Today was one of those days that makes me forget about gifted denial... I decided to let DD12mo play on starfall. We haven't been on there for months and before that she just sort of watched because she was pretty young.

Well, today, she did a lot more than watching! She was repeating all the letters and the sounds they made and trying to sing along with the songs. She even said some new words (moon and I forgot the other one, but there was one more!). She seems to really like the "a" song and kept asking for it all day. I'm pretty sick of hearing it now. She also even was figuring out how to click on the letters even though she's not very good at it yet.

But now I have a lot of questions for you about computer using toddlers:
- how often do you let your toddler play on the computer? do you set time limits?
- when were they able to navigate sites by themselves? (I'm especially interested in this because she's given up her nap entirely and I REALLY need some down time! She doesn't watch TV so I'd love it if she had some quiet activity for 15-30 minutes to do so I had a break from reading Green
Eggs and Ham non-stop. )
- I'm thinking of buying a mouse for her (i just have a touch pad on my laptop), any good ones for little hands?
- how do I teach her to respect my laptop? She thinks that not only is it fun but it also doubles as a chew toy!

You might want to look at the Leap Frog first computer, Click and Start or something like that. It hooks to the TV and has games through age six. It has a keyboard and a mouse. My DD2 got it for Christmas and I know it's been on sale. It gives a little more wiggle room since they can't click on something and open another program, etc. We already run four laptops and I am not adding another one right now.

I second the LeapFrog Click Start recommendation! DD loved hers, and I would suggest getting it pretty quick! DD is 5 now, and outgrew her Click Start at about age 4.

The huge keys and the chunky mouse are kid friendly, and since it is not physically connected to any other device, they can pull and tug and pretty much walk around with their keyboard and mouse without tugging on cables or cords.

We don't set time limits (but we do have to share, so there are some associated limits). When DD was a baby, we let her play with the computer perhaps once a week for five minutes or so. I would _never_ have left her alone with the computer at that time, and she is still not entirely trustworthy. By now, my computer is taped together and missing several keys. She learned to use a mouse at the same time she learned to use a touchpad. I think she was 2, perhaps 2 1/2. By the time she was 3 she was truly independent on the computer.

I would discourage thinking of a computer as a babysitter. It is very important for preschoolers to learn to play by themselves, but it's totally normal and appropriate for babies and toddlers to want to interact with others all of the time. If you are tired of reading, by all means, do something else. But a computer isn't going to do more for a baby than a TV would, IMO. FWIW, DD began wanting to play by herself in her room for about ten or fifteen minutes at a time when she was about 18 months old.

DD2.5 started using a computer around 10 mo when she was tall enough to pull up to the couch where my laptop sits all day. First as a baby she figured out that if she clicked the mouse a song might start again (as the mouse cursor was often left to the original place). She slowly learned more and before two she was quite independent with keyboard and could use it for example to play starfall independently. I think two months ago she figured out how to use the touchpad mouse. I thought of buying a mouse for her but as I hardly ever use my computer on a table I did not think it would get much use. I was not even sure if I wanted her to use a mouse. We had the click start computer too. I hoped she would not mess around with my computer that much. We got it when she was 11mo. She did not like it at all but she is one of the kids who wants the real thing. She does not like toy phones either. She actually asked Santa to bring her her own mac (I wonder why santa forgot LOL).

Now she uses computer as independently as possible for a child who does not really write yet. She likes to type with word, use skype to call grandma, browser for internet and iTunes to listen to music. I set child friendly bookmarks for her. Usually everything goes well although I need to remember to monitor carefully what she does. Today while I was cooking she was trying to find her email (I guess she thinks she needs one too) and tried to type email on google, did not get it quite right and ended up on some japanese discussion forum. I had no idea she knew about google.

She has always been gentle to the computer biggest problem has been a messy screen.

Thanks everyone for the suggestions and answers! I think I'll forgo getting a mouse since that probably won't make a difference and it sounds like 2-2.5 is the "normal" age around here so I have some time still

We tried getting a kid's computer for Christmas and that wasn't a big success. She loves it for pretend play but is not big with actually playing with the games, etc. She seems to be able to navigate the buttons ok, but I think she's turned off by picture quality where as my laptop has so many pretty pictures and videos of her on it and also she can talk to the grandparents on it. So yeah, DD's another one of those kids that wants the real thing.

