When did you first suspect?

[Guest]

I did not suspect high IQ at all.(Disclaimer: Over the past few years, I've grown to be quite wary of the value judgement associated with being 'gifted', I'm going to refer to IQ alone). I thought whatever DD did or said was fairly normal/average, and it was...for our family( including my/dh siblings and their children). It took a school principle and then a psychologist to point out that she is far away from what they call the norm.

 

There are moments when I still think "Are you sure other children don't do ____?!..How do you know?" .

Yes! It can be so hard to tell what is and isn't normal if your family culture expects ______. And since IQ is strongly hereditary, if it is normal to DH and me we just assume it's normal, until confronted otherwise. Being globally/generally bright is also hard to pinpoint, I think.

[La Condessa]

I don't really know if my kids are actually gifted, though some times I think so. Public school GATE program "gifted", sure, and accelerated in certain ways. But, you know, dh and I and our families are all pretty intelligent. The child who has always seemed most obviously to have something unusual going on is dd2, though nothing specifically academic. When she was born they lay her on my chest and I said, "Hello little one" and she lifted her head to focus on my face and hold my gaze for a moment. The cord wasn't even cut yet. She was always unusually alert and focused, with a long attention span and unusual problem solving skills. At seven weeks old she learned that she could get out of tummy time by hoisting her head up and then tilting it to one side while stiffening her neck. Since she was such a tiny scrawny thing and her head was the heaviest part of her, she would flip her whole body over this way. As soon as she was strong enough to pull out the heavy kitchen drawers, she used them as a staircase to the counter top by pulling out the bottom one all the way, crawling up into it, pulling out the next as far as she could, climbing into that one, all the way up onto the counter. She talked early, knew all her letter sounds by 15 months and spoke in complex sentences at 17 months. She also played very involved imaginative games around 1 1/2, asks deep questions, empathizes with others easily, and will self-entertain with her Legos for hours at a time. She is not especially advanced in academic subjects, though a little bit.

 

Dd1, well she has always seemed bright and clever to me, but nothing particularly stands out as unusual besides her obstinance and unusual physical abilities before 2 1/2. That was when she found a preschool math book I had picked up for a great price, intending to use it a year or so later. At the time she didn't consistently count past 7, but she begged to do it then, and so I started it with her, thinking she'd quickly lose interest. She flew through it, sometimes doing twenty or thirty pages in a sitting and throwing huge terrible-twos tantrums when we stopped. While I was prepared for the possibility (based on dh and I) of an advanced languagy kid, I really was not ready for a mathy one. She explained negative numbers to me around the age of four, though she didn't know the word "negative". She called them "one less", "two less", etc.

 

I actually was worried about ds1 until about 6 months ago, as he seemed to be average to somewhat slow in all areas except gross motor skills--and that translated to way behind when compared to my experience with the girls. The only glimmer I had before that was the day I realized he wasn't just flipping through things on my iPad at random, but was actually opening and playing on his sister's Reading Raven game correctly. I think he was about sixteen months. But other than that, he spoke late and just generally seemed a bit on the slower side, and my mantra for myself was, "Don't compare! He's not way behind, he's in the range of normal, and normal is great!" Now I frequently get comments on how well he speaks from those who know us enough to know he is actually rather younger than he looks (strangers assume he is an older three or four). Really, though, the one place he especially stands out is when we go to visit the aquarium or the Marine Science Center here in our town, or the whale watching center in the town north of here.

 

ETA: and the baby is just a baby. A little behind in most things, because he was just shy of being a premie. He did start using the baby sign for milk at three months.

[kiwik]

I did not suspect high IQ at all.(Disclaimer: Over the past few years, I've grown to be quite wary of the value judgement associated with being 'gifted', I'm going to refer to IQ alone). I thought whatever DD did or said was fairly normal/average, and it was...for our family( including my/dh siblings and their children). It took a school principle and then a psychologist to point out that she is far away from what they call the norm.

 

There are moments when I still think "Are you sure other children don't do ____?!..How do you know?" .

When I was handed the test results. OK I wouldn't have got them tested if I hadn't known they were bright but a friend with gifted kids said I should. I wasn't expecting anything like the results they got.

