To think that gifted pre schoolers need to learn through play

[ReallyTired]

A bright child who is nursery age needs formal education like a hole in the head. It is desperately important that they learn the social skills they need for life. A well run nursery is good place to foster a range of skills.

If a gifted child is bored with nursery/ reception its often a sign of autism and if anything they need more learning through play rather than less. Possibly an autistic child might need an adult to show them how to play and foster good social skills. There may be bright children who need intensive help with their social skills who aren't autistic.

A really bright child will learn faster through self directed play than sitting in a classroom doing formal actvites.

In Reception it is more important that they can take themselves to the loo, get the lid off their lunchbox and zip their coat up than anything academic IMO.

DS1 couldn't read or write his name when he started R Year. He's 12 now and he's fine.

I agree. My daughter is exceptional academically. Book smart in a way that leaves others staring in awe. But she has no friends, has never been to anyone's house for tea and is so lonely it breaks my heart. I would trade her 'gifted' in for 'average and content' in an instant.

Kladdkada, :(

My DS3 is similar. however, he gets on well with family members, siblings, online gaming friends - doesn't really notice he has no RL friends, but I think he will have, when he's older, and his peers are more mature. 15 yo don't really want to be friends with people who are "different".

But my child is SO bright that her nursery peers just don't GET her play, or are able to keep up with her language etc.

I find myself biting my tongue an awful lot when listening to how 'gifted' a lot of children are.

That's because my eldest son is 20 now and so many of the 'gifted' children, simply turned out to be 'ordinary' adults who simply learnt things earlier than their peers.

'indigo' is the in-denial version of 'autism'

And yes, do read it and weep!

I live in the middle class heartland of commutable-to-the-city.

There is not a child here who is not gifted .

DC were quite the dullards when they started reception, being unable to read or write.
But things have a way of turning on their heads don't they?

'I don't think that running away from social situations by home educating is the way forward.

Children who struggle socially need support from adults to get social cues. I also believe they need children of a similar age to test and refine their social skills. You need to make mistakes in a supportive enviroment to develop social skills.'

ReallyTired Most people who home educate children with social difficulties don't do it to run away. They do it because their children were NOT supported in those environments but were ridiculed, misunderstood, punished and have suffered mental health issues as a result.

There is very little in the way of knowledge and expertise HOW to help these children learn the social rules. Simply dropping them in amongst their peers does NOT work.

In boys there is a statistic of 15% of under 25s with High Funcitoning Autism having either attempted or succeeded at suicide. Parents remove their children from schools in order to avoid their child becomeing one of these.

You are right though in your suggestions about what these children need and you are right that it would 'probably' be better than Home education. But you are misguided if you think it happens at all but extremely rarely.

I think though that you need to be aware that a lot of parents who home educate for this reason are aware that their children need support with social skills and social skills education usually does become a part of that, with HE networks and appropriate clubs and activities. It depends on the parent though.

'Gifted' is such a meaningless word, particularly when applied to a 3-year-old. I teach at a university, and many of my students are what I inwardly term 'the formerly gifted.' They have been told how brilliant they are their whole lives, but they are actually quite ordinary and average. Haven't encountered a genius yet.

I'm amused when people start tossing around I.Q. scores to prove their child is gifted. I'm even more amused when they claim that being bored is somehow proof of exceptional intelligence. In my observations, the most intelligent children can almost invariably figure out a way to make any task interesting. Children without those internal resources are more likely to tend toward boredom.

I have no idea what IQ scores my two have. Should I know?

I agree about 'gifted' being a bit of a non-word Kitchen.

My 3yr old IS gifted though.

How do you get believed when your child truly IS gifted?

She can get three 7yr old autistic boys with language difficulties involved in an shared attention imaginary play game with her and each other.

She can't read or tell the time though!

"cocky I agree that literacy figure is shocking, but that doesn't mean the children should be pushed into reading too young. Those children who can't read and write are presumably 16."

What is your definition of being able to read? Is not being able to decode, is it failing GCSE English? A lot of people with literacy difficulties struggle with comprehension of reading rather than necessarily barking at print.

Surely spending time developing good oral language skills in a high quality nursery reaps rewards long term? In many countries where reading is taught later children catch up UK children very quickly.

My daughter, now 18, has taught herself Japanese and is currently teaching herself Kinyarwanda so she can teach in Rwanda.

She can't tie her shoelaces and still gets lost on her way to school.

I pretend I can't hear her when she talks about her plans to go to Africa.

starlight it's an aintersting point about how exactly we help children develop social skills. What is the view on this regarding autistic children, from experts? Is it just impossible?

Isn't there really a bit of a difference between those children who are definitley completely autistic, and children who just display some autistic tendencies (of which there seem to be an awful lot). Perhaps more experience socialising with children would help the latter?