You know, you're probably right. I think I was saying that more out of desperation. Not only has DD decided to give up naps this week but it's like her intensity is switched on high.

I think she's going through some sort of language explosion because it seems like every day she's coming up with new words/sentences and I spend a huge chunk of the day having to read to her to avoid tantrums (it doesn't help that we have well below freezing temperatures here and can't leave home). I don't even get to read one book straight through either! She'll bring like 5 or more at a time and keep switching back and forth and turning to specific pages that I HAVE to read. I swear she has this face like she's studying for the bar exam or something. On top of that she working on her fine motorskills like crazy, which means I have to be on constant alert that our cat isn't going to be colored on.

I love seeing her develop but I think it was a lot easier when I just had to chase her around the house and follow behind her to make sure she didn't fall from her climbing feats.

-----------------------------------

But that also hits on something else that I couldn't really figure out how to put into words earlier. Is there a big difference between Computer time and TV time? I mean, at least with the computer she's interacting?

Also is it actually good for her to be doing this stuff at her age? She clearly loves it and definitely learns stuff from starfall but I don't think she NEEDS it, you know what I mean? I'm just wondering if I let her play on this will she be to concentrated on that and ignore other things she should be learning at this age? Then again, she's been obsessed with numbers/letters for awhile now considering how many times I've had to read this one counting book to her and how she is constantly asking what certain letters are... I don't know, I'm just rambling now.

I can't imagine a baby interacting in a meaningful way with a computer. Yes, they push buttons and mimic noises, but that's not more meaningful than pushing the buttons on a remote control and mimicking the sounds a TV makes. And IMO if there's not real meaningful interaction, computer use is the same as TV use. Personally, I think the most important thing for babies is interaction with other people. Learning to read or write or use a computer is simple and unimportant compared to learning to understand other human beings. Perhaps that is even more true for gifted kids than for ND kids.

I'm in the camp that in small doses computer time is a WONDERFUL babysitter and much more interactive than TV. Bear (almost 3) spends about 1/2 hour ever couple of days or so on starfall and disney and pbs and and and... They are all bookmarked on the boys' profile and he can turn on the computer, log onto their profile and get to the site he wants all on his own.

Often the two boys play together on the computer, Wolf helping Bear through some of the more advanced levels where his mouse skills just aren't up to par. It is adorable to watch.

I am a very big believer in teaching kids to occupy themselves for as long as possible as young as possible. It builds imagination and gives VERY important life skills. I've seen kids who literally CAN'T occupy themselves without adult help at age 6! I have had to babysit one child like this and simply refused to occupy her. I told her that we have a house full of toys, go find something to do. She looked at me like I was nuts but after awhile realized I wasn't kidding. Now she can come over and play by herself or with my boys for about 10 minutes without looking for an adult for input. It's normally just checking in at this point, but still...

I don't mean neglecting or ignoring the kids, but simply asking them to spend a few minutes without your input. With Wolf it was a box of junk mail for him to go through while I did actual mail and bills. We were doing the same thing, but not together. From there it was looking at books on his own while I read or did chores. Then coloring in his high chair while I cooked, etc and so on. With Bear it was playing with his brother or with blocks. Either way I now have an almost three year old and a five and a half year old who can play together or apart for half an hour or longer on their own using their own ides and imagination and coming up with things to do independently of me.

About the mouse issue, my friend has a wireless mouse that is small and (obviously) non-corded. It looks like it would work well for smaller hands. I would wait till the computer was no longer viewed as a teething object though...

DS 9mos plays with the computers (15 or so, with limited, touch-screen, AV presentations) in the natural history section of the local museum. When he saw a live kestral there, he looked up at me in shock, glared at the computer with the kestral segment, and then wiggled and flapped happily at the real bird (which ammused the falconer). So I think he's really getting something out of it. I'm pretty convinced he's really interacting with it.