 

The seem pretty normal to me.

 

Eta. Ds5 was one of those babies who make people comment that they look like they have been here before and ds7 was alert but didn't have that old soul vibe.

[Scarlett]

This has been a great thread. My ds is 15 now and IMO is on the line between very bright and gifted. Sometimes depending on the day or the hour. ;)

 

He was very verbal very early. Walked at 8 months, knew his alphabet at 18 months. At two he was self correcting his own grammar. At three he was reading...by 4 he was reading well.....maybe 2nd grade level.

 

Also at 4 he discovered multiplication. That was my freak out moment.....when he was silently counting on his fingers and then nodding his head....I asked him what he was doing....he said, "oh just making sure 3 fours is 12". I called my mom and said," he is doing multiplication!"

 

He was very happy but in new situations he was A Very Serious Baby.....studying everyone and everything intently.

 

When he was two he gathered all of his dad's shoes up and created a very symmetrical half circle....pairs matching of course. He would do the same things to his hot wheels...I got him real Legos at age 3 and he created the most symmetrical things ever.

 

He asked very deep questions....at 6 he figured out his dog would be dead before he was grown and he has been bummed ever since.

 

One time at the mall.....I think he was about 6..I bought him a cookie at the cookie store. He says,"I don't know why they call,this a sandwich cookie....it is a cookie sandwich" . I still scratch my head over that.

 

Once he asked for a daisy tortilla. You know.....a flour tortilla. :). And referred to the nightstand as a "sleepy pantry".

 

Most of things probably don't mean gifted but he was darn cute. I miss my baby boy.

[Lawyer&Mom]

The why questions showed up more at ages 4 & 5 and usually related to understanding complex behavior and social issues (slavery, why aren't there any women presidents, etc).

This reminds me of a story my mom tells about me. I was five, and out of the blue I asked her what caused WWI. She was caught off guard and said something vague about different countries being upset about the balance of power in Europe. She was surprised how pleased I was with her answer. "Oh good," I said, "I just knew that shooting an archduke wasn't a good enough reason to start a war."

 

I didn't read until seven, and we weren't exactly covering this in Kindergarten, so I have no idea how I knew about WWI at all. I guess absorbing information by osmosis is part of the game. I tested HG the same year.

[TranquilMind]

My soon to be 17 month old DD looked out the window this morning and said "I see a bird." She has a 75+ word vocabulary, but I thought we had a few more months before complete sentences...

 

When did you first suspect your child might be gifted?

That's great.

 

My oldest began speaking at 6 months old old and had a huge vocabulary quickly. Even my mom was surprised and had to see it.   She began K level work at 2.5 and was a fluent  reader very quickly.  One thing was interesting; she was extremely interested in other countries and continents.  Each room in our home was a different continent when she was playing, and her dolls would "travel".  She was an amazing Latin student, placing in AP at the beginning of high school.

 

She's now overseas in another country learning yet another language.   Giftings and life plans show up early! 

 

Another hardly spoke at all for the longest time, but was extremely interested when I discussed numbers and patterns. When he began speaking, it was in full sentences.  Major math/science geek now. 

[TranquilMind]

This reminds me of a story my mom tells about me. I was five, and out of the blue I asked her what caused WWI. She was caught off guard and said something vague about different countries being upset about the balance of power in Europe. She was surprised how pleased I was with her answer. "Oh good," I said, "I just knew that shooting an archduke wasn't a good enough reason to start a war."

 

I didn't read until seven, and we weren't exactly covering this in Kindergarten, so I have no idea how I knew about WWI at all. I guess absorbing information by osmosis is part of the game. I tested HG the same year.

That's really cool. 

[LucyStoner]

Reading, without instructions, spontaneously happened before age 2. He was reading before he even cared to speak much.

 

He signed back to us when we started baby signing before he was 1 almost right away.

 

When he was tested in Kindergarten we were not surprised.

 

My younger son has exhibited some signs as well. His sense of direction is crazy accurate. He can tell where we are in relationship to where we came from all of the time. He also almost always knows if he's been somewhere before.

