Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school Is our 8-month-old gifted?

Our 8-month-old is our first child, so we have no prior experience on how advance a child should be at 8 months old. Plus, I am afraid to ask my friends as they might think I am bragging.

- When our son was about 3-4 months old, my husband was counting with his fingers, our son would also raise his hand trying to count.
- He loves to read and do flashcards. We do it mostly to keep him entertained. We have been doing this since he was around 4 months old.
- We read the same 8 books to him about 3 times a week for the past month. When I read him the words from the books without the books being around, he starts laughing.
- When I read him the words from one of the books and have two books in front of him, he can correctly pick up the book which the words have come from.

The last one really scares me. Is that normal for a 8-month-old? Of course, I am happy that he is bright, but I am not sure we are ready to deal with a gifted child.

Hi HelloBaby.

Welcome to the board! It sounds like you have a happy joyful baby but really couldn't tell from the list you give if he is gifted or not. The best thing I could suggest is read Deborah Ruf's book: "Losing Our Minds". She goes into infancy and signs of giftedness.

Thanks Katelyn's mom!

Our son loves to watch TV ever since he was 3 months old. If you let him, he can sit still in front of the TV for a long time. Of course, we only let him watch TV when we want him to sit still (e.g. clipping nails, drying his hair, etc). I have no idea it might be a sign of giftedness. I have tried to put my hand to block his line of vision, and he would try to push my hand down so he could continue watching TV. It was cute at first until we can no longer watch TV in front of him.

Hi, if you haven't looked at Hoagie's yet, it is a great place to read up on giftedness... Parents Page of Hoagies
Identifying gifted kids can be easy or very hard, but I think infancy makes is quite a bit more of a guessing game.

Search on 'infant' at the hoagie's site and you will probably find some good stuff to start in reading.... have fun with your baby, and reading around here too! Welcome.

Hey,

I'd second reading Ruf's book. It helped us out a bit in understanding DD7mos. I also found this website to be useful. Hoagies is also good. From what I've read giftedness is most accurately tested at 5 years old or older but if an infant/toddler is showing advanced skills across the board it's a pretty good sign that they are gifted.

Something else to think about. Were you or your partner gifted? Maybe some family members? Another thing that I've read is common in many gifted babies/toddlers is an intensity to them and early alertness.

Early advancement in a single milestone doesn't necessarily automatically mean gifted. As my husband likes to point out he has some cousins who were walking already by 7 months and they were really dumb (his words NOT mine...). I can't really say by what you listed there but maybe check out those websites and that book and it will hopefully give you a better insight into your baby.

Most of us are still not ready LOL
Welcome!

I grew up in another country, so I was not tested for giftedness. However, I am in a profession where many of my colleagues are gifted. My husband is not gifted.

I got in a lot of trouble during grade school. I talked nonstop in classes but still did very well in school. In retrospect, I was probably bored.

DS is not advanced physically at all, but he is right on target on most physical milestones. DH and I both work full-time, and we are tired when we get home. But DS wants us to read him books and do flashcards with him. When we stop reading/doing flashcards to him and put him on his highchair, he cries and throws all his toys onto the ground. I know we sound like bad parents, but we can�t just sit with him all evening long. If we get lucky, sometimes he will play by himself. He likes to push his toys to the edge of the highchair, see how far he can push them before they drop onto the ground, and then stare at the toy which he just throws onto the ground. Rinse and repeat until he is out of toys. Then he cries again.

How do you keep your child occupied/entertained?

Being physically advanced is by no means necessary for being gifted, it's just one possible sign (the same with early reading, etc.). I know I was pretty on target with my milestones as a kid and ended up testing gifted in elementary school. The only things my parents noticed when I was young was that I never slept and I had an obsession with shape sorters at about 10 months.


Good question.. my MIL is with us for the summer so we basically rotate her between 3 people. :-) Her favorite toys right now are wooden building blocks (not really blocks,but various wooden shapes that are GREAT for doubling as teething toys) and her foam floor mat that has numbers on it (she likes to pull the numbers out). I'd also suggest lots of CDs and music. It does get annoying when you've heard veggie tales for the 6th time in one day, but DD loves it. I also play an instrument and she settles down almost immediately if I bring it out and play for her (although she spends most of the time trying to grab it from me). Also, we read to her quite a bit and she's a big fan of the Very Hungry Caterpillar and Goodnight Moon. Walks are always a good thing. She loves the park and will just sit and people watch, it's the only time she's quiet!

We always hoped to be simple parents that just gave their child a few toys. Then DD came along and, well, we realized a larger variety of toys was directly linked to our sanity.

Since my DD is turning 3 this weekend my memories of how she was as an infant and what we did to keep her occupied are a little foggy. She was a very demanding baby and never slept. All my friend's had babies who would take those typical naps we all have heard about but I never had that. So on top of the kid that never slept; we also had to constantly entertain her. My mom refreshed my memory a few months back about my frustration with it all by reminding me how I use to say "Everyone else has a baby, I clearly don't have a baby!" The kid never wanted to lay back even as a tiny thing but was constantly doing tummy crunches to sit up, so we had to hold as such or deal with a very upset child.

The nice thing for me is I had immediate family in the area and utilized them A LOT, b/c really what made DD the happiest and content was interacting with other humans. Her favorite time was having someone read to her. Actually books were her entire world when she was still a baby. By 6 months she was pointing at images and asking "What's this?" and "What's that?" building her vocabulary and this is when she found some little abc block books that she would want to go through. By 9 months she had learned all her abcs.

We also utilized the TV and this one DVD from tinylove that came with an interactive stuffed dog. (She was around 3 mths old when she started watching it.) She loved that DVD and would sit calmly through it all. Was a great tool when I was home by myself and needed to get something done! Other than the one DVD it was pretty much constant interaction with DD. She wouldn't have it any other way.

Wish I had the magic formula figured out that would give you a break!

Hi there!

I'm new to this board and even though I haven't formally introduced myself, I wanted to chime in on this post!

I bought Dr Ruf's book when the term "gifted" was brought to my attention a couple months ago in regards to my DD ( now 3yos, 3mos). It did answer a lot of questions! It helped me evaluate where I think my dd is at in terms of Ruf's levels of giftedness.

Another great book I found helpful is James T Webb's "A Parent's Guide to Gifted Children". This REALLY answered questions too. Example- I wondered why my dd didn't "stick out" but I believe it's because she is in the 125-140 IQ range - bright enough to whiz through school and a job but not bright enough to stand out. Webb's book pointed that out to me. Which actually correlates with the level I am comfortable at putting my dd at - a lower level 2.

I would recommend those books to you as well. My dd isn't old enough to test but it does give me a direction with her.

My only "hang up" right now is believing that ALL children aren't like this as it's so normal to me!!