Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion how old was your child when you suspected...

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?