18 month old knows colours?

[ottilieorange]

He points to things and says 'blue' 'yellow' 'pink' 'purple' etc and, is always correct.
Husband thinks it might be sign of intelligence but I suspect its just normal for kids his age.
He's our first child so we're not sure what vocabulary they're supposed to have by know, or indeed what they're supposed to know.
Can anyone advise?

Our first did.

Health visitor said it was early. He also sat up early. Hit many other milestones late!!

And now he's a bit brighter than average boy, nothing genius I'm afraid

My son could do this and is now going through the diagnosis process for autism. He knew the alphabet by this age too. But there were other signs of autism as well.

I’m not sure as both mine were quite early with it. My youngest is 17 months and he knows all the colours, counts to 20, backwards from 10 and knows rectangle, circle, oval, heart and star and recites the full alphabet (also identifies letters and numbers independent of each other). He’s just started nursery and the staff there are amazed at it so I think it is early. My elder son was the same so I thought it was normal. My dad reckons it’s evolution and we’re popping out geniuses that will change the world 🤣

DD identified colours freakishly early (under 18months). Now, at 9, she is bright and things like learning to read came very easy to her. But she’s by no means a genius!

I had one DC who did this and one who didn’t. The one who didn’t just got significantly higher gcse results than the one who did.

My daughters first word was blue, said whilst pointing to something blue. She is 19 now, incredibly bright but due to serious mental health issues doesn't have a single GCSE due to being too unwell to take any.

If I've learnt anything it's how they are at 12 months has no bearing whosever on what they'll achieve at 16.

It is unusual because identifying colours requires abstract reasoning.

My hyperlexic PFB could identify colours and shapes at 11 months, knew the alphabet (letter names and sounds) and could count at 18 months, he was reading at 2.5 (self taught). He has ASD. Not that understanding colours means your DC is autistic.

He's done well academically - excellent GCSEs, A-levels and a first class degree but no better than the other babies from our NCT group who were still struggling with their first words while he was talking in sentences.

My DD could do this, she's only 3.5 now but she's just normal. She just 'got' colours early... she still can't count past 12 🤦‍♀️

Ex nursery nurse, It's normal.

My youngest was like this. Diagnosed ASD.

Yeah my DD got colours well before the age of 2, is now nearly 3 and can do all the colours, and the alphabet, months and days of the week, but still counts 1 2 3 4 5 6 10.

Pretty normal. Mine all knew colours at that age because I had taught them.

One thing I’ve had to come accustomed to is there is no ‘normal’ at that age. People develop differently, and whilst some things are a marker, they tend to be quite specific. Are you concerned your child might have ASD? I spoke very early as a child (very precocious according to my parents), but had no teeth until I was about 18m. My sibling didn’t walk until just after their second birthday, but now does triathlons and marathons. Everything changes so quickly at that age, I wouldn’t worry for now, but if it is a concern for you, maybe speak to a professional?

My kids knew colours shapes and alphabet at 18 months.
Both autistic

My first could do this. Second, no way. He bangs to the best of his own drum.

Meh. My first born could cook a roast dinner and recite Shakespeare by that age.

I've got three kids and it's not normal in my experience, it's usually a bit later. Saying that, my middle son was misdiagnosed (we think) as colour blind at age 4 because he simply didn't have a clue, he was pretty much 5 before he could identify colours. But he's much brighter than my other son and has been much further ahead at school, so I'm not sure knowing colours is an indication of anything much.

My daughter is nearly three and gets it right most of the time but that's only in about the last six months, my eldest was a bit earlier but still not before two. So yes, I'd say it's early.

Very early in my experience! But my children may just be lazy 😆

Do you point out the colour of things a lot? The child health nurse was surprised that my son was recognising the more niche shapes like pentagon and hexagon and oval but then I explained we had a shape sorter with those shapes that he played with all the time while I told him what each shape was (not at 18 months though, he wasn't even talking then!). They learn what they are exposed to, some quicker, some a bit slower of course but I think knowing and naming colours is in the range of normal at 18 months if they have parents that talk about those things a lot.

Tbh a lot of people think their children are gifted, geniuses or child prodigies if they do something 'wow' and the parents think it may be early.

This has absolutely nothing to do with how intelligent they will be when doing their GCSEs for example.

Wow that’s incredible. I got excited today coz my 22 month old said bowl.

Typically most 18 month olds can’t name colours (I specialise in child development). Some very bright children can. Some average children can if parents have done lots and lots of pointing out colours and labelling etc….but adjectives, numbers etc typically come later than basic language skills. My background is mostly neuro diverse children so I do see this quite a lot with the children I help… however I am aware that typical children can show these skills too earlier on. Little brains are fascinating. Just amazing how children learn and express knowledge x

My youngest was incredibly forward for his age as a young toddler and throughout school, however at 13 he was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder which severly disrupted his education and this is not uncommon. High Intelligence often comes at a price. Personally l think kindness is more important, but sadly often overlooked now especially with competative schools.

That is early, but the brightest of my 5 dc learned their colours quite late, so I don't think it really means anything.

My ASD child could the others not until much older.