Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums nature versus nurture and milestones

I have been following the thread titled, "Is my 2 year old gifted?" It has turned into a discussion about milestones and has sparked a few questions for me.

Are gifted children born or made? I know there are so many of you that have brilliant kids and they are just born with their incredible ability to learn, but are all gifted kids like that?

I teach my daughter. For example: I don't do flashcards with her or anything like that, but I certainly answer her questions in great detail when she asks me what something is or what it does. I am sure she learned a lot from the books we read. She learned her colours very early from a book about colours that she made me read to her at least 30 times a day. She learned her letters and sounds very early, from a Leap Frog toy that was given to us. She speaks in very complex sentences, and I think that is because she is an only child and we talk with he a lot and have the time to listen to her. She is starting to add and subtract, because I taught her.

I am not at all saying that I am a great teacher (!) I think what i am saying is that I think most kids can be taught.

So I guess I am wondering...if dd was not exposed to all of that she would fall somewhere else on the milestone checklists (i.e. not gifted?).

What about the kids that learn to read from programs like "Your Baby Can Read". Or the IAHP. Are they gifted? Smart kids? Or simply kids that were exposed to certain teaching methods?

What do you think?

There was a nature vs nurture thread a few months ago, and a more recent one too. I'll try to find them. I found the first one: Opinion, nature vs nurture

But I think some of what you're talking about might be a bit of GT denial. If you spend any time with ND kids, they do not ask the questions like your DD does. And when you talk to them at the level you talk with your DD, I'm going to bet you will get a lot of vacant stares. Just my opinion...

I do think there's a combination of nature and nurture, but I think how far the nurturing can go depends on the nature to begin with. imho.

Ditto that.

thank you for the link! Looks like I have my bedtime reading!

I do actively teach DS now at 5 1/2. I probably started when he was about 3 1/2. But before that? We did not teach him anything purposefully. I answered his incessant questions but didn't go chasing stuff or flashcard him.

He's a prime example of nature. He was born early, APGAR score of 0, slow to develop and we were told that hopefully by 3 he'd be "normal" but it was likely that he may not ever fully catch up to average. When he had just a few words, none intelligible to others at 12 mo, the pediatrician said that he'd get it eventually and to just keep talking to him. By 14 mo, he was speaking in complete paragraphs with nearly fully-intelligible speech.

The two things I attribute it to the most is taking him of medication for severe acid reflux and perfectionism. He had been on this medicine from 3 weeks to 5 months old (at which point he wasn't crawling or rolling over). It was like a whole different child appeared in my house about a week later. He was suddenly interested in the world around him, rolled over and began trying to crawl in the same week. And the perfectionism- I've seen it now time and time again. Ds will not present something in "public" until he is certain he has it down perfectly. My guy never toddled... he walked late-ish, but he literally RAN. Same with talking, same with so many other things he does every day now!

I often wonder why it seems (particularly at school) that children develop on an even slope, rather than in a stair step pattern. My younger dd is definitely a "stair step" child. I will say that in between the leaps can be a painful place for all involved.

That is her nature! I do teach her but not with flash cards and workbooks, but using functional situations. She loves to cook, she loves to care for the dog, she likes to order things so we use that as learning situations.

We have no idea what APGAR scores or anything else surrounding her birth or early life was, but she is sensory fragile and it seems like when she isolates her self with frequency, we are in for another huge jump in skill.

I think that is what miffs her teachers. One day she is at level 1 and a week later she is at level 10 (generally speaking). It is not because I have done "drill and kill" either. It's just the way she is.

just ramblings that help me comprehend my dd!

I haven't read the other string about this topic, so what I am about to post is probably already stated in the other string but since I just read this section in Palmer's book I thought I would add it.

Basically giftedness results from both environmental and genetics: AKA nature vs. nurture. The more dendrites and synapses one has the greater the brain power and some experts believe that the gifted have denser connections. The question still not answered by the scientists: Are gifted children born with more dendrites and synapses or were they basically normal and it is the loving, learning environment they live in during their early lives that cause them to develop the connections so rapidly?

Austin recently posted an example we can use here that would support the nurture side about some friends that adopted a child from another country who when tested was determined to be mildly retarded, but after having the child for about a year the opposite is true and the child shows signs of giftedness. But was the child's brain already denser with connections at birth but b/c the nurture was not there they 'dulled'?

