If you had a really early talker would you please talk to me, a few q's

[sedgieloo]

I am just wondering if you later found that it signified anything or did other toddlers simply catch up, and do you think I should encourage it further? I am 35 wks pregnant so if there are some books I could get for the next stage I would like to do that now. Or should I just leave her to it? I have not attempted to teach her to read, and have no idea how.

Background if interested, or if it helps to explain...

She was putting 2 words together at 10 months, then at 14 months I counted up 40 words then stopped as it was new words every day then from 15 months several new words a day. By 18 months 100's of words and more complex sentences. She knew her alphabet, could count to 12, multiple shapes, colours etc. That sounds like I was pushing her, but just the normal books and songs, she picked it all up fast. I noticed she is a good mimic, as are several in the family and put it down to that.

To be honest I didn't think much of it except it was highly amusing.

Then I was started to notice her grammar, for example at 20 months I recall she said: Daddy bumped his head, and in the same sentence, Mummy bumped her head.

Then at 22 months I overheard her having conversations with her toys and doing their voice, I'm a first time mum so I don't know but felt surprised. Here is an example at 22 months:

DD: 'Teddy what is the name of a baby pig called?'
DD in a squeaky voice: 'A piglet'
DD: 'Very good teddy'

We get quite a lot of this now, I hear her in the car or at bedtime chatting away doing both voices. That is a bit odd unusual I thought, but do not have much to compare it to.

I would now describe her as verging on precocious fully conversational?!? Yesterday she said 'mummy I want to play upstairs', 'OK but I want to finish my cup of tea'. Immediately, 'Are you nearly finished mummy?' she is 23 months.

I talked early like DD (I surprised people by saying very clearly 'Hello, how are you? At 9 months, according to DM) and I did go on to speak half a dozen languages, including a Cambridge first in two of them. But not necessarily always correlated...

DS didn't start talking before he was three. That's 3 years old, not 3 months old. He didn't babble, and only had three single words until 3 yo (mum, yes and woof).

He is now 5 years old. He can read fluently. He can spell correctly words like Welcome and School. He knows most of his times tables. This morning at the kitchen table he said to me 'mum I know how many days there are in 100 weeks. That's 700 days.' He can count backwards in threes. If you ask him 'what makes 12' he'll say something like '4+2+4+2, so 2X2 and 2X4 makes 12'.

I am not saying that speaking early is not a sign of being 'clever', but many children who speak late are also very clever.

Early talker, early reader and bright, with an interest in music.
Shite beyond words at anything remotely physical though.

DD1 said first word at 8 months, and moved on fairly quickly from there. She is 3.7 and talks very well, with good vocab, but I think she is pretty normal and not particularly ahead of her peers. She is really struggling to pick up letter sounds ('e is for nut, mummy' ) and certainly isn't flying through numbers either. She is excellent at rhymes and playing with words and their sounds - I don't know how well they teach her at nursery, but certainly this type of skill is not something that comes easily to her. Not that that has anything to do with how intelligent she is.

I wasn't myself a particularly early talker, but apparently I went from 0-90 very fast and was fluent and clear by 2. I have made my life from words (am an academic) , but suspect that my early facility with language (never had to learn spellings for example, just 'knew' them) was my particular gift, even though I was an all-rounder at school and university. Ironically, my capacity with my own language doesn't, alas, extend to mastery of other languages.

"guess the "not specially bright, but starting 4 A-levels" comment is important, just how unusual is this early talking, what does it signify"

I did say she was clever- but not super bright or G and T.

She would have been likely to do A levels regardless of her early talking- both her father qnd I have loads of degrees and things which is a better inicator of potential academic achievement than early talking!

Einstein didn't talk until he was 4.

amck5700 that's so funny. DD crawled on the lawn and munched grass one day, then started giggling unstoppably and ran away when I asked her what she was doing, apparently being a horse.

Seeker, starting 4 A-levels is probably still G&T within the formal definition of within top 10% of class/ age group. In a class of thirty there are 3 academically G&T kids and in Britain there are around 7 million, by definition. "Super bright" is a subjective description, and I'm not sure what you mean. I work with the entire spectrum of society. (urban space being mainly designed by those with above average IQ and built by those with below average IQ my job being to tell the second lot what the first lot want them to do.) I tend to think of people with A-levels as pretty darned bright. You'd be disappointed if your early talker were out there now spreading tarmac.

"Early talking" is also subjective, because the first words happen around age 12 months is so inaccurate. I think that for most children, that's either the first word that the parents recognise, or that it's the first word that they think they are allowed to count as a first word. Because my DD was ahead enough to attract attention, I ended up learning as much as I could about speech development so I could reassure parents who compared their child with mine. Many of them didn't count eg "ma" as a word even if it was used consistently for "milk". And I'd sit and play with their kids for half an hour and hear ten words the parent hadn't noticed. What that means is that early talking is in the ear of the beholder to some extent, and that's why other children seem to catch up - they were never behind.

