.

She did roll from back to side very early - by two months she was an 'expert', but I really thought this was normal....

She made remarks about 'Sinterklaan' (the Dutch version of Santa) when she was two and three months and before that she was asking questions about 'real' cats or cows, etc. Again, I thought that this was maybe a little bit advanced but not much.

Something that made me 'click' and say 'aha' was that by three she was comparing herself in a competitive way to other children. As well, her level of pretend play, which has been much more advanced than that of other kids of same age - or even older.

As for cats: I used to be able to speak 'catlanguage' and have long conversations with cats I have lost the ability even though from time to time I manage to thoroughly confuse some poor cat who goes completely crazy looking the for other cat hehehehe.

We suspected very early on, but here is the anecdote that sealed the deal:

He was little over 2 1/2 , and had been reading a little - was always extremely verbal - and I was changing his pull up in the bathroom at a restaurant. He looked up and said, "Daddy, Employees must wash hands before returning to work."

Um...yes......yes, they must....

For me with DS5.5, I think it started to sink in 6 months ago

JB

Hi I'm new but I just love this thread. It actually makes me feel a little normal!

Thank you for posting this Incogneato! We could talk...

Unfortunately, when I tell other people, "I couldn't leave the house for the first five months" they stare at me and I can see they are thinking, "what kind of failure are you?" Speed ahead to 19 months when we took DD to Asia and it was a breeze because it was all new: she found the whole experience delightful - didn't even get jet lag.

i'm late on this thread but here is mine;

DS4 - lots of little things that made me think 'ohh that was odd'.
My real clincher was; When at 2yr 8m(ish) we were out and he was in the pushchair in a shopping center and said 'oh thats silly Thomas is a train he can't cook!'. I'm looking around like a fool trying to see what i thought was a cooking book....then i saw it - Thomas Cook - a Travel agent.

DD<2 - She has this look that you can see she is seriously pondering things. I don't know definitely (i think she is way too young to even think about it) But she does things that are very calculated. She counts 1-10 already, and she draws proper tadpole people.

I suspected he was bright (not gifted yet) when he was 12 months. He said about 100 word already, picked out books to read all the time, and carried letters around in matches that looked similar (M & W, B & P, E & F, etc.) He would always carry matches around of everything. Then at 15 mo he knew his ABC's, colors, shapes, numbers, etc. He played with that leapfrog learning bus one day for 30 minutes and learned all his phonics...and never played with it again. He started reading at 19 months. When he started reading and playing songs on the piano by ear and recognizing composers (and memorizing all our cd tracks)...we knew something was up. (yes I know we were a little slow to catch on because in retrospect that was only half of the obvious stuff). I used to go on a message board for children my sons age and when I posted things about my son doing stuff, people had strange remarks. I didn't understand that the things he was doing was THAT out of the ordinary. Then someone said the word "gifted" and suggested some websites. Before that I had never really known what "gifted" meant or how it presented itself.

DS hasn't been tested yet, we are planning it in the spring shortly before he turns 5.

My DS4 was very alert after birth...and has always needed less sleep than the average child. He barely napped as an infant but always slept good through the night. my dd1 is the same way with her sleeping (although she is completely different than him). He still requires less sleep then most. And when I wake him up in the morning....he always says something quite obscure and interesting even before his eyes are open. It's like he is always thinking. Several months ago before the light was even on he said "mom I did a math problem for you on the floor" I told him I think he was dreaming and he said no it was really on the floor and got up to show me how he had used foam numbers to say "6 + 3 = x" I was a confused until I saw him reaching for a I and he said "oh I messed up....I knocked the I that's supposed to go infront of the X....it's 9 in Roman numerals" wow, I definitely need my coffee before I think at all.

Hello board. I am a new member and this is my first post. I have just recently come across the gifted toddler information and really appreciate this site. I love the question for this string. We always knew the our 2 year old was special but I did not know there was a term until this past week. She was a C-section baby and our doctor was blown away by her entrance into the world. She lifted her own head to come out and he had been in the busy for a long time but never saw that before. She always had strong neck muscles and eye contact and never wanted to be treated like a baby. Always wanted to sit up in your arms. Her first word was 5 days shy of her 3 month birthday and it was elephant. She was talking in complete sentences by 6 months and used proper grammar since the start. Before her 2nd b-day she knew all her colors and even understood primary and secondary colors and how they mixed. She knew all her ABC and the sounds they make. And has talked in complicated 10+ sentences forever. She knows her shapes and understands her left from her right. She can recite books back to you and sings complete songs. She was able to count at a very early age (before she was 1) She knows her opposites and even understands the concept of gravity. I am sure I am leaving something out but this is off the top of my head. And 2 weeks before her 2nd birthday she started reading. She is now 26 months and taught herself addition and subtraction the other day.