One thing they did T my daughter's kindergarten was a really interesting project. Itwas called 'toy free kindergarten' and was developed in Germany but is quite popular now also in Switzerland where we live. It lasted 3 months, and basically the children had, for daily approx 3 and half hour sessions, no structure and no toys, no pens, paper, books. All they had were the norma
Pieces of furniture, some scArves, pieces of wood and I think that's about it. The teacher just observed them. Mostly they built houses, or different structures with the furniture and did a lot of role play. There were quite a lot of conflicts, people not allowed to play, annoying each other etc and the procedure for dealing with them was as follows: a child who felt annoyed and couldn't sortoutthe problem without help had to ring a bell. When the children heard that, they all had to sit down and listen to that child's grievance, and try tocome up with a solution, with as little intervention as possible from the teacher.

I know it all sounds a bit hippy and experimental but most of us agreed thT afterwards it improved the children's social competences no end, and their communication skills. They also learned to be creative and cope with boredom abd frustration. In fact the whole project is promoted by a drug addiction prevention organisation. The idea being that children who learn to cope with boredom are less likely to develop an addiction later.

starlight are we meant to take your post at face value, or are you being humourous?

Sorry starlight don't know if that was you, can't find the post now - the one anout normal children not being able to socialise with yours because he is such a genius they just can't understand his play.

Ok just found it upthread starlight.

why is it so important to you, that people believe your 3 year old is gifted?

It might also be worth pointing out that speaking and listening skills in Nursery and Reception aged children have been in steady decline for years.

Many experts and teachers blame Television and other reasons for lack of verbal communication in the home.

Therefore, I wonder if a child is seen as 'brighter' than the rest of their peers aged 3 years old, because they can speak clearly and make themselves understood to the Nursery staff?

Worra,, so do agree. the 'gifted and talented' kid of whom parents bored for England in my older sons school days is now at Mc Donald's.

If his parents hadn't hot housed him and made him so 'special' I wouldn't crow, as they did I do.

Some kids start seemingly ahead and the other kids catch up by age 7, I have never met a 'gifted' nursery child and find concept ridiculous as far too young to judge.

my neighbour is always going on about his gifted child being in the top three for his "academic achievements" in reception.

if he could hear himself he'd realise what a wally he sounds

Bugstar, 'opinion' differs widely about how you teach children with autism to socialise.

Research, on the other hand shows that the most effective way is to teach the various components on a 1:1 basis and then gradually generalise, but more significantly practice and practice and practice with 1:1 support being gradually faded for THAT skill, and then start with the next. This require expertise in both the typical path if social development, as well as understanding of what motivates a child with autism and how to assess and measure progress in this. This is beyond most TAs, beyond most Teachers actually and beyond the majority of SALTs, and is expensive. So the 'opinion' that all these kids need is to be plonked amongst typically developing peers with 30mins a week of social skills group work, is the prevailing one.

It is interesting to note that if these children had any capacity to learn from their peers then they would not have autism. It is the Defining feature.

Wrt my daughter, her social skills are more advanced than those in her nursery and her imaginary play can be technically advanced than theirs.

However, it doesn't really affect her as her social ability enables her to adapt ti her audience, which is why she is able to engage children with autism where professionals often cannot (her brother who she adores has autism).

Left to free reign, she hangs out with older kids.

Ds2 was home educated for a year. We felt that school was the best place for him to learn the social mores, however, school staff felt that bullying him when he questioned anything was the best way to treat a seven year old. We didn't run away, we took a decision to remove him from an environment where the staff did not protect him, but actively encouraged the bullying. We took him out of an environment where he was placed facing a white sheet of paper on a wall to remind him that he was no different from the rest of the class and nothing special.
He had nightmares about his year two teacher for years. They knew he had AS, but would do nothing to accommodate. They knew he was gifted, but deliberately gave him work that would bore him because his reaction was cute and funny. (Meltdowns for having to do cvc words again).
Bastards, complete bastards. So, we didn't run away, we rescued.

"This is beyond most TAs, beyond most Teachers actually and beyond the majority of SALTs, and is expensive."

I think its a matter of training. Some TAs are amazing with autistic children.

Lego has been used to develop social skills in autistic children.

www.autism.org.uk/get-involved/get-your-company-involved/companies-were-working-with/lego-uk/lego-helps-social-development-of-children-with-autism.aspx

I wish I could have had lessons developing lego models rather tedious latin lessons or incessant praying at school.

It's important that people/teachers understand her capabilities because she is excellent at adapting to the social situation and will play herself down if she feels the teachers expect less from her. I.e in order not to upset them if she finds it too easy.

She passed a hearing test despite being deaf as a post and needing grommits because she coukd read the audiologist and knew when a sound was coming. She didn't want to upset her by not hearing iyswim.

Luckily I understood and requested a re-test but with dd facing me instead and clicking her fingers. Then she failed.