Able Baby

[FrogPool]

DD is 17m, born 5w early so corrected 16m. Her vocabulary is too big to record and she understands pretty much everything we say to her. She can recognise and say 15 phonic sounds and can recognise numbers 1-10 written down and say these. She can look at two items and know there are 2. She can recognise and name some shapes (circle, square, heart, egg, star) and can recognise and name the colours white, black, green, blue, pink, yellow and sometimes red. She is putting words together to make short sentences. She can tell you her first name if you ask her and she said "yes" before she said "no". She understands where, who, what questions (but not why yet) and answers them. She can recognise her own name when written down. I've read lots of threads on here and don't think she is the cleverest child on the planet or anything but think that she may be doing some things a bit earlier than the average and hoped that here might be an acceptable place to ask whether she does seem to be a bit ahead of the curve, as I'm not sure what is usual. Asking out of interest more than after advice.

She sounds very bright OP!

I agree though to not set any expectations or try and 'teach' her stuff. If her environment is interesting and engaging then she will learn through play. Also let her make mistakes and figure out things for herself, i wish i had done this more for my bright son (now 5).

One thing I LOVE for children who like letters is alphabet magnets! We had the foam ones for my ds but he did like to have a chew on them so the magnets were preferable! They can get comfortable with the letters then, play with them, start to recognise their own name etc. Usually for older children but if your little one is interested what’s the harm in encouraging this?

Same. My youngest was talking in full sentences at 16 months and had a huge vocabulary. She also recognised numbers, letters etc soon after. She is almost certainly autistic and on pathway for diagnosis. I didn't realise hyperlexia was an indicator but apparently it is.

She sounds lovely. My DD was the same and is taking her GCSEs this year. She's still a clever clogs but she's also a kind, funny, empathetic, gentle and socially responsible young woman. She's just a good egg and raising her has made me very happy indeed. See also her academically average little brother who is hilarious and loving and sensitive.

At that young age, my favourite thing was the word order being a bit topsy turvy. I have a very sweet video of DD at 18 months proclaiming "sitting on the sofa I am, eating a sandwich ham, watching piggies on the television". She sounded like Yoda.

DD1 was an early talker, early walker and asking to go to the toilet at 18 mnths. We didn't do anything extra with her then, or in the intervening years, she was just naturally focused and motivated. She was just good at academics, and also loved drama and music. She was however dreadful at sports. Like @RosesAndHellebores she has a first from Oxford too!

I also had a very advanced child. He had a vocabulary of over a hundred words by his first birthday. The paediatrician told me that he was the most advanced baby he had seen in his career (I worked with him). My DS taught himself to read at 2.5 and could also ride a bike without stabilisers at that age, so it was motor skills as well.

He went to grammar school where he was so lazy as everything was too easy and boring. He dropped out of his degree to be a SAHD. He now has a good career, but he had to work his way up from tea boy and filing.

Yes it's interesting to have a super advanced child, but it means zilch. My slightly less academic DC achieved more as they worked hard, which he didn't as he didn't think it necessary.

I now have a DGS who is very similar. He has been trading in stocks and shares for a couple of years, has a huge interest in politics and already has his manifesto for when he's PM. It's good and considered. He's in primary school, bored stiff.

I also had an advanced daughter. At 18 months she suddenly recognised that words on a sign in a shop were made up of individual letters. She wasn't happy to know what the word said, she asked me what all the individual letters said. I told her the phonic sounds and then bought her magnetic letters to put on our fridge. She loved them and I started to put some together to make words so each morning she would come down and it might say her name, her brother's name or mum and dad etc. She quickly learnt all her sounds and basically taught herself to read by 2.5. At 21 months she could recognise about 5 garden birds and would rather embarrassingly get our bird guide and find them to show visitors to our house. Amazingly she ended up in a career of bird conservation!
It is definitely important to develop social skills and the whole person. My daughter unfortunately has turned out a bit socially awkward.
Just keep providing things to keep her interested in a wide range and let her explore creatively and with mark makers when ever she wants to. Letting her fail is also important and often comes too late that it then is more difficult for them.

@Kanaloa yes, she can pick her name out from a group of words. She did it twice. She could also find "rat".

@Octoberblues thanks for sharing your DS's story - I don't think being advanced or bright is the be all and end all at all. I was just interested in whether she was in fact a little ahead at the moment. I am more interested in her being happy!

