What was your gifted child like when they were 2 - 3 years old

[ChazDingle]

Won't go into too much detail but DS has been identified as potentially showing some signs of autism. One of the main things is that he extremely good with numbers and letters. Its early days still but it was also mentioned that some of the other signs might be toddler behavour that he grows out of and he might be gifted. When i look at the signs of autism and the signs of giftedness there is quite a big overlap. If your child is gifted what were they like at 2-3 and were they suspected of being autistic? Did they turn out to be autistic as well as gifted.

I remember this thread. Good to see an update!

Even if you do end up with a diagnosis, it sounds like he's settling in school and doing not too badly, so hopefully it would be a case of making some minor adjustments and allowances.

Also suffering "it's too easy syndrome" with maths here, and DS wasn't nearly as precocious as yours. We finally managed to persuade DS to ask the teacher to give him something harder this term instead of just staring out of windows then grumbling at home - proves to be much more successful than anything we could say!

We had problems with maths at school so asked the year 1 teacher how she differentiated work (Dc was apparently disruptive after they'd finished all the maths sheets). After this harder work was available on the shelves & dc could go & help themselves. Child ended up being offered scholarships to senior schools & doing well in public exams.

My daughter is now 7, but in hindsight she's always been gifted but having nothing to compare her to I thought it was just 'normal'. She has always had a very long attention span, which was commented on by the HV and her childminder. She was also a very early talker at 12 months and never really went through the baby talk phase - went straight to 'full' sentences. She has always had a fascination with books and all of my family are readers, so it wasn't unusual for us to read to her and have books around the place. By 2 she had taught herself to read by using a phonics toy we had and putting the subtitles on the TV...to this day I have no idea how she did it.
Her love of reading has continued to this day (phew!) and her focus has now moved onto maths.

Ds is 13 and has AS. He was diagnosed at almost 9.
Was obsessed with street sweepers of all things and anything Egyptian.
Learnt to write in hiroglyphics at nursery but really struggled in school with social issues.
Dd is in reception and I've been looking for similar signs ( can't help it ) but there are none. She's extremely bright, stubborn and independent and is amazing at art and craft.
My child with AS was toilet trained earlier than dd and that was the only thing she wasn't advanced with.
Ds has confidence issues and severe anxiety and I feel like he could try harder a lot of the time but he's happy and that's all that matters.
Dd is flourishing and expect her to do very well. She's a lazy madam though and hates cleaning up after herself in school if she's been doing craft etc.
my brother has 2 boys on the spectrum so were wondering if we have a family history...
That said, everyone is supposed to have traits, it depends on how severe they are and how it affects your life.

We have appointment paediatrician appointment end of month. Things at school seem to be getting really bad and he seems to be spending a lot of time out of the class due to outbursts. He's now started refusing to go to phonics because it's boring and he knows all the sounds and has thrown things in the class as a result. The maths they are doing is number bonds to 10 which he can do really easily although I think the teacher does give him some harder maths sometimes

gatorgolf, My ds has been extremely hyperlexic since early age, and had quite difficult reception year, although his teacher was quite understanding to his academic needs. It became better since YR1 with structured work, and especially after we started to give him resources at home which feeds his interest.
My ds loved phonics even he was able to read already, and is helping him decode harder words he encounters now, so I think it's useful.
He was flagged up at 2 year check up to be referred to paediatrician and they found inconclusive for ASD , but his traits seems to be disappearing slowly, although I think some might always be there. I still don't know he is just gifted or has ASD, but having a quite happy school life at the moment in YR3.

Hi
there
I can tell you now your child is gifted and talented as you have just described my 3 children-2 have been formerly assessed and diagnosed and I have not bothered with the third as I now know what I am dealing with! Its a whirlwind when they are little but all I can say is - especially with the boys- you have to play the long game- my son will be in his element when he is at university but senior school is hard as he is operating in a totally different level to his peers and that can make school hard!. ...I am not saying that to be a show off- its just a fact-- in fact its very very hard to be gifted and talented- and its hard for parents- its not the ""golden prize" I thought I was being given and can often lead to your child being isolated because of their different way of looking at the world....
Treasure their curiosity and unique approach to life- their intensity and passion- it will stand you in good stead for the phone calls from the school and the lack of party invites!!!! But honestly- thank heavens we are all different as I tell my children-how boring would the world be if we all saw things the same way and were all good at the same things!

Formerly assessed? What are the findings of the more recent assessments?

Another thread just reminded me of this. Op here some 4 years later. Ds was diagnosed with autism earlier this year. School applied to ehcp to get him extra help at school as he struggles socially and emotionally and can have complete meltdowns. We've been turned down for assessment by local authority part of the reasons being that he is exceeding age related expectations. Have now appealed to tribunal do waiting on that

Ds1 was obsessed with dinosaurs and Thomas the Tank Engine. He tended to like to line things up (eg toy cars). He wasn't much interested in creative things like musical instruments or colouring but loved jigsaws and other puzzles. He took huge enjoyment from learning things and being quizzed on his knowledge. He was also very shy, more so than most children his age.
12 years later you could swap football and general knowledge for Thomas the Tank and dinosaurs and he's exactly the same.
He's just really good at learning things and had a very logical mind. He's also a really lovely, kind hearted, thoughtful person.
No one ever suggested autism.

Just realised.. It's a zombie thread that the OP kindly came back to update.

Just realised.. It's a zombie thread that the OP kindly came back to update.

Hello I’m the original poster updating as ds is now 10 and year 6 and I still see similar types of queries so I thought it might be useful to update.