My grandmother who passed away when she was 16 months knew she was highly intelligent when she was a little thing and loved to tell everyone how amazing she was.

As for testing I just started wrapping my head around the gifted concept and am curious about testing but don't know how to go about it and when one should do it. Any suggestions for newbie?

Hi, Katelyn's Mom!

Your DD sounds like an amazing little girl Have you read Ruf Estimates of Levels of Giftedness ?

A great place for information on testing is the Hoagies' Gifted Eduction Page

There are IQ tests for two-year-olds:

Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence� � Third Edition (WPPSI� � III) (2yrs. 6mos.)

and

Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales (SB5), Fifth Edition (2yrs.)

These would be administered by a psychologist. You should be able to get a referral from your pediatrician. Most people wait until kids are a little older (4-6?) since two-year-olds are not known for being cooperative But if your daughter has the right temperment, it may be fine to test her earlier. The version of the WPPSI-III for age 2:6 is shorter than the full version, so you wouldn't get as much information about her abilities as you would if you waited a couple of years. I don't know much about the SB5.

I took my daughter to the supermarket when she was 4 months old, and a teenaged guy outside the store saw her, smiled, and said, "Hi baby!"

She freaked out: sobbed until she shook, buried her head in my shoulder, etc. The poor teenager was crestfallen. This shyness continued until she was past 2. It was so bad at daycare that other parents would deliberately look away from her. They knew from experience how she would react if they caught her eye.

My eldest son didn't cry like my daughter, but wouldn't talk to anyone he didn't know extremely well until he was 2 1/2. I knew people who thought he didn't start talking until then! And he wouldn't stop talking at home.

My middle one, on the other hand, has always delighted in talking to anyone, anywhere, anytime.

Val

Cathy A,

Thanks for all the information. I have come across Ruf estimates of levels and have the book ordered. So I should be getting that in the next few days and am sure I will have my nose in it and tagging pages. I found one site with a minimal list of the 5 different levels and from what I could tell she was either 4 or 5 but really want to look at the book because from my understanding it is very detailed.

I had not come across the Hoagies site so thank you for that and will bookmark it.

So again thank you for the information.

You're welcome

And feel free to start a new thread, you may get more responses that way.

Have you read Exceptionally Gifted Children by Miraca Gross? If you order it, make sure you're getting the latest edition.

If you are considering the Davidson Young Scholars Program, you may want to wait until your daugther is at least 3 to test since you would apply when she's 5 and they'll accept test results up to two years from the time of the test.

At two weeks old, I was nursing him. He looked into my eyes very deeply and searched them. I was startled because it was just like an adult would see through you. At 6 weeks, I was interacting with him. I told my husband, "He seems beyond his age in what he's giving back to me." At 14 months, he built a cross out of blocks. Same time, he laughed uproariously at an ironic type of joke on Sesame Street which I never thought he'd get. At 2, he was addicted to 1-2-3-Contact, a science show. And was he precocious and irrepressible. He stood up in kindergarten and announced to the whole class that Santa wasn't real. One little boy was very upset and started to hyperventillate. His teacher called me and was furious.

well, dh and I both come from smart families so our children seemed just normal to us. DS9 has always been intensely focused on learning what he wants to learn - I remember food shopping with him in one of those warehouse stores and him insisting I stop the cart so he can point repeatedly and yell "Dat! dat! dat!" at the large "C" on the sugar bag so I would tell him what letter it was. That was interesting. And his first 6 word sentence was a paraphrase from his favorite book at the time.

And then the first time he "saw" the moon - he was about 9 months old and was absolutely transfixed. Or when he was about 18 months and saw a rainbow, pointed and said "Circle! Round!"

And I know he was less than 2 1/2 (before DS2) when he came into the bedroom one morning singing the "Abc song" then "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" then "Baa Baa Black Sheep" just to let me know they were the same tune (which I had not previously realized!)

Ah yes. DS6 is a totally diffrent kid, yet he was 12 days old when he fixed his gaze on a particular toy, reached out and grabbed it - repeatedly.

He wasn't two yet and couldn't say the word "truck" but could use the phrase "dump car" so, "fire truck" was "hot dump car"

thanks for this thread!

I remember looking at the monthly milestone checklists in the What to Expect... books. Ds seemed to hit all the milestones early, but I thought the authors set up "easy" milestones because they wanted parents to feel good about what the children were doing.

When oldest ds, now 9, was a toddler I got a LOT of comments (and awe) from people. Especially strangers. Hubby and I thought people just communicated like that to make small talk. It was just "something you said" to young parents.

When he was 3, our next door neighbor asked if she could do a Kindergarten screening on him. Apparently she was going to be in charge of screening all the town's K-er's for K readiness the next month and convinced me that she just neeeded a guinea pig. Ds impressed her and she gushed while telling me that he was READY for Kindergarten. (Me, scoffing -- What? He's only 3!)Later I saw how she did the test. What kind of silly rubbish was that? Why do they bother??? (More scoffing from me.) Okay... I now better... NOW.