Probably better than an exersaucer

Everything in moderation? I figure that if he's having fun, he's probably getting what he needs out of something. But I do try to distinguish between fun and "zoned out." I think touch-screen is probably better than mouse, is probalby better than keyboard. I don't let him at the computer at home much because he's not gentle enough with it. (we don't have a TV right now)

-Michaela

I just went and checked out starfall... I don't think my son would get much out of it... it's not a very target-rich environment, there's usually only one thing you can do on a page, so it doesn't seem responsive enough. Also, it wasn't very compelling. Minimal sound, really slow progress.

So... yeah, I don't think that site's very much better that TV at all. But probably still better.

Mr W loved the ABC section on Starfall from 10-14 mos. He would make me drive for hours on it. He got to where he could match the matrix sections. At about 18 months he was bored with it.

We then got him the leapfrog DVDs and he watched the letter factory a lot. The word factory did not catch his interest until about a month ago.

At 24 mos, likes the "learning to read" section now on starfall. The silent E parts make him break into hysterical laughter. The word factory leapfrog DVD he loves as well.

12-18 months was a challenging age for us.

I tried to interest DS(now 2.7) in TV or videos about then because after hours and hours of high demand parenting I was hoping for a break. He would just walk over and turn it off and go find another book for me to read. The guilt of that ! I felt like I was a drug pusher.

Now at 2.7 his favorite TV is the BBC documentary Walking With Dinosaurs, he watches probably 45 min of it a day starting about 9pm. He wants to watch that instead of other options like Clifford. He loved Starfall when he was younger, spending nearly an hour a day total on there (starting somewhere in the 16-19 month range), but finished with it by around 2.3 once he'd learned to read. He does still love his Zac and Peg characters (they sell them on the website, stuffed toys), he just makes them act out his own stories now. He'll play on starfall if I suggest it but it's not something he thinks of to do. Seems like these things run their course.

I can't see the harm in 15 minutes of Starfall or even a half hour of TV at a year old. Not of course for kids that are calmly staring at a wall -- where I live I seem to meet a lot of infants and toddlers who are quite content to sit and stare at hardly anything, and in that situation TV or it's more interactive cousin computer websites seem like they would just make it easy to ignore the child for longer. But for kids that sleep less and do far more per minute already than other kids a little bit of computer games or TV seems harmless.

Polly

Ok, so I tried letting DS play around on starfall just to see, and he did seem interested, and he did seem engaged rather than zoned out. So I may be misjudging the thing. But it really did feel like TV to me, even if I/we were controlling the speed a bit.

Meh, what do I know?

I may try it again on another day and see if it was just a fluke/new experience kinda thing.

I was really tired this morning (I pulled an alnighter for school... blech), and it certainly did give me a break!

I like you guys. You keep the juices flowing an auful lot more than the folks in my April babies group. (NO, we're not going to sleep train. REALLY. No. )

I am sometime guilty of using starfall as DS14mo babysitter when I am burnout, but I try to limit that to less than once a week.

I hear you about sick of reading the same book over and over again. That�s why I buy new books for DS to keep me from getting bored.

We try the following, and they seem to entertain DS for a little while:
- �help� us empty the dryer and put laundry away
- give things between DH and I
- putting lego blocks together
- �mop� the floor
- puzzles (but we have to do it with him)

I personally like more structured plays, so I know what to expect next and don�t burn me out as quickly as ad hoc plays.

P.S. DS likes to read multiple books at the same time as well, but I don't let him switch between books. IMO, I want him to finish what he started. Just my 2 cents.

I'm another in the camp that anything's OK in moderation, if it doesn't interfere with other important life skills. When I was home with DS6, he was a very high-needs infant and toddler, who also did not like to nap. I'm all for finding things that can provide a break for mom. I can't remember exactly what age he used the computer (I'm sure I could search this site and find something!), but I would somewhere between 1 and 2, he wanted to use the keyboard. I opened a blank screen on Word, and let him go. We called it the smiley-face game (I showed him how a colon and paren made a smiley-face.) Sometimes I'd switch the font to wingdings, and he loved that. I've always had a rollerball (stationary) mouse, which DS could easily use at a young age by using one hand to roll and the other to click.

At 18 months, DS's grandma got him a leapfrog count and learn math desk, which he loved. He learned his numbers 1-20, and some basic counting stuff, and played with that quite a bit.