She sounds very advanced but I agree,
do make sure that she is socialised and is able to engage with her peers. Failing to be able to do this will cause huge problems at school. At the school I work at we have seen a number of very able
children recently, parents wanting them to join Year 2 and not reception because they can already read and wrote etc . However, what we are seeing are children with little to no social skills, poor gross motor skills etc.
Keep her interest but make sure she's also being a 17 month old

@FrogPool let's be honest you knew she was very ahead otherwise you wouldn't be on this board! Still, I get wanting to discuss it with other parents as in real life it's not easy to do with other parents some times.

The biggest issue with kids this bright is developing grit and ensuring they face challenges and learn to work hard. When the time is right, stretch her sideways-- music lessons is always helpful in this regard.

@whattodo2019 thanks for this, I agree with all of it and definitely want her to be a 17m old! I would never look to advance her year group at school (I'm also a teacher) as I think this is rarely the right thing to do for social development.

@LondonGirl83 yes, I suspected she was ahead of the curve, as I said in my original post, but neither of us were sure whether it was just the quick end of normal or whether she seemed to be very ahead. And, as you say, it's interesting to hear other people's stories and experiences and to find a forum where it's ok to ask and talk about it, as it's not the sort of thing you can ask other parents in real life.

Your DD sounds fabulous, OP. It is such a joy to see your child’s quick progress and at such a young age, and to start to realise that they really are ahead of the curve.

My DD was also premature (29-weeker) and took a little while to get going, but by 18 months certain things were coming thick and fast, such as colours, and recognition of single-digit numbers followed soon afterwards.

She’d been on a drug trial for premature babies, and a benefit of that was that, at 2 years (corrected age), she had a full cognitive assessment, lasting about 90 minutes. I remember our joy at watching my DD work with the assessor, who was also clearly delighted to interact with an advanced child. We were told that her cognitive skills were six months ahead and her language skills were a year ahead of her actual (not corrected) age at that point.

The trend continued: DD was an early reader, and was ahead academically throughout primary school, and is now at grammar school. There was no need to push her though: her primary was not pushy or high achieving, and she had a lovely time at school. I don’t think she’s exceptional: just a bright child.

Your daughter sounds more advanced than mine was. Enjoy the privilege of seeing her grow up, but I would agree with others that say there’s no need to push – keep broadening her experiences, and encourage her to persevere when she does find something challenging (there will be something – music lessons are good for this!)

You might want to check out readingbear.org (see here for an interesting booklet by readingbear's founder, Larry Sanger) and starfall for phonics stuff, and fcrr.org/fcrr-student-center-activities/pre-kindergarten for some pre-reading activities to use over the next few years.

Hello OP, how is your daughter getting on?

My daughter was like this at 16 months, too. She's now 3 and I'm very concerned that whatever school she goes to won't challenge her enough. I have 3 older children who weren't like this at all.

My daughter was like this, very bright and verbal early on and everyone used to comment. She's done well academically and is now at uni, but she's actually not an academic at heart at all, she's much more of a people person -in fact, obsessively so. She's the most sociable person I know and great at making friends and keeping them.

I'm sure if she'd been academically inclined, she could have done the Oxbridge thing - she got 2 As and an A* without doing that much work at A Level - but I think I'm relieved really that she's more of an all rounder. I did make a huge effort when my two were young to give them lots of social opportunities - weekly play dates, going to different clubs and youth groups and camps etc - because I was a very shy child and teen.

From my perspective, I've always thought life is much easier for people who are good socially. If your dd is that bright, she won't find school work difficult, so you won't need to worry too much about that - let her get on with it and spend your energy helping her in other areas.

I do remember at 16 months, my dd told me that she'd had a dream about crabs in the trees eating cranberries!

One between them?

When she was preschool age, my DD drew an amazing picture of one of her cuddly toys. It was so advanced for her age I've kept it. She's still very talented at art (got a 9 in her GCSE, an A in her recent A level mock) and is aiming for a career in design. If only her skills at tidiness were so good!

My DD is 19 months and is able to do these things, she is able to sing many nursery rhymes/alphabet too. She can name lots of animals/ shapes/ colours etc. My older two are autistic though so I was just presuming she was the same

No offence, but you're talking rubbish. She's doing exceptionally well for her age - whether it lasts is a different matter but her speech is off the scale. She uses complex sentences, including different tenses accurately and we definitely haven't taught her that 🤣. No clue why some people in Mumsnet have such issue with bright children but lots of people have commented on the fact she is very advanced. I don't care if she's advanced or not - I was looking for ideas about how to effectively support her development, not for naysayers who have never seen her to tell me she's not advanced at all or had missed developmental stages. Utter nonsense.

I really agree with this. Thanks.