We eventually got the ehcp in mainstream after appealing to tribunal and he got 32.5 hours ta. It still didn’t work out as ds just couldn’t cope in the mainstream environment. He was fine with the work it was the whole sensory environment he couldn’t cope with and he was having regular meltdowns and school kept excluding him so it wasn’t a good time. Year 4 he eventually got a place in asd provision and has settled reasonably well although we’ve still had ups and downs and obviously Covid hasn’t helped.

He’ll be going up to secondary in sept and has a place in asd provision for children without learning difficulties so he’ll he able to do GCSEs and a levels there.

It’s a lot more obvious now that he’s autistic and looking back the signs were definately there at 2-3. He’s still very clever and sails through the age related expectations at school. Not sure if he is gifted as he won’t perform on demand so to speak but he definately has a love of learning and does a lot of reading/learning for fun off his own back.

Looking back I sometimes feel abit bad I didn’t push more for a diagnosis when he was 2-3 but from what I’ve learnt since he prob wouldn’t have got much extra support then anyway. I’m also aware of kids that are diagnosed early and are well supported through primary which then makes it virtually impossible to get specialist for secondary so they end up with things then going very badly wrong at secondary when they can no longer cope. Although it was about two years of hell at time in mainstream primary at least this has now guaranteed us specialist secondary. Fingers crossed for the next stage

Hi OP, thanks for your updates over the years, it is interesting to see the different stories unfold. I’m sorry that your DS has had a difficult time.
DS is also year 6. No one has mentioned ASD in relation to him for a few years now, his speech caught up and so did his smart arse sense of humour. He continues to be top of his class and has an entrance exam for a super selective science academy this weekend. I suspect that he will sail through in the same way as he does with every aspect of education. I have warned him that he will no longer be the smartest in his class and he says he’s just excited to meet other kids like him.

At 2-3, a good vocabulary, including some unusual words. Very good memory for names, colours, knew numbers to 100. Into science even then - asking big questions about the world. Wanting things quantified (eg how many, how deep etc). But wasn’t yet reading, not drawing particularly well, don’t recall much if any writing. To this day, strength remains in numbers and an excellent memory, which makes academics very easy.

Also to add, glad of your update OP!

At 2 she spoke like a kid at school with a very impressive vocabulary. She started to write her name and was very good at counting. Massive tantrums!

At 3 she started wanting to read and picked up phonics easily. She could write simple sentences with the words spelt how they sound. She did sums in her head and wrote them out too. She remembered facts well. She still had big tantrums!

She had a gross motor delay and so walking, running, climbing, jumping, hopping etc was quite behind her peers.

There have been studies done on this topic. This website actually breaks down giftedness into 5 levels based on the milestones achieved by the child. I found it quite useful. It gives you a better understanding of where your child fits in.

deborahruf.medium.com/ruf-estimates-of-levels-of-giftedness-7213a77089e9

Hmm, I’m pretty sceptical of a lot of that link - fair enough the stuff she says about “level 1-3” children but the things for levels 4 and 5? “All appeared to understand parental directives between birth and four months”, how on Earth can a genuine researcher write this with confidence? A bit of bollocks going on there. It doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence in her methodology.

Anyway, it’s v interesting to read your update on this thread, OP.

@tetherless this is my old thread, child ended up being diagnosed age 6

DS hit motor milestones on the early side, independent at the playground with steps, ladders, bridges, slides at 18 months. Balance bike as soon as he was tall enough at two and a half, climbed to the top of those giant nets at three.

Speech at the low end of normal, didn't speak much until two and a half.

Obsessed with puzzles, doing 20 piece puzzles labelled 3+ at 20 months, at two would stand at a table working his way through every wooden peg puzzle at nursery, tipping them out one by one then stacking them neatly as he finished them. Loved Duplo, then Lego from age 3. Enjoyed looking at books.

Except for speech he essentially was like a child one and a half times his age, so three at two. He would follow instructions, was very independent, common sense and maturity of an older child. He was never really a toddler.

Hi,
I have been going down a rabbit hole online recently and thought I’d reach out to see if anyone has experienced something similar with their child. My daughter is 2, turning 3 in September. She is almost completely non-verbal (can say by-bye and ta). Health visitors decided to refer her to a pediotrition as there was concerns about Autism. After being assessed they decided my daughter wasn’t showing signs of Autism and was more likely just a speech delay. In the last couple months though, my daughter has become amazing at puzzles. She is completing 100 piece puzzlers on her own, and will sit for over an hour doing puzzle after puzzle. She does them upside down too. Down my rabbit hole online i came across Einstein Sydrome, and gifted children. I wondered if anyone elses children had showed signs of this, Or if I’m thinking into it all too much.

I'm actually gifted but AFAIK nobody could tell until I was 9/10

Are they picture puzzles or puzzles with some sort of order to them? Mine could do alphabet and number puzzles with lots of pieces really young but wasn’t really interested if it was “just a picture”. I’m the original poster from 2013 and my child is now 12, was diagnosed autism when he was 6. If she is autistic it will become more apparent as she gets older.

They are pictures puzzles. We lay out the 100 pieces infront of her and she will just scan them all and pick out the right piece immediately. She’ll sometimes do separate parts of the puzzles and join them together later. It was just so out of the blue her interest in them. But the first thing she does in the morning when she gets up is a puzzle. I’m really not sure she is autistic. She has great eye contact, she’s really sociable, no other traits to do with food or sleep. It was just the speech delay that was of concern to the HV.