I think between 2-3, DS was pretty independent with the computer. We saved pbs and nick jr and other kid sites to his favorites. We got him some education pre-K/K software, and he loved that for awhile.

Your comment about the repeating of pages of books makes me thing that your little one is starting to crack the reading code. I remember the reading-the-same-book-over-and-over-stage.

We found the computer almost a necessity for DD when she was around 18 months because she was a child who didn't nap and was always bringing us books after books to read to her. I didn't like the idea of the television for babysitting and I still question the computer as taking the place too, but desperate times... She loved the starfall site and we would sit there with her and use that one along with some preschool games, but around 2 (I can't remember if she was 2 or a month short of 2) she took over the controls. She proved to us that she was very independent with the computer and could open up a browser and pull up her bookmarks from the list. Of course the list was long and I was concerned she would get into a site that wasn't meant for her but I also knew that there was no questionable sites in the list. More like boring research about what ever topic I was working on at the moment, but still I kept a close eye on her to make sure she stayed in her bookmarks.

As for time restrictions ... I was concerned about how absorbed she was becoming in the computer and considered a timer for her because it was coming close to an obsession, but she started to bore of it all and started to limit herself. We will go weeks without using the computer and than one day she will decide to get on pbskids.org and spend maybe an hour on the computer and again it will be another week or two before she asks to use it again. I say it really depends on the child. Some will become obsessed with games and computers and will need limits and some will find it useful for a little while and look to do something else. I suspect that if I went out and bought her something new to play on the computer we would find ourselves back into the red zone and see her computer time go up so I might still set a timer for her when and if she does start to obsess over it again.

Suggestion for a mouse: If you are concerned about the mouse being too big for your DD's hand you might want to consider a wireless laptop mouse. They are about half the size, but are fully functional. My DD just used regular size ones and she had no issues.

Thanks everyone for the BTDT advice. It's good to know that I'm not the only one that has gone through all this craziness. DD did decide to sleep on the weekend but I'm starting to think she could be really under-stimulated during the weekdays? The only times she's slept through the night have been when she was in daycare for one week while I was at a conference or over the holidays while visiting family members. So maybe she just needs to be around a bunch of people ALL THE TIME. I don't know... Because once Monday rolled around she was back to nap avoidance, ahh!!!

I think the appeal of the computer for her is really twofold: 1. she LOVES the songs. We realized today that she was actually singing part of the "a" song today so we joined in and she started doing all the hand signs, it was sooo cute! I think I might try and go on there and learn some more of the songs to sing to her. I'm really bad about remembering to sing nursery rhymes and the such so it could be she wants more music in her life. She's always been a big fan of music and was in baby heaven when we took her to a free trial music class (but, unfortunately, we can't afford the $$).

2. Learn the letters. I just don't really do much of anything academic with her. We play A LOT, read, cook, etc. but I don't even really sing the alphabet song to her because I never think about it. I know she's always been interested in them and will ask me about them whenever she seems individual letters on signs etc. so maybe I should make a point of finding ways to introduce them to her.

I think DH might be the one to do the site with her more... he really LOVES it. Mostly because he's a non-native English speaker who learned pretty much entirely from osmosis. So it's actually really fun for him to learn about long and short vowels. However, my husband refers to the adults that sing on there as "the creepy guy" and the "crazy lady".

As for some downtime for me I guess it won't be for awhile. She'll play with her dollhouse for a bit and today she was busy potty training her stuffed monkey, so hopefully he has a lot of misses and it'll take awhile!!! She tried putting the cat on there once, it didn't work as well...

I have to admit, that comment about her memorizing the books. I could definitely see that. She'll point at words a lot to find out their meaning, so who knows? She's really not into reading books in a linear fashion and will flip back at forth and really focus on certain pages at times. Oh, what I'd give to know what this kid is thinking!!!

About the pace of starfall. It's really the only kid site we've tried and I just found out about it from seeing people here talk about it. I kind of like the slow pace just because I remember reading somewhere that faster pace TV commercials are bad for kids, so I figured the same would apply here.

What is BTDT?

BTDT- been there done that

Your DD is just like my DS. No nap during the week when grandparents are babysitting, but he naps on the weekends when we are tired entertaining him.