My DD was like yours...right down to putting 2 words together at 10 months. She is 8 now and not very academic.

She is very sensitive and had a period of not speaking to strangers at all which resulted in selective mutism at age 3. She has now begun to recover from this...I say she's not academic but it's more that she has biggish gaps....so she's in the bottom group for maths but her reading is that of a 12-13 year old. Her spelling is similar but her comprehension is bad.

She has made a massive recovery from the selective mutism and I don't worry about her so much. She's bright...with gaps. She's at a new school and they're looking at her development closely.

I sometimes wonder if the comments she had from strangers as a baby had influenced her mutism....people were always expressing shock and amusement when she spoke to them.

my dd also went through a period of something close to, but not full-blown, selective mutism bigfatlegs; even now she will often not answer questions, or will only answer with a nod or shake of the head. When with people she doesn't know well, or lots of people she often retreats into baby language. I suspect that she is not very academic either - although it's too early to tell, but I can see the gap widening and widening between my dd (3.7) and her older, clearly academic cousin (4.3) who can read, tell the time, do basic arithmetic etc. Older cousin talked later than dd.

UrbanSpaceMum- I see what you mean. I suppose what I meant was that in the circle of friends dd had as a baby they are all now starting A levels, and lots are much brighter than dd- but she did talk clearly and so people outside th family could understqnd her months befor they did. I regard it as a sort of "performing monkey" type trick. My nephew could catch flies between finger and thumb when he was 2. And ds could sing in tune before he could talk. The talking thing the same category- lots of fun but not really an indicator of anything. I think, anyway.

rhetorician Yes...it's interesting, I never had a diagnosis and because she was in a private school, they never got her assessed....it seemed LIKE SM to me though. She'd speak so much amongst friends and family but once at nursery, she went literally mute...they were great though and never pushed it. It was only with adults they noted and she spoke to her peers.

Both my DDs were very early talkers. Apparently there is a gene for for it.

DD1 is now 16 and above average but not gifted at all.

DD2 is a clever old stick (at grammar school) but again not gifted.

It doesn't necessarily mean they are wildly clever but it is great fun!

likewise, bigfatlegs - well, not in a private nursery, but rather a very ordinary one (e.g. they will tell you that she ate her dinner, rather than that she drew a picture), but they were very good and just slowly encouraged her - she chats away fine there now, but is still quite quiet with strangers.

An early talker usually signifies a bright child/quick learner but not always, given the right encouragement and good preschool learning, early talkers can become really inteligent children & do well at school etc. Dont worry about teaching reading too much i am not a reader i hate it and let the playschool teach that and my ds ended up loving reading. However i always encouraged counting with games & words with counting songs from day 1, also alot of Telly Tubbies helped.
My ds was an very early talker i cant remember at exactly what age he started to speak 'understandable' sentances (not containing toddler garble) but i do remember when people spoke to him for the first time, they where always quite surpprised and shocked at how well he spoke and always complemented me on having such a bright boy, in his first yr at primary school i was called in to see the head master, thinking that he'd been seriously naughty i was gob smacked when told that although he's one of the youngest kids in yr R, he was also the brightest child in that year group too, he went on to pass his 11+ with flying colours and is now an yr11 student at grammer school.

Mine were both early talkers and both my dgs have been too.A neighbour's children seemed to be a long way behind in speaking at similar ages but by the age of 5 the neighbour's boy was as fluent and articulate as dgs1.The younger ones are 3 now and while dgs2 is still more talkative he is a few months older than his friend who is now talking in fluent sentences and will respond to questions very sensibly.
I reckon that by 5 most [if not all] children will reach a similar level of speech.
Children's develoopment is like a switchboard and different skills are 'plugged in' at different times.Some talk early,some are easy to potty train,some are walking before some of their peers are crawlig.It all evens out eventually unless a child has a problem.

My brother walked at 8 months old (so did his grandson!) he however did not become a great sportsman or anything.

Our early talker is now 5 1/2 and has a fantastic vocabulary, is on the school's 'more able pupils' register, has been known to correct his friends' grammar :blush: and is a couple of book bands ahead of the majority of his class. He also never, ever, ever stops talking. It all evens out though - he's hopeless at drawing, his handwriting is no better than average and he took longer to potty-train than any of my friends' kids!

People often commented on how well and early mine could talk and how wide their vocabulary was. I honestly think it's because I always talked to them,right from being tiny babies.I just jabbered on and on and on........

Now they are older they both love English and reading and have good reading levels.

I think it's just the thing they're good at,and it was for me too as a child.

I don't know, I think a child that will talk early will talk early, I don't think the amount of 'jabbering on'you do makes a huge amount if difference.

You're probably right hazey.

But it was lovely to have someone to talk to all day