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When did you first realize your son or daughter was gifted or possibly gifted?

Lol. About a year ago. And she's 13. (for gifted, possibly gifted came in 1st/2nd grade, and then stayed until 5th grade at "just really bright")

We are under the possibly gifted stage since my DD is 2 1/2. She was an unusually baby but as her mom I kept making excuses for all that she did and being my first and only child I really had nothing to gauge her against. I looked at milestones when she was around 2 weeks and quickly dismissed them as ridiculous since DD had mastered all of the milestones up through 3 months. I had not placed the term gifted into the equation until right around the time I joined this board. I knew she was a smart cookie but did not have a term for it.

I still have days where I ponder just how gifted could she be but at this age it really doesn't matter. I just know she is not 'normal' for her age. We just got back from a trip and we were waiting to board our plane so she was super excited to fly again and to come home. She ran up to a group and they asked her where she was going which she quickly responded Austin. The older gentlemen after talking to her for a few short minutes wanted to know how old she was which I responded 2 1/2. He mistook it as me saying 3 1/2 and was flabbergasted that she was only 3 1/2 and that just could not be. When he was corrected his mouth dropped opened. He made it clear that there is no doubt that she is a highly intelligent child. I guess we as parents just live in the moment that simple things tend to escape us or we become numb to it all. I am use to her language and cognitive abilities and think nothing of it but to strangers it is apparently clear. But for now since I have no real proof (meaning tests) I will comfortably place her in the possibly gifted category.

My first one's pediatrician kept saying "99th percentile!" at well-baby checkups when he was a very young infant. I remember he said "Now, if he turned his head to a noise, that would be REALLY out there..."

I was having a giftie-keep-quiet! reaction at that moment and didn't say that, yes, DS would turn his head when I shook his rattle. I guess I decided it was enough for me to know. Looking back on it right now, I think the doc really wanted to see this reaction in a very little baby, so I probably should have shaken something! Oh well.

Val

I wonder whether your doctor was teasing you? I wondered whether it was just that I had a giftie too that made me think it's perfectly normal for very young babies to turn their heads towards a noise, but no, here it is as a common thing in the 0-1 month age range:
http://ukfamily.co.uk/lifestyle/hea...birth-to-one-month-what-baby-can-do.html

On the third day after mine was born, DH was holding him a few feet away from me, and I waved at him. He waved back, and I was convinced it was deliberate. Only happened that once though, so I suppose it must have been coincidence. Still...

By the way, this, The Social Baby, is a really fascinating book, e.g. to give as a present to someone who's pregnant. By showing frame-by-frame analysis of very young babies' movements, they show that even in those very early days (ND!) babies can and do communicate.
http://www.socialbaby.com/shop/product.asp?P_ID=403
I remember being afraid, before giving birth, that it might take a while to start thinking of my baby as a real person: I couldn't quite imagine forming a real relationship with someone whose communication options were so limited. In the event, it was never an issue: maybe because as parents we naturally learn to pick up even their subtle communications, even if consciously we don't know how we're doing it?

When DD3 was a few days old, DH sat down with her, held her up and held the camera out and snapped a few pictures of them both. She's looking right at the camera with great apparent interest in several of the pictures. She lifted her head up and looked around the day she was born. But it took me a few years before I realized that that was unusual. I didn't conclude that she was definitely gifted until she started reading at 2.

Last month when we got her IQ scores back. DD is 6 and in grade 1 She always seemed more like a high achiever to us. oops!
However, I have thought my DD2 son was gifted since he was 1yo. He had learned his letters on his own, and had a very advanced and intense vocabulary.

Similarly, days to weeks old, DS5 would pout on queue. Pouty Face became part of his nickname.

And looking back at another thing. I can remember at DS5's 24 mos well check appt, our pedi asking about how many words were in his vocabulary. She wanted to make sure he had at least 20-30 or something similar. And when I said he had at least 200 or so, she reacted in a way I should've picked up on. It wasn't that she was shocked, but it was more of a "I knew this kid isn't average".

With DS9, when he was a day old he looked at me with the wisest expression on his face that it is seared in my memory. At four months, he would acknowledge my question as to whether he wanted to nurse (without my giving any physical clues) by panting loudly and turning his head toward me. He would also look directly at things if you said "where's the....?"

When he started learning the alphabet at 12 months (he would crawl over to a letter on our alphabet puzzle mat and smack it when you called it out), that's when I KNEW he wasn't a "normal" baby.

For my DS7, he was a very alert baby from birth. What made me certain he was gifted was when he was 18 or 20 months old, and I held him up to a window and said "Look at the pretty birdy." He turned in my arms and dryly replied, "It's a robin, actually." He had a 250 word vocabulary by 18 months, which I remember his Kindermusik teacher commenting on with great surprise.

Fun to have a "safe" place to tell these stories....