Mr W (24 mos) drives us nuts with the sleeping.

Into bed at 8:30 pm - with him falling asleep at 9pm after getting up out of bed ever 2 minutes.

Sometimes he wakes up every hour. Sometimes he sleeps all night.

Then he is up at 5:30 AM. We put on his fav shows and get another hour of sleep.

Lately he reads out loud from 5:30 to 6:30 in our room.

DW told the school today that he is limited to 1 hour of sleep, instead of his 1:30-2 hours.

Once the days get longer, we will take him for a long walk every evening. During his birthday, we took him to a bounce house and he ran around with the 3 and 4 year olds and came home exhausted and slept for 12 hours. So we think the long walk every night will help.

Once he gets into sports, things will get even better.

I've heard that a slow pace is good for kids -- specifically to make learning faster. I have no doubt that starfall's pace will teach letters quickly, (DS was saying letter names for a while when DH got home yesterday) I just wonder if letters are the right thing to be focussing on <2 or 3 years, even with a really early reader (and at 9-18 mos, who knows which of our kids really will be bleading-edge early readers?)

I worry about the pace inhibiting his learning of things like cause-and-effect, and the few options inhibiting his sence of exploration. Reading is linear, and so there's a reason for a reading thing to be linear, but life isn't.

So I guess in a lot of ways my concern with starfall for this age-group comes down to the question of "why would I want my 9-18 month old focussing in this way," and "will this type of focus have a negative effect overall."

And the answer to those questions is probably: what the Bl$#%& heck am I affraid of, t'aint like he's behind, eh?

Somebody said "moderation" up there somewhere...

I think Kriston or Grinity said last year that the kids will tell you what they are ready for. If they enjoy it and do it, then its right.

Mr W goes through plateaus of skills and likes. We expose him to stuff and let him tell us what he wants to do. He may spend an hour one day then not go pick up the laptop for a week.

Right, but there's quite a few things that he'd do all day if I let him... and I often let him!

At some point I have to exercise some guidance, I think, or he'd just stick with one thing kinda forever. Also, at his age, I'm in pretty much total contole over what he's introduced to. So I have to take responsibility for deciding what to introduce him to, I think.

Today he made jazz hands with everyone who would do it at the play center... for an hour! When no-one else would do it any longer, he spent the next hour putting balls into a ball run. Then we left. The first was limited by people's patience, the second was limited by the lenght of the programme. The computer has no natural limit.

I'm going to be fighting with the "how much guidance" issue forever, I think. Mostly, if he's having fun I figure it must be good, and most things have natural limits. But I still feel like it's important to have some kind of philosophy about what's to be encouraged, what's to be discouraged, and what's inbetween.

(much enjoying this discussion... I need the imput & sounding board on it!)

I'm all for appropriate limits. The "They'll let you know what they're ready for" is more about whether it's okay to answer a kid's questions or do a certain level of math with them. (And I think that's how Austin intended it.) If they can form the question, then I think they are ready to dip a toe into learning that thing. If Starfall interests the child and YOU are okay with the concept of computer time for a young child, then it's probably okay, within limits.

That doesn't mean that the child should get to make all the decisions about YOUR day or about computer time. You're still the parent and it's okay to set appropriate limits. I can't imagine anyone here would say otherwise.

Child-led learning doesn't mean that the child is the boss! Just that you don't have to wonder if it's okay to answer his questions or let her read if she wants to.

Completely agree with your assessment and find this to be true with our DD. She will focus on numbers for a while and everything is about numbers and than a plateau or shift of attention to reading.

And for the does it matter if your child learns their abcs before age 2 question ... I don't think so. I still see that as pushing somewhat. And only if the child really shows no interest in it but it becomes the focus of the parents. By having things available to them and they gravitate to it, I don't see that as pushing but just exposure. DD found some abc books when she was around 6 months and the books had been out because a friend's toddler had been over and was restless so I pulled them out for him. I never thought lets see if DD can learn her letters ... that would be nuts! But she gravitated to them and asked repeatedly 'what's this?' and 'what's that?'. By nine months she knew all her letters. Basically I'm saying sometimes these kids just shock you and instead of worrying if they are in the right age to know it, you might just need to go with their interests and not worry about it.