Later that year his sister was born. She was very alert, as he had been, and repeatedly tried to throw herself out of my arms in order to join her older brother in play. She kept trying to look past me -- at him. (I kept getting in her way, apparently, and she was miffed at me.) She was 2 months old. The very next month she was laying on her back on my lap, grabbed my shirt, and pulled herself into the sitting position. Strong kid.

At 18 months she pulled off the diaper and told me she was going to use the potty from now on (no previous attempts at training). She had no accidents and was instantly "potty trained." Okay. I remember thinking that THAT was a bit unusual.

When dd was 3 she walked up to a violin teacher at her big brother's Suzuki school and introduced herself as the woman's new student. Although this particular school usually takes the kids at 4, the teacher was tickled and agreed that dd was ready. During one of her first lessons dd was asked what the violin was made of. Her answer? "Molecules." (I told myself it was because she was listening to her older brother, then 6, and I discuss molecules in his science book.) Great teacher, BTW! Without missing a beat she asked dd "What KIND of molecules?!" We LOVE her!

3 year old dd also built Lego walls and yelled from the other room about the "Mondol hosemen coming!" Her brother had been reading about the Great Wall of China. See, there's always a "reason" they know these things! I still didn't get it.

I broke down and had the two older kids take the WPPSI and WISC IV when they were 4 and 7. Ds was in shock at the results. (I had tried to tell him what I suspected, but he insisted that all mothers thought their children were smart.)

The third child (now 2) doesn't seem to be setting off any alarms, but then, each child has been so totally unique anyway. When he was a year old he was screaming "A!" in the supermarket and pointing behind me as I was in line at the checkout. He was grabbing my face and trying to turn my head. I was a little slow on the uptake -- finally figured out that he was showing me a large letter A in one of the signs hanging from the ceiling. The elderly gentleman behind us in line was very impressed, but I tried to explain it away: "He doesn't even talk yet. His name starts with A." Thought that would help. At this point I had already learned that the two older kids were "gifted" according to those tests.

Littlest ds *is* showing interest in learning to read, pointing to words everywhere, asking what everything says, demanding that I run my finger under the sentences as I read aloud to him... But he's not reading yet. He *does* wake up in the middle of the night to use the toilet (without wetting the bed), but he isn't day-time potty trained yet. He has an extremely active imagination (copying older siblings?). He repeats EVERYTHING everyone says by starting with "he said." This kid never stops talking, but he didn't say his first sentence until after his second birthday. Just another kid in the family... Gifted? Who knows. I decided it doesn't matter.

Smiles,
Kate

san54,

That is hilarious. I was that kid that insisted it was just not logical. I told my mom when I was 3 that Bunnies don't lay eggs and later argued that Santa had way too many hand writings. My DH is scared to death that our DD will take after me and by her already logical approach to everyday, his fear is probably justified.

Don't panic. A logical kid can make life a lot easier for a parent. Since about age 8mos., I could explain why a rule was in existence to DS7, and once he understood the logic, he would follow the rule without argument. It made things soooooo easy!

Logic is a lot simpler than emotional freak-outs for no apparent reason...which is what I'm getting from DS4 (still!).

I have another logical child here. At DS5's Harvest Party on Friday Night at school he only lasted about 10 minutes into the Magician Show. He just couldn't take the fact that the guy was trying to trick everyone since magic is just slight of hand. He thought the jokes were too babyish and corny--he told me that, "He just needed to get out of there!"

Just wanted to say first that I love this site, wish I had looked for something like this sooner! Anyway this is my first post!

How old was your child when you suspected that might be gifted?

I didn't, my sister-in-law did when DD5 was about 6 or 7 months old, she commented that babies just don't know all their body parts at this age

How old was your child when you knew for sure, and what tipped you off?

I was starting to get it when she knew all her ABC's before she could say them (12 months) We use to play this game in the bathtub, I took little sponge ABC's and would toss them into the tub in no order, I would ask her to pick the _ letter and she would get it. She was deep in thought one day and blurted out Mommy begins with the letter "M" mmmmmmmmmmm ,she was 18 months old, shortly after that she was reading the street signs not just "stop" and "no right turn" I mean street names. entering kindergarten she can read anything you or I can. Also before 2 years she could count to 100 by 1's, 2's, 5's, 10's. There's so many more things I could go on and on

How old was your child when, and if, you had them tested?

Have not had her tested yet, Did not have her in pre-school or daycare so this year is a new school experience, and so far she loves it. (although she's already told me she wants to go to 2nd grade now) she's 5 and just started kindergarten, her teacher has already talked to me and said she has a photographic memory, we have conferences next week so I'm really looking forward to it.

Paula