normal development compared to gifted/talented

[moomin86]

Hi there

I just wanted to ask what is normal or average development for a 16 month old and what are the signs that they may need to be challenged more as they get older or that they may be more advanced or gifted?

Ive found it hard discussing my daughter with people as I don't want people to feel I am boasting but I am unsure if I should be thinking about development and how we can support her as she gets older or if this is normal behaviour that will even out, or is it to early to tell?

When is the appropriate time to ask for help? as I feel she is completely different from her peers. I feel like I can't keep up with her but if I try and speak to friends I find the response negative and people become very defensive. I feel like a fish out of water and am concerned about getting her into an environment that will understand her needs. Her nursery have moved her up to try and challenge her more and I know she is no where near school age but I did not think she would be doing the things she is at this age but am unsure if my expectations are wrong as Ive never had a child before

Thanks in advance

Var123 - that's a difficult post to read, and I believe is a reflection on your experience. I think it's unfair on the OP to make that many assumptions.

In my experience, if you try to work together with the school and actually acknowledge that they have 30 children in a class - they cannot spend one-to-one time with a child who is doing very well academically. They can adapt the work, extend, make allowances and encourage creativity/individual work, which many parents value. DS's 'talents' were very much below the radar until year 2, and I was happy to support and extend his education at home as we firmly believe that pushing children from very young can be counter productive (DH is a primary school teacher so he does most of the work with DS). We wanted him to play, make friends, enjoy school become more resilient and develop a hunger for learning which was not accompanied by trying to be perfect all the time.

He has many friends, mostly boys from his class, enjoys the company of children his own age.

Strictlyison - its based on my own experience and a few years on this G&T section on MN.

The attitudes when you say your child is very able are almost predictable.
MN: What makes you say that? Huh, that's not special! Well that is good, but you must be hot-housing. If they are bored at school, its only because they have a bad attitude to waiting for other children to catch up (my DD absolutely adores fannying around doing nothing). Is there something that they aren't good at? Well you can't say they are doing well until they excel at everything across the full academic, artistic, story and music spectrums.

Other Parents: Very limited experience as I avoid it like the plague. It makes conversations difficult e.g. recently one mum was complaining about the primary class homework. I had no idea what she was talking about as DS does it in few minutes each week and he's usually finished it before i've even noticed that he's started. She asked for my thoughts and I tried to evade. Then she said "Of course your ds probably mastered this a couple of years ago".

Teachers: I agree that your DS needs to be challenged but I am too busy getting these kids up to a level 3 this year. Or well that's for me to determine and I don't know your DS yet. Or he's getting the top set work (said as though that's sufficient for anyone). Or, he doesn't get 100% every time so the work must be challenging (I later find out that there was one occasion when he couldn't be bothered trying and only got 96%). Or I give him extension work. Or, (early primary years), I haven't checked his levels for a while but I'll do it in the next few weeks. Or its nearly the end of the year, but I am sure next year's teacher will challenge him. (Its funny how the next year is always billed as a BIG-STEP-UP, but it never is!)

typo: full academic, artistic, sport and music spectrums.

Avoid other parents like plague? Really?

And yes, other children count too. I am not a strong believer that my child is so special and so talented and so gifted that he should monopolise Teacher's time. He gets graded at the same time as the other children.

Avoid conversations with other parents about how well DS is doing like the plague.

But interesting that you should interpret it that way...!

The thing is that G&T chidlren count too. We all know that everyone else counts. As I said before when it comes to the G&T children, the prevailing attitude is that they will do well whatever, so no special provision is required to keep them occupied.

Var, I think you are confusing the responses of 'mn' with the parents of more able kids that post on the g&t board - there are also swathes of competiveness that display the anti-intellectual stance all over boards

I recognise some of what you say, but think you are actually in vehement agreement with most posters. The op's dd is not unusual in this context, because we are all familiar with kids who know their alphabet/ read very early - and to be honest, some of those kids go on to do very well, and some don't. There is really no difference in parenting required at this point though. Really, who wants to be worried that they will lead a lifetime of stress because their child knows a few phonics before they are two?

At this point, the op needs reassurance that her dd is well within the bounds of normal (which she is - we all have kids like that, whether we actively count how many words or phonics they know - which is a leetle bit househousey for my liking, but I try not to judge - she is nowhere near composing musical sonatas or reading war and peace)

It's not really terribly productive to perform 'my terrible life with gifted child' to the mother of a 16mo as a definitive 'this is what you have in store'.