[Arcadia]

My younger son has exhibited some signs as well. His sense of direction is crazy accurate. He can tell where we are in relationship to where we came from all of the time. He also almost always knows if he's been somewhere before.

My older boy is similar. My hubby joke that my older is much better than the GPS. My older was memorising landmarks wherever we go.

[mom2scouts]

We suspected giftedness at about 6 months. Our child was already saying recognizable words.  By one year, he had a vocabulary of over 100 words and he spoke in complete sentences by 15 months. He was reading chapter books by three and novels by five. It was obvious that he was not like other kids.  He was also very intense and sensitive from birth.

[Hannahs4]

So is a 6 year old that's enjoying Singapore 3a gifted, or just accelerated? I've just let him do as much as he likes and he has been flying through them. Still trying to figure him out, but I'm not one to test. He LOVES math, takes the LOF books to bed with him, and sometimes his math book. He also loves to read. Easy chapter books, and lots of DK and encyclopedia type books, was reading fluently at 4.5 (not the earliest in our house).

 

I just don't think it matters because we homeschool, and he can go at whatever pace he wishes. I had a friend who works with kids babysit when he was 10 months, and she thought he was super intelligent because he could blow his nose when she told him to. I thought she was nuts. Now I am not sure.

[eternalsummer]

 

My younger son has exhibited some signs as well. His sense of direction is crazy accurate. He can tell where we are in relationship to where we came from all of the time. He also almost always knows if he's been somewhere before.

 

I have that too, but I have trouble instinctively telling my right from my left, or remembering which way is east and which is west.  I always know where I am in relation to where I started, though, and where I want to go, direction-wise.  I just can't seem to remember the *names* for the directions.

[luuknam]

I'd also be in the "well, I expected the apple to not fall too far from the tree" crowd. My spouse and I both have test scores high enough for Mensa (my spouse on an SAT taken in sophomore year, back when they still counted those for Mensa, me on an IQ test). I also sort of expected my oldest to have Asperger's (again, because of genetics).

 

I was wrong. He's HFA. My oldest I can't exactly place as far as intelligence is concerned. He's got a bunch of 2E characteristics, but his test scores have ranged from 2nd to 99th percentile on various tests and subtests of things, and also have drastically changed on various tests and subtests over the years. At 4 years 1 months his verbal IQ was estimated to be 75, performance IQ of 108. At 6 years 11 months the verbal went up to a little over 100 and the performance to something like low 120s. Which obviously isn't gifted. But he's always been way ahead in some things and way behind in others, and some of those things have even reversed over the years. He's evened out a bit more to where he's not way behind in anything (just a little behind in some things), but I don't know. I don't think we'll see another 30 point jump in his verbal IQ or anything, but I'm not sure what to expect. And it's okay if he just ends up being average to high average. There are a lot of successful people with IQs in that range. His work ethic etc will play a bigger role than where exactly the IQ score ends up being once his brain is done cooking sometime in his 20s.

 

My younger one seems more neurotypical (although he has some little oddities) and gifted, but hasn't been tested.

 

As far as myself, my mom knew I was smart, but she'd never thought I was as smart as I was until my younger brother started having problems in school and got an IQ test as part of the testing to figure out his issues. He tested in the gifted range (he also turned out to have an ASD, but they didn't figure that out until years later). During a home observation of my brother the person observing said that my brother seemed normal enough but that she was concerned about *me*. So I got a bunch of testing and scored even higher on the IQ test than my brother did.

[Embassy]

In infancy I suspected there was something up.  My high need baby had an insatiable appetite for stimulation. My other kids didn't have that same appetite and I suspected them in toddlerhood/preschool years because of things they would say or do.  They were early on some milestones and late on some others.  

[PinkyandtheBrains.]

When taught himself to read by age 3.

When he started playing with his arithmetic in different bases in early elementary, and more...we still haven't reached his math ceiling.

