Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school developmental patterns

Further to the grand quest of sorting out who this little critter is...

Asside from being early on "regular" development, DS shows a regular pattern where he seems to simultaneously follow a fairly standard developmental sequence, and a very non-standard one. So, for example, he can stand on tiptoe, jump, and walk backwards... sometimes. He is also in the two steps at a time phaze. It's as if he's reading ahead in the book, and trying out stuff from a couple of chapters ahead while working through the chapter he's on.

Has anyone else seen this kind of thing? Does it remind you of anything? I know a couple of other kids who are following a pattern similar to DS's and are just a little bit older, but none of them do this dual track thing... but I think I do. Or at least I have on the last few courses I've taken. I hadn't really thought about this a lot until just a minute ago, and now I'm seeing the pattern in a lot of aspects of my life, as well as DS's, when before I'd only really noticed it in his speach patterns.

Thanks,
(and yeah, I know I'll never really figure him out, but 'cha can't stop me from trying...

DS9 seemed to want to be ahead with many things beyond what he was capable. I wish I could remember examples. But it was like a desire to run before he could walk. These were physcial things as well as learning things. Write this stuff down or you may forget the examples like I do.

DS7, when in preschool, would approach a manipulative at school and go beyond what I was thinking was the obvious goal and amaze me with something more complex.

The surprizes are fun.

I'm not completely sure what you mean. DD has been so early with everything I have no idea what is normal or in which order kids should learn things. She usually gets interested in something suddenly and takes huge leaps for a while, then loses her interest and gets to another thing. At 7mo she learned to crawl, stand up with out holding, walking while holding on to something the same day. At 9mo she started to talk and was trying constantly to learn new words. At 10mo she started walking and could walk long distances, climb, run, jump and kick all at the same time. She also did not have any interest in puzzles when she suddenly got almost obsessed with them going from 9 piece to 48 in two months now she very rarely does any puzzles. I don't see her following any kind of developmental schedule. It is like she can do and learn anything she chooses.

Ok, I'm thinkin' this isn't a really common thing.

I'll try and clarify a little more, but I'm not sure it'll really help

Basically, he seems to have two tracks of development going on, one in which he's doing things in a normal developmental sequence, a bit earlier than most kids do, but nothing extreme: he matches an "average" 12 month old most of the time (at 9mos), but sometimes, usually for about a half hour a day (not necesarly all in one block) he seems to kinda hit a stride, and then he does things that are all over the map in terms of normal development... there's no rhyme or reason to it at all. An example is that he can generally walk a couple of steps at a time. But since about 7 months, he's walked a significant distance about once or twice a week. When he takes off walking, he walks like an older toddler, when he takes a couple of steps, he moves like a baby. It was confusing when he was doing the "breakthrough" walking, but not yet actually walking... It's still a bit confusing....

I've been doing something like this with my schoolwork... I read the whole course, and while I'm working though the part I'm on, I jump ahead and do some of the most difficult parts of the rest, and then just keep modifying them as I go, until it's time to actually submit them. I thought I was being clever about eficient studying, but now my 9 month old is doing the same thing, so 'ya know

Anyway, like I said, I'm just trying to understand him. I tend to overthink things, so I'm overthinking this! In fact, I am overthinking this post right now, so I'm gonna stop and just post it now!

He is so young that being 3mo early in development is a lot (1/3 of his age). Maybe it is more like he can do the harder things but chooses to do it the easy way. DD does it a lot. She can read some now but if you ask her to read she most likely just walks away or answers something silly like her name.

Mmm... It's enough precocity to be noticeable, especially in a kid who doesn't put up well with being bored or prevented from pursuing his interests, but it's actually on the early edge of normal. Not as extreme as some of what you're describing, for eg. He's exactly on track with most of my friend's kids, and if he weren't as demanding as he is, I'm sure I would never have started feeling like I needed a forum like this anywhere near as early. (That and a certain lack of support from DH, which is a long story, and which is improving)

I do suspect that what we're dealing with is "smart baby syndrome," and that most of my friends, being gifties, have produced little gifties. And we've just got a whole mess of little gifties wandering around making it look average . I doubt we're dealing with the extremes a lot of people here discuss, though! (well, on second though, probably one of the bunch IS...)

I'm "2e," I'm vaguely hoping he doesn't have the troubles I had. My issues started showing at about the age he is now, so I'm likely worrying too much. Well. Ok. So... I've always been a little intense, eh? I'd be worrying too much even if I didn't have an excuse. One of the reasons for being on here is so I work my thoughts through where he won't hear about it, or be too affected by my questions.

I fall a little bit into the "don't tell 'em" camp. I totally understand where that falls apart, but I, DH, the teenager I'm currently tutoring, and probably most of my friends have been badly affected by some mistimed and misdirected messages about this stuff.