Sure, some schools cater for gifted kids well, some don't. But at this point, the toddler may well be reading early and skip through KS1, but ultimately be a perfectly average kid.

Op, dd sounds lovely. You don't need to do anything different. Just have fun with her. You don't need at 16 mos to be fretting about discussing development. You don't need to be consulting professionals.

If you want to, sure, go ahead. There are people who have made a decent hobby out of their gifted offspring - it would undoubtedly be possibly to find experts to take your money, and a few people have managed to get additional funding and specific nursery placements, but it will cost you a lot of cash and time as most of this will be done privately before you can address things legally with the LEA. Most areas do not recognise kids as gifted until start school (although nurseries are often willing to run kids with other age groups informally - nursery requested additional support from the LA for ds but we're turned down flat as he wasn't old enough to be recognised as more able.)

But ultimately, it's all about parental guilt and how strongly we convince ourselves that it's about meeting individual potential. If you have the wallet and the time, you can limitlessly expand your child's education. (There are of course an awful lot of children who could achieve more in this context lol. Pretty much all of them!) - the real issue is that no child will ever reach their potential of course - but it's human nature to try. Those that have the money can seek opportunities in more ways that those who only have state education and large class sizes cannot. It's really parental choice, and parental ability.

Most people take a middle path and try to encourage along the way, and deal with school when issues come up. They don't try to address issues before they appear... (Yes, some gifted children do need support. Some don't. I have two that do (largely because they are 2e) and one that definitely doesn't. She never has.) have any of them reached their potential? No, of course not.

It doesn't mean that I am writing them off.

Would it have been a nice hobby? With an unlimited fund of cash and time, absolutely. I dabble, here and there.

At 16mos, two of mine were broadly similar to the op's dd. At that point the third one was in receipt of high rate DLA and expected to be non-verbal.

Which is the most gifted? The third one, of course. The one with no speech. We call her Steven Hawking behind her back and she is expected to be a high court judge. The first was the most precocious at 16 mos (could happily perform alphabet, recognise letters and letter sounds in isolation, knew what words started with which letter, could count and understand numbers to ten in three languages) is actually on paper the least gifted of the three, although all fall into the notionally gifted spectrum. The performing one is also the one that needs no support at all. Never has.

The other two slow-burners have caused me more of the problems on your list.

At 16mos? Chillax.

Op, what you need is another baby to dilute your hyperfocus.

Ok.. not wishing to be hurtful (so look away OP!), but what i thought when i read the first post was simply: PFB!

I always find these threads interesting and amusing.

In my experience, the OP's DS's ability is not unusual. Moreover, it is not possible for a child this age to simply teach herself. She is good at what the OP encourages her to focus on.

What matters most for future success is a self-motivated love for learning, discipline, and applying one's acquired skills.

I was always at the top of my class but that counts for nothing to my success in life without true grit and determination.

I understand your concerns. Lots of friends and family told me my DS was G&T when he spoke at 9 months and could hold a basic conversation by 18 months. He read before starting school and could write a little. I didn't know what to think as he was my first child. Now he is at school (YR) he is with peers equally as capable and is clearly not G&T but just an early talker and reader. My DD was late to talk and walk but at 2.5 yrs she can easily do everything DS did at same age. Her speech is much clearer than DS's was at the same age. I think they all catch up by the time they start school.

Moreover, it is not possible for a child this age to simply teach herself. She is good at what the OP encourages her to focus on.

I agree with this. To me this seems obvious.

How then can a child who has had this start be compared to one who has not, to say which is naturally the more naturally intelligent? I'm not saying a lot is not down to natural intelligence, just that even by reception the playing field is not level.

I educated my child because I value education and wanted to give her the best start I could. She had a good mix of activities and I don't think she was hot housed.

With the post from Var, as I have said before, the evasive denial from primary school very much echoed my experience. Perhaps the OP will be lucky, as other posters have had very good schools and indeed my own dd now has at her secondary school. But it is something to be aware of in the future.

I read the Op's post as she was concerned that she wasn't adequately addressing her DD's needs, and I was (misguidedly, perhaps) trying to say that its easy to look after them when they are young, but it gets harder when school gets involved.

Really my message to the OP could have been boiled down to give her puzzles that she has to solve and talk to her, but be careful what you wish for wrt your DD being clever. (Wishing I had simply said that!).