[strawberryjam]

I honestly didn't really suspect that my son was Gifted until he was in Grade 1. He was very asynchronous in Grade 1 and I was worried he was falling behind (ironically)... then it turned out he was "just Gifted". lol.  We always thought he might be smart, but I also thought we were probably biased. In hindsight now it's apparent that he does have some unusual skills. His very first word as a baby was "Wow". Like when he was 2 he'd make these elaborate symmetrical patterns out of his wooden blocks. When he was 4 he memorized parts of the BBC Planets documentaries word for word, he was obsessed with the moon and the moon landings (he still is obsessed with space!). He knows more about space then most adults. I started looking into Giftedness and he's got all five of Dabrowski's Overexcitability traits. There is a strong genetic link and I was in a Gifted program in elementary, but I went to a private high school that had no special programs so kind of fell through the cracks after that. Reading about adult Giftedness has helped me so much mentally and emotionally, as being Gifted often does not feel like a "Gift" at all!

 

I've been watching my younger daughter for the same traits. I think they are there. She's more "specialized" in her Giftedness though, it's more artistic/creative/ and very much like the "Sensual Overexcitability" that Dawbrowski describes. When she was younger it looked a lot like Sensory Processing Disorder though she's got a lot of it under control now. She loved extremes. Everything had to be brighter, louder, etc. or else it was TOO wet, too pink, not pink enough, too whatever.... she chose her food by color rather then taste. Unusual stuff like that. She's an amazing artist for her age and it was apparent she had unusual artistic skill as soon as she was old enough to hold a crayon (in each hand... she was ambidextrous, now she is preferring her left hand. All the things you hear about left handed traits are typical in her). She didn't speak in sentences till after her 4th birthday. Now she's a little chatter box and absorbing science facts just like her brother. She is just wired differently. She was a late walker and late talker, but I could always tell there was a ton of stuff going on in her head. Then when she finally started talking it was apparent it was true. She loves to chat about the stuff she knows and asks the most insightful questions. She's strongly intuitive. She's determined she wants to be a vet when she grows up. 

[zarabellesmom]

My oldest was a 4lb. premie and was on time with most milestones but a late talker. We took a baby sign language class around 9 months. By her first birthday, she had more than 300 signs. She used signs creatively too. Daddy went to "worm" because she didn't know the sign for work. He cooked outside on the "gorilla". Our neighbors lived in the "pig" house (a very very big house). When she did decide to talk,her first words were Mom, Dad, spatula and strawberry. She spoke in sentences within the week. I didn't really know she was gifted till we started homeschooling, though. She sped through 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade Singapore math before April of her 1st grade year. Still, math facts remained a real problem, as well as letter reversals. I was concerned. I had her tested and whoa. She's 2E with strenghts in a variety of areas, but a real weakness in working memory and processing speed (which I hear is not unusual). I hate to compare kids, but her public school Gateway program friend has schooled with us occasionally and just can't keep up.

 

My second daughter, I have not had tested. She doesn't really seem to have any problem areas so the $4000 in testing seems like a crazy expense to merely satisfy curiousity. She was a very early talker, sentences at 15 months and early with all her milestones really. She's moving along in math much like her sister did but seems to lack her sister's weaknesses. Difference between a premie and a baby who didn't leave the womb till 2 weeks late?

 

Teresa

 

[happypamama]

In infancy I suspected there was something up. My high need baby had an insatiable appetite for stimulation. My other kids didn't have that same appetite and I suspected them in toddlerhood/preschool years because of things they would say or do. They were early on some milestones and late on some others.

This is what concerns me about my DS4. He is VERY like that and has been showing since he was teeny tiny that he understands things more like a two year old. DD was like that, and although we have never had her tested, she would probably test as gifted. She was always going. People always commented on her alertness. She walked early, read early, talked early, all of that. DS4 makes her look calm. When DS4 was about 13 months, we were all sitting at dinner, and DS3 asked for his water bottle. I told him I thought it was upstairs, so he went to look for it. DS4 started fussing in his seat, so I, figuring he was full, got him down. He walked directly over to the cabinet where he and DS3 had been playing before dinner and pulled out the water bottle and walked over to hand it to me. He's crazy sympathetic, way beyond any of my other toddlers. I'm really not sure how we will keep up with him when he's a bit bigger!