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.

[caitlinm38231]

My kitchen table currently 😂

[Morph22010]

My sons always been really socialable and always been ok with eye contact. His speech was also in line for age. I think it’ll just be a case of wait and see. I take it she’s had her hearing checked?

[Rufus27]

This.

[Morph22010]

@Rufus27

This.

Well say what you want but it was defiantly an early sign as it turns out (I am the original poster of that comment from 2013) , he liked order, putting things in an order like numbers and letters. We are now 10
years on and he has a lot more obvious signs of autism

[Svara]

@caitlinm38231

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.

Ds was the same with puzzles, he's not autistic, just gifted, especially at maths and spacial stuff. Going on to do computer science and maths at 16, not exceptional but does well without much study. Some issues with disengagement in primary.

[caitlinm38231]

So did it show itself in puzzles at a really young age? Was their activities you gave him to encourage that learning?

[Svara]

@caitlinm38231

So did it show itself in puzzles at a really young age? Was their activities you gave him to encourage that learning?

I posted months ago upthread. He was doing 20 piece puzzles at 20 months, up to 100 piece ones sometime when he was two. I bought him more cheap cardboard puzzles, he had my old lego and duplo, then his own sets for birthdays and Christmas. He was following instructions for 7+ kits at age 4. He liked to watch mythbusters dvds, history programmes like timeteam, engineering programmes. I taught him numbers and letters like many parents before school. The maths he just understood the first time he was taught, and he wanted to learn new things all the time, we just talked about it in the car. He was assessed at an end of year 2 level for maths halfway through reception, he did it all in his head though as he had no formal instruction.

[Katyy92]

I’ve found this thread and find it really interesting. Our son is in the category but to be honest to us he not to be rude isn’t well above his peers by any means. He’s always been interested in learning, reading and we’ve always I suppose since he was little as a family encouraged that as we as people both are.

I was in the G&T at school and didn’t really see much benefit a lot of the time. We did get to go on some courses that were interesting and some development but senior school after Y9 it just stopped.

and my concern is when our bairn gets to senior school, I certainly felt I was then isolated in these sessions with my friends (not included), as me and they were from a lower background income wise to the rest of the group in G&T and that was difficult.

im not sure how it works in secondary school now but i do worry about that. As someone who was on a sports team too, it was clear that the school prided sporting over academic achievement

[Feefooo]

At age 2-3 DD had really good language acquisition she started talking very young actually. DH has ASD, DD has dyslexia but tested really high IQ, when we smashed the dyslexia , she started reading Shakespeare obviously when she was 8. Shakespeare has really helped her developed a love for reading. She started drawing when she was 2-3 for hours at a time.

[marapournumber4]

Just noted this is old thread - but if it's of any help to anyone my gifted DC did not say a word until he was 3. Fab social skills but very independent. Amazing concentration, but happy to stop if asked.

[takeachillpill2]

My DS (2nd child) was incredibly aware of surroundings and showed very early signs of separation anxiety and lots of other people commented on how it looked as if he was an old man in a baby's body as even when a few months old, it looked as if he somehow knew what was going on around him.

Other than that, with an older toddler, didn't have time to teach him letters/numbers but he picked it up himself. Was astounded when, a much older child was showing off his counting in tens to his parents, when DS (still in a buggy) was able to carry on past 100! Definitely strong ability to see signs/read early, numbers and full understanding of number.

Pre-school commented on how he would actively seek out learning opportunities even when very young and sometimes away from other children. But he was still sociable but incredibly self conscious (again aware of surroundings). I did ask the question about ASD/spectrum but teacher, very experienced, said 'he's just very bright'. Generally speaking school and other adults have always commented on how bright he is, but we did notice his capability to remember things and process and draw connections at quite adult levels, made an appearance very early on. And was quite interesting as with oldest child, we didn't see these things so it was evident DC2 was different in that sense.

DS now is still an extremely chatty child, still a bit self conscious but has lots of friends and a great sense of humour (quite sarcastic and adult)! He's still gifted and has a high IQ.

[timetorefresh]

At that age my DD was planning a lot of the activities she ended up doing at nursery. She kept the staff very entertained.