Experiences of young toddlers with impressive memory/verbal skills?

[Stripydiplodocus]

My DD is nearly 17 months and seems to have a memory like a sponge. I'm starting to wonder if she's got some sort of photographic memory but I'm not sure if I'm being PFB/thinking she's exceptional because she's exceptional to me? Looking for people's experiences of toddlers that seem to remember everything (and if applicable what your child was like when they're older!).

Things DD does:

1. Know loads of slightly technical vocabulary. Will point to a picture of a bird and say "beak"/"claws"/"wings"/and things like flap, air, fly, sky. Was playing with her toy elephant the other day and just went "trunk, head, ear, eye, mouth, back, leg, tail, wag!" And pointed to the right bits as she went, entirely unprompted.

2. Can differentiate between fairly similar things, i.e. can point at and name a bunch of different flowers and tell them apart (at last count: daffodils, crocus, daisy, poppy, hyacinth, hellebore, dandelion, lavender, heather, maybe more...). Can differentiate between a hamster and a mouse, rabbit and a hare, lion/tiger/leopard/panther etc.

3. Can count to 29 (and can also count to 14 in French... I used to be a French teacher so sometimes say things in French and she picked up on it straight away...).

4. Recognises all the digits (perhaps except zero) and well over half the letters in the alphabet.

5. If I sing a nursery rhyme and leave out a word, she fills it in, even if it's a word she only knows in that context, i.e. Old King Cole was a merry old ___

Anyway, I would be really interested to hear if this is actually as unusual as it feels to me, and if anyone can offer any similar experiences. Sorry for the essay and TIA.

Test

Yes- she is autistic as well. Still obsessed with animals, insects and vocabulary. Excellent at English and remembering facts, struggles with social interaction at times and has a multitude of sensory issues

I had two that were very similar to your daughter - we reckoned they were word sponges! They would pick up words and phrases from books and videos and apply them to other situations. When my daughter was two the Health Visitor asked her if she was going to be a nurse when she grew up. She gave her a withering look and said "No, I am going to be a hospital manager." She isn't but she does have a top degree as does her brother who was very similar. He was a little older but he memorably said that he liked Salvador Dali's "Persistence of Memory" because "it demonstrates the complicated infrastructure of the human mind". It was a line from a song he liked, not something original, but he could use what he had heard to great effect.

She sounds absolutely adorable, OP.

Reminds me of my eldest, he's 19 now and was diagnosed with aspergers syndrome as a child.

My DD was just like this and is just very intelligent with a photographic memory. She is also really musical and has perfect pitch and picks up any language easily so pursue the French. My DD is also artistic and into creative writing.
To be honest when she was little some people would follow me around in amazement asking questions about what she could do. It was quite embarrassing at the 2 year check, toddler groups etc. Her siblings were much more normal at that age.
My DD is definitely not autistic and once she reached school age she adapted herself and was always very socially focussed and a complete teacher pleaser. To this day, she remembers pretty much everything though with a scary amount of detail so things that happened when she was 1. I have always wondered if children who are very verbally advanced may have earlier and more specific memories.

Two of my daughters were similar to your splendid DD, OP. Early to start to speak and rapid development of complex speech and (apparent) comprehension. It wasn't echolalia. One, who was also a very early reader, is autistic. The other isn't. Both remained academically able throughout school, got first class degrees, and are now in a friendly race to be the first professor in the family.

I hope you enjoy having a toddler with advanced speech as much as I did. The one drawback I found was that anything they heard me say was likely to be remembered and repeated so I had to be very careful when they were in earshot.

That’s definitely unusual! My DD was an early talker who loved books, but her vocabulary was nowhere near as good as your DD’s.

We went on holiday when DD was 18 months old and I remember her trying a korma and saying, “Don’t like it. Too strong”. She also put together a sentence that she found very funny, “Granny did a tiny, tiny poo in a forest!” This could only have come from her imagination.

DD was obsessed with the moon at that age and knew the difference between a crescent moon, half moon, gibbous moon and full moon. At 19 months, she began to recognise single digit numbers and enjoyed spotting them, e.g. on front doors.

She’s now a bossy four-year-old and her speech is just a bit better than average for her age. She’s lost interest in the moon and forgotten all the phases. She knows her alphabet, but she can’t blend letters to sound out words. She’s got a good memory, though and good dexterity. And I enjoy our weekly bus trips to the library much more than I enjoyed reading the same baby book six or seven times in a row.

DD1 was like that, I think because I was SO bored on ML that I talked and chatted with her lots and lots (nowadays folk use mobile phones a lot more, so I know many kids now are a lot less verbal)
I used to write down all new words she learned each day, and know on her first birthday she was starting sentences (Airplane up there!) . Certainly at harvest time (so about 15 months or so) I was driving past some fields where a combine was working, my Dad pointed out 'Oh look DD1 there's a combine harvester' Well of course she knew her tractor liveries and immediately said (almost dismissively, which amused my Dad) 'Yes it's a Claas'
She wasn't a child protégé, and always was middle of the class through school and further education, but as least the diary of her words came useful in her A level English Language work.