As to the inadequacies of school - which was an unfortunate digression - , I find it incredibly difficult to imagine any child happening to get 7 successive teachers who have the inclination, the ability and the time to really teach the children who consistently work at a higher level than the 2nd most able child in the class. Such teachers do exist, but for a child to get seven in a row??!

Also, I agree with the others who are saying that the baby (because that's what someone whose age is still counted in months is!) is doing well but that's in large part down to the parenting she's receiving. If the OP keeps it up, then it may set her up for school, although I am not sure it will help very much when she's doing her finals at university.

I do not know what your idea of teaching oneself is but as far as my understanding goes, a claim that a baby can teach itself to read, count, etc independently is absolutely ludicrous.

dd2 taught herself to read. Given that she was non-verbal, and we were busy trying (and failing) to teach her to stand, hold a spoon, or get her hands to cross the mid-line, it really wasn't a priority to teach her to read.
As a result, we don't really know how she did it, with no spoken language, and no patient parent sitting explaining, answering questions, correcting while she practiced... It's a bit of a mystery, but she had got herself to chapter books and novels without us having any clue at all. I genuinely have no idea at all. In fact, it's so scary that I try to avoid thinking about it. The human brain is one crazy ass organ.

Newrule, I so wish you had been there when we realised dd2 was reading. Your absolute pomposity would have been pricked like a balloon.

LOL. Madwoman, a baby teaching themselves to read, count, etc independently is impossible. Call it pomposity, call it schomposity. It is a wholly and utterly ludicrous claim.

Madwoman,I believe you. My non verbal autistic son taught himself to read before he was three. I found out when he used his magnetic letters to spell Oracle which was the text service at the time.I think he learned from the subtitles on TV which we had on because he couldn't stand the volume on the TV. He had a hyperlexia diagnosis by four as he could read anything. He could also write sentences before he could string two words together which was hard to explain to his teachers particularly as his party trick was to write a pretty nasty, perfectly spelled insult about whoever he was annoyed with at the time.

She sounds verbally able for her age to me. But at 16 months my DS had 1 word - and that was light!

He also didn't socialise.

We find out tomorrow if he has asd or not. He has many 'gifts' eg he's an able mathematician and was physically ahead of his milestones.

It's very early to know your DDs life time strengths but I would encourage and nurture her abilities as she allows. A good school will differentiate work so she should do fine.

I'm not offended newrule. I am fully aware of how preposterous it sounds. That said, dd2 managed it somehow. osmosis?

She did have a higher iq than her paediatrician at 5 though. Maybe her understanding of these things is a little better than yours or mine, even with the brain damage?

I must read up on hyperlexia, thanks insanity. My assumption is she picked it up from being read stories, and just from general life. When she suddenly started reading, we thought she had memorized the book (even though it was the lion, the witch and the wardrobe lol) which would have been weird enough in and of itself. But I grabbed another book that I happened to have open on the shelf (which was Virginia Woolf reader, if anyone cares, not something I was in the habit of reading aloud - just using for an essay) and she could read that too.

I really don't blame newrule for her disbelief. We were in a similar boat, but couldn't really deny it as the proof was right in front of us. Still boggled now.

Like I said, I try not to think about it too much, but every now and again it's a fun fact to challenge people's expectations of learning and whatnot. There are kids who are literally wee sponges who will soak up stuff you had no idea they had even been exposed to.

Really interesting thread. My DD is similar age to yours OP and some days it can feel like her understanding and speech is better than we'd expect. But like others have said I think they just learn at different rates and what you teach them and spend time doing with them is what sticks.

I have always nattered away to DD in a way that assumed she could understand me since she was tiny and sung silly songs to her, with the result that she can say sentences, sing quite a few nursery rhymes in tune and surprises me daily with new words and learned sequences like 1,2,3 etc.

When I am around my mum friends though I see each child doing and saying different things at different rates and DD was one of the last walkers as I assume her brain just found talking easier than walking?

It sounds like you're a supportive and engaged Mum

Really interesting thread. My DD is similar age to yours OP and some days it can feel like her understanding and speech is better than we'd expect. But like others have said I think they just learn at different rates and what you teach them and spend time doing with them is what sticks.

I have always nattered away to DD in a way that assumed she could understand me since she was tiny and sung silly songs to her, with the result that she can say sentences, sing quite a few nursery rhymes in tune and surprises me daily with new words and learned sequences like 1,2,3 etc.

When I am around my mum friends though I see each child doing and saying different things at different rates and DD was one of the last walkers as I assume her brain just found talking easier than walking?

It sounds like you're a supportive and engaged Mum