I get what you're saying and that's initially why I asked about a time limit. I have kind of mixed feeling about computer usage and also what to present to DD. I DON'T want to push her in any way whatsoever. She's only 1 and I feel she has a lot of childhood left before her. So I try and follow her lead but she's been asking about letters for awhile now and I'm beginning to think she wants to know more than what I'm doing? It's hard to know what she's thinking but I figure if she enjoys the computer and we just do it occasionally (we don't even do it everyday) it can't hurt her too much. I do plan on learning some of the songs from there because she's really taken a shine to them.

I think I have a lot of unschooling/Montessori leanings but even with that there's always the question of what you're going to expose your kid to and how much. For instance, we're a bilingual family and DD gets a lot of exposure to a 3rd language on top of that. She never had the option not to learn DH's language (and she's not going to have that option ) so I guess in that sense I'm picking stuff for her. But how she learns that language and to what extent is something that can be more up to her.

It's an interesting subject and something I can never quite make up my mind about. When it comes to letters and reading, specifically... I guess, by the mere fact that I've been reading to her since she was born that means she's more likely to read early. However, Western society places a very high value on being literate (as do I since I'm a huge bookworm) so it's a choice I make as a parent. That being said, I don't feel it necessary to push her into early reading. But if she insists on asking about letters, words, etc. I also don't see a reason to deny her that. Sorry if this is a bit jumbled. I'm working this out in my own head too.

That's a good way of putting it.


I like how you explain the difference between exposure and pushing. I think it's natural for parents of more advanced kids to worry about this because there's the idea that we some how "created" this kid to be this way (I even had a pediatrician tell me when DD was 4 months that she was so advanced because I was at home with her and breastfeeding. Because I was apparently at home with her doing workouts so she could sit up on her own and crawl early ). In some ways yes because the kid had to be exposed to what skill it is but not in the sense that you're necessarily drilling the kid to learn the skill.

About simple options at starfall, I think it is a really good thing. It is the ONLY site I have found for two year old fine motor skills with a mouse, appropriate content or not! Bear learned to use a mouse on that site because the buttons are big enough that he had a good chance of hitting them. There were also few enough that it was hard for him to accidentally click one he didn't intend to. They also get more complicated the farther along you go, to a certain extent.

I'm putting this at the bottom of this post because, well, it's basically something similar that happened... once again.

After asking this question about starfall we ended up limiting DD's time on it because she was getting REALLY obsessed with it. As in we couldn't turn the computer on for 2 seconds to check our email without her humming the short a song and pointing at the computer to watch it (and throwing a HUGE tantrum if she didn't get her way). So we've cut back a lot.

However, yesterday, I was really desperate to finish up some work and I was watching DD because our babysitter couldn't come. I just needed about 10 minutes but DD wasn't having it so I turned on some kids show called "words,words" just so I had those few minutes! I KNOW bad mom, right? She's still under 2 but I was hoping one day won't kill her. Anyways, the basic premise of the show was that they wrote the words, would then spell/say the words out loud and it would become an object. So they wrote out slide and before they even said it DD started saying "ide" "ide"! I was pretty shocked! Not only has she never said slide (ok, she couldn't pronounce the whole thing but you know what i mean) before but I guess she has at least one sight word! Then she did it a couple of minutes later with they wrote duck (she started saying "du" "du"). And even if she couldn't say the word she'd repeat a number of the letters (like she kept saying "r" for about 5 minutes).

Like I've posted before, DD is not a big talker and I think I've heard that there could be problems if your kid starts reading before they start talking? Yesterday was really a one time thing so it's not like I'm going to be letting her watch that show much but is there anything I should be concerned about? I would never limit how much I read to her, so I'm not sure this is something I can really slow down or prevent?

I guess, I'm kind of freaking out here. It's like I keep trying to convince myself that she's not that far ahead or that I just think she does these things because I'm a proud mother. But then she goes and does something like this. It doesn't help that we're considering a move to a country where homeschooling is illegal so that's also a concern of mine. I know it's really early to think about school but it would be a permanent move, so it's something that keeps coming up in my mind.

Ok, thanks for listening if you managed to get through all that.