My DS was a bit like this. He didn't quite from books but could speak in sentences from pretty early on. I remember him ordering a babycinno when he was about 16 months old in a cafe 'I'll have a babycinno please' and the waitress just getting it. He was also pretty big for his age.
He's 14 now. He's mildly dyslexic (excellent reader but very poor speller) and dyspraxic. He still does pretty well academically though - on track for mostly 7s and 8s at GCSE. He's a lovely kid. I had wondered about autism at various stages but if he has it it's pretty mild and hasn't been picked up in school.

That's so funny Makkas, my daughter use to order a babycinno at a similar age, she also said 'cuppa tea?' as one of her first 'words' when anyone visited. Shame she couldn't make them!

She is 6 now and being tested for dyslexia for the same reasons, her reading is excellent but spelling and writing is poor. At what age was your son diagnosed with dyspraxia? I think my daughter may also be dyspraxic.

@hamstersarse , , sounds like my middle son!
enjoy your lovely toddler and what ever it brings with him. I’ve got three adult sons whom I’m very proud of and your post reminded me of the middle one.

exceptional memory from toddlerhood, taught himself to read, etc. Definitely not autistic though. Very empathetic, excelled at school, did PPE at university, very sociable, successful career, now married with children etc.

@Knittingnanny2

How strange that they both went on to do PPE! The subject suits him perfectly, which I would never have predicted when he was a toddler, I thought he would be a nerdy engineer type, but he's far from it now!

How’s your dd ? Mine is 19 months and sounds the same ☺️

@Claire123e sorry I'm only just getting round to replying, you posted the day I gave birth to DD2 😂

DD1 is now just turned 4 and still has an incredible memory. She can count in 2s, 3s, 4s, 5s, 10s and 20s, can read, can recite all sorts of poetry. Knows everything there is to know about so many subjects, more than many adults.

She is now also very clearly autistic - we asked for a referral to a paediatrician just before she turned 2 and we're still waiting. She is very anxious and struggles with social situations and all sorts of sensory stuff to the point where we had to pull her out of nursery. She's absolutely brilliant and totally perfect but we think we're going to have to homeschool because what school will be able to adequately nurture and educate a 4 year old who can confidently read, write and do all sorts of maths but also can't sit still, won't answer questions or go to the toilet by herself?

Hi, I know this is an old thread, I hope you don't mind me chiming in. My daughter is 14 months and has a very similar vocabulary and memory recall that yours did at a similar age. Is there anything you wish you'd done differently? Also, when did the anxiety start to show, and in what ways? Thank you!

@WiseTurtles

Things I wish I'd done differently which may or may not apply to your daughter:

• Researched autism more thoroughly, particularly sensory processing aspects because she was already showing sensory processing issues at that age and they've grown as she got older.
• Tried to focus more on soft skills that she finds hard rather than leaning into the academics she finds easy. So naming emotions, turn taking, listening to others, waiting in queues, not being afraid of other children, how to interact with strangers etc.
• Assumed she was autistic rather than 'making a fuss' much earlier and we would have avoided a lot of stress for her. I.e. Resisting brushing her teeth wasn't just a toddler who needed firm boundaries, it was extremely stressful and she needed reassurance, time, patience, different techniques to make it less distressing for her and more.

I'm not absolutely sure when the anxiety started, although it was definitely there by the time she turned two as I mentioned it to the health visitor then. She was just afraid of all sorts of things in really life-limiting ways, for example she was (and still is!) petrified of Father Christmas, which meant that from about September onwards there were shops she was terrified to go in as she knew there would be Father Christmas decorations. If we went into them she would shake, cry, scream, thrash about to try and escape if she wasn't strapped onto a pushchair. She would then become afraid of other things because they might have father Christmases there, or be afraid of things that reminded her of Father Christmas, i.e. Peter Rabbit, because the story has Mr McGreggor in who has a big white beard. It was always very recognisably anxiety rather than general worry, and continues to negatively impact her.

Hope some of that is useful - feel free to PM me you have any more questions/want to talk about your daughter etc. Everything I've written here sounds very negative but my daughter is an utter joy and always has been (whilst also being extremely challenging in many ways!!) and is so clever, talented and interesting. Raising an exceptional child is fabulous and challenging and inspiring every day.

Re home schooling, we are in a similar situation with my son just having started reception, and my(personal) advice would be to try to keep her in the system as much as you can. School have an obligation to provide an education as long as you are on roll and there's that small chance to fit in the system a little, although with enough time to recover.

Visit all the primary schools in the area and talk to all the sencos (special needs coordinators) and guage their sportiveness.
Luckily our senco has a couple of ND children so he can be very helpful, but find the right school.
And even if you do home school a lot of the time, you can have a part time time table and just go in one day a week or a few mornings, that's allowable if it's in the child's best interest.

Good luck, it's a rollercoaster, my son is full time at the moment but he's absolutely shattered all the time and it's really not fun getting him into school and it takes the whole evening from 3.15 pickup to get him home, eaten, toilet end bed by 6.30 and then it's repeat again tomorrow.
Strangely in my family of ex teachers, my mum is totally of the opinion kids should be in school full time unless it's impossible, and my sister home schools all her children, out of preference. So opinions vary a lot! But my point is don't resign yourself prematurely to home schooling, keep an open mind.
Take care.