My personal opinion FWIW is that gifted children, especially the HG+ ones are born with denser connections in their brains. This would explain my DD lifting her head from birth (literally! since she was a c-section baby and decided to help the doctor out.) and focused eyes before 1 week of age. And said Hi by two weeks. And ... well I could go on and on but you get my drift.

I am not convinced that the lower levels of gifted are nature but IMHO nurture. This is where I talk reading stats. The typical middle class family reads about 1000 hours per child by the time the child is 5. The typical low income family reads about 25 hours per child by the time the child is 5. (I could be off but I know it was close to 25.) And before you go there I am not saying the You have only read 1000 to your child b/c gifted children tend to be obsessed with books. I know mine is and before she was two we can safely say we hit that 1000 hour mark.

So why talk reading stats? It shows the nurture side and those kids that are above the 1000 hour mark probably show signs of level 1 and maybe 2 giftedness. Everytime a child is read a book that he/she is interested in it produces emotions and later simple comprehension of the objects talked about and all of this results in dendrites and synapses. Of course I am not even getting into the learning toys and blocks and well you get were I am going with that.

I have read the entire nature vs. nurture opinion thread from last spring. So interesting! The anecdotal stories, plus all the reading everyone has done to put their own situations in perspective is really very valuable to me.

We are in the process of adopting (WOO HOO! YIPPEE!) our second child.

Our firstborn came out of me, after a high risk pregnancy during which I wretched for 9 months, had to be hospitalized many times for it, and could never really walk or stand for very long during the pregnancy. So DD had little nutrition in utero and the only movement she was subjected to was the shaking of reverse parastalsys. She came into the world MAD, with the strongest neck and back you can imagine. She knew exactly who I was 3-4 days after birth (APGARS 4 and 8). She was only comforted by my holding her 24 hours a day and either nursing her, bouncing her on an exercise ball or letting her sleep/nurse in my arms. If I believed in reincarnation I would swear DD was reincarnated from a marsupial.

She had digestive issues and I did read others who said collicky babies who need to be bounced end up developing more wrinkles in their brains and go on to have more synaptic connections. (Sorry if I butchered that concept in my loose quote.) I've also read studies done on touch/neglect and brain development, and surely the fact that DD was on my person 24-7 qualifies her in the "high degree of touch" category, which may or may not contribute to her IQ. (I personally believe it is the touch aspect of breast feeding that impacts the breastfeeding-IQ relationship, so I also believe bottle feeding + touch can produce the same results. Just my humble opinion.)

So we just attended an Attachment Parenting workshop in preparation for adopting our 8 month old baby boy in a few weeks. Much of the material was on bonding, touch, and brain development. Neural development and synaptic connections are vastly improved with touch as well as response. All kinds of positive attention from a primary caretaker - singing, talking, feeding, holding, carrying, diapering, bathing, you name it - contribute to neural development. Having one caretaker who is always available to meet needs is very helpful for brain development too.

So I just wanted to add Attachment Parenting to this discussion, since our firstborn DD forced us into practicing it, despite our best intentions LOL, and our second child will be benefitting from it as well.

Incidently, his birthmother is a total resourceful survivor and this little baby who was born 2 months premature is already saying a few words and walking with his walker at 8 months. I think the birthmother, whose family is extremely dysfunctional and unsupportive, is quite bright and perhaps gifted.

How exciting! I hope all goes well, and you are soon the parents of baby boy

We also were forced into attachment parenting with DD, although I had never heard the term at the time, lol!

DD suffered a broken clavicle at birth due to shoulder dystocia and also had "colic" which turned out to be caused by severe food allergies. She was a very needy, fussy baby. I did lots of carrying with the sling and breastfeeding. It seemed impossible to put her down. She was exhausting!

seablue congrats!!! I think that is wonderful. Our DD was our miracle baby b/c we were not suppose to be able to get pregnant. We stated a long time ago that if we can not have one of our own we would adopt. Even though God blessed us with our beautiful DD we are still considering adoption. I always told my DH that I would want to adopt an older child b/c they are the ones that tend to get lost in the system. So when our DD gets older our plan is to adopt a child around 8 or 9.

I know that your beautiful baby boy will be a welcome to your family and will receive all the love in the world! Again, what wonderful news.