Ok, I'm done now...

I think I'm following what you are pondering and saw similar patterns with my DD when she was a baby. Even before she walked she was kicking and throwing balls. She is also a little perfectionist so her walking was grueling for us. She was early on sitting up (Started at 3 months and was leaning back balancing with her feet in the air by 6 months) but when it came to walking she would cruise with no problems and insist on someone holding her hand before she would step away from furniture. But the minute she was confident in her walking she let go and never looked back. She practically started running soon after. But in all fairness, I found DD's gross motor skills on the average side compared to her fine motor skills and verbals so I didn't pay that much attention to gross other than the fact that she wasn't behind and she wasn't. She officially started walking by herself when she was 14 1/2 months but could have probably walked at age 12 months if she wasn't such a perfectionist.

I have noticed during the past year during her 2 year age that she has great eye hand coordination. She is able to use a baseball bat and hit the ball when thrown to her and usually connects with the ball at least 70% of the time which seems impressive for that age if I consider most kids in Kindergarten do T-Ball with a stationary ball. She also has great control over a soccer ball and can throw tennis balls great distances and with great control. But I suspect this has more to do with how earlier she started doing these tasks (around 6-9 months).

I will have to ponder your analysis to consider if I have more examples for you ... I'm sure I do because what you describe just doesn't seem abnormal in my world anyway. I think my problem is it wasn't so much a 'trail run' as she worked on the first stage but more of this is the task I want to master and this is what I'm focusing on, if that makes sense.

Yes, I can very much understand this. At 9 months our pediatrician said that DD was about on par for an average 12-13 month old. When she was at 12 months she was closer to a 18month old so we've seen her progression accelerate since then. There were some things that she was quite a bit ahead on, for instance, her imagination/pretend play. Also before she was even walking she was able to walk up and down stairs by herself by just holding onto the railing. Ironically, now that she's a pro at walking/running she can't go up the stairs as well!


I actual can think of a number of examples where DD was "reading ahead" as you put it. Another example was that DD started talking at 6 months. She could say about 5-6 words and had about the same number of signs. But then she's just never talked consistently. Now she's 13 months and has a vocab of 30+ words but still isn't talking consistently and only uses a handful of those words on a daily basis. She's even used some short sentences but again, not often. However, she has a HUGE receptive vocab and is able to convey pretty much everything she wants through pointing, grunting, etc. and answer our questions/commands. My mom said I was the same and just started talking in full sentences someday so maybe DD will do the same? Who knows... I think a big part of it is that she just has so many things going on and is interested in so many different things that she's not just developing one skill at a time. DD's always been very interested in developing her gross/fine motor skills besides just her vocab so I think that probably plays a big role too. She's also become obsessed with words/letters/numbers lately. 2


That's so funny. DD was the same way. At about 8 months? we had a toy mouse that we'd throw to our cat and she'd play fetch with it. Well, around that time DD started to throw the mouse to our cat. We've also played soccer at home since DD was really young! I'm *hoping* that she'll follow in my footsteps and play (definitely NOT going to force it, but one can hope, right?).

This is exactly why DD started throwing. She had to play with her boys (2 golden retrievers) which meant a lot of time with tennis balls. Now she throws them farther than I do. I'm definitely not athletic, but my DH is and I see a lot of him in DD. Since I'm an artist I think I can claim the eye hand coordination. But I completely understand the hopes that your child will follow in your passions. DD is really getting into art right now and loves sitting on the floor with me and my art pencils working on drawings with me. I will always keep her supplied with art materials and expose her to different art (ie. visiting museums), more because it is a love of mine and though I don't expect her to be some great artist; I do hope she develops a love and appreciation for it too. This said, I already see issues with her drawing with me and maybe not really a big deal but she is my perfectionist and is frustrated that her skills are not up to par with mine. I have already had to explain that mommy has many more years of drawing and her (DD's) drawings are wonderful. I just hope her comparison game does not stop her from trying.

on kicking: I will forever treasure the memory of DS, when he was very little indeed, playing soccer with a basketry ball and about a dozen college kids. He was "walking" in a chest harness, and after a few easy kicks, he put one past one of the college kids, who, when they got over laughing at the guy who missed it, made a game of teaching him "real soccer." It was hilarious. DS was turning mid-run and diving for the ball, and they even got him heading it at one point. All the while with me trailing cartoon-like behind, trying not to drop him!

On art: yeah, that's my thing too.... I keep giving him crayons, in hopes this will be the week. I'd say he eats about a half a crayon a week, or thereabouts, and some finger-paint, to wash it down I think it might be soon, though, he watched an older kid drawing on a white board about a week ago, and has been spontaneously scribbling (for a couple of seconds at a time) ever since. So this may be "it," and not just another read-ahead

Oh, life is good.