Out on a limb here, but I really do wonder about ds..

[truoddsox]

My apologies if I shouldn't really be here, I've never posted on G+T before (in fact only recently found out what it stands for I guess I'm not the G+T 1!)

Anyway. Ds is 22mo. He has been able to recognise all the letters of the alphabet for about a month - the first time we saw that he recognises letters was at about 19mo - he pointed out the letter "e" wherever he saw it! He can find any letter you ask him to, in alphabetical order, on a keyboard, or in a word. He sits at the keyboard and points out and names most of the letters (apart from ones whose sound he can't say yet). He can point to a word you ask for (sometimes needing a prompt like "it starts with s" or similar). He recognises number 1-10, knows that 3 comes after 2, 4comes after 3, and 9 ocmes after 8.
Also he understands everything we tell/ask him.
Is this advanced for his age? He's my only child so nothing to go by, no children similar age in the family close by to compare with.

Well, my 22 month old (ok, nearly 23 month old) is still struggling with pegboard puzzles and shapesorters, and can barely say 18 words (including animal noises and stuff like shaking his head to mean no), so your DS is mightily advanced compared to mine.

Fast forward 3 or 13 years and we might not find the 2 boys are so different. So yes, I think your son is advanced for now but what it means or whether you'll ever need to do anything special about it is only going to be revealed with time.

He sounds lovely and I'm sure you're right to be pleased with his progress. Mothering.com has a good Gifted board if you want a more supportive reaction than you might get on MN.

He sounds very like my dd was - except she was also talking very clearly in quite complex sentences as well.

Ds at this age had a vocabulary mostly consiting of "woof, woof", "vroom vroom" and "DINNER!!!!!!!" and his main occupations were posting shoes out the cat flap and pushing cars off a step.

Fast forward - dd is now 14 and averagely bright, and ds is 8 and the strikingly clever one.

I suppose what I am saying is that he MAY carry on being very bright, but he may be one of those where all the others catch up. So enjoy him and do lots with him (read read read read read again to him!) and be delighted in his achievements, but don't project too far forward. And don't worry (if you were) about doing anything special with him - you're obviously doing all the right things already!

Oh and (this from experience) make sure he doesn't miss out on the baby stuff because he's so advanced - he still needs the nursery rhymes and the baby books and the endless repetition of "This little Piggy...." even thoug he's probably capable of more advanced things. They are like the foundations stones - you need them to build on!