[quote=newmom21C]Like I've posted before, DD is not a big talker and I think I've heard that there could be problems if your kid starts reading before they start talking?

Just curious where/what you heard about this?
My dd was a late talker. She literally started talking sentences over night. And she was reading too. I wonder if she read before she started talking.
She would bring me at least 50 books a day to read to her and would have fits if I didn't. She would even push my finger under the words.

PS I resorted to some computer and educational videos just so I could get a break!

I think it was on this board somewhere? Unfortunately, I can't quite remember where... Hopefully someone will know and be able to set the record straight!

But I'm glad to hear that your daughter turned out ok and didn't have any problems, that gives me hope. Also, DD does the pointing thing too, she'll point at individual words for me to say them. These demanding kids sure keep us on our toes, right?

Well, I won't say that she didn't have "any" problems. She was tested in prek at a 4th grade reading level. Kindergarten was torture for her while other kids were learning letters, sight words and phonics. The teacher finally gave up because she would get frustrated, esp. with phonics. They would want the kids to write the words how they sounded. She would do that but would get upset because she knew it wasn't spelled right. Finally, they gave up and gave her a "word" box. Any words she didn't know they would write on an index card for her.
She is now in 5th grade and an excellent speller. The teacher just said that sometimes gifted kids are "whole" learners.

Mr W does this as well. He'll even go get the latop and drag it to me. I keep it hidden or work out of sight if I must concentrate.


It goes much deeper than that. Consider what Mr W did yesterday.

Yesterday when I dropped Mr W off at school, I told him I was going to be gone two days for work. Well, plans fell through and I worked from home.

When DW picked him up, she told him "Daddy is at home." and he replied. "No, Mommy. Daddy is on a plane. He will be back in two days."

This is a very complex response from a kid who is 26 months old.

There is a lot going on in these kids' minds and they are struggling with making sense of it. In their own way, they are prioritizing what they spend time on. Speech may take a second place to actual understanding. I think Mr W mulls stuff over rather than verbalize immediately.

That's so funny because that's exactly like DH. She seems so like him in many ways (at least according to MIL) that I guess I shouldn't be surprised. He's said more than once that in his native language he never misspells anything. In English he's also infinitely better than me at spelling!


Very good point, and I think you've probably hit the nail on the head. It's just hard to remember that at times. I think I should be watching more closely to what I say in front of DD. It's so hard to forget because she just doesn't talk a lot.

Hi newmom21C,

Kids on the autism spectrum can have unusual language development, including delayed speech but early fixation on symbol systems like writing and math. Part of this cluster also is that their language may tend to be echolalic, i.e. repeating what they've heard (often complex utterances, which fools people for a while). The unifying theme here is that they are treating language as an abstract symbol game, not as a way of communicating. From what you've said, this doesn't sound like your kid.

Meg

I can't answer whether there will be problems, but my 19 month old DD is very average with her speech but already recognizes some words. There are a few words she recognizes that she can't say, but can either sign or use other indications when she sees them.

One of my sons (now 8) wasn't exposed to letters or words as early as my DD, but when he was 2 he had learned his letters from a peg puzzle and old style fridge magnets. I thought that since he knew all his letters and sounds I would spell a few words out for him. He was immediately able to pick them up out of context. That kinda freaked me out, and I stopped spelling things out and put his magnets away (he had grown out of the peg puzzle). I didn't take the stuff out for nearly 6 months, but by then he was no longer interested and he ended up not really picking up reading again until he was 3.5 years old. He was always rather stubborn that way. I can't say how other children with different personalities would react, but for the time being, I will continue to spell out the words for my DD when she follows me around with the doodle pad until I do.

Thanks, Meg, for explaining that! DD is Very (very, very) social, so I tend to think that's probably not an issue. Also, in the last few days she's really been putting forth a lot of effort to talk and has been saying a ton of new words, so I'm thinking (and hoping) that I was worried over nothing.


I have a feeling DD is the later, she tends to be pretty persistent about things no matter how many distractions I provide! We've learned the hard way that it is sooooo much easier to follow her lead where ever she may take us. Yeah, you're right about worrying about school, I guess I'm just worried if we don't have homeschooling as a back-up just in case, you know what I mean?


Thanks for sharing about your kids.