how do you know if your child is "gifted"?

[thanka2]

Good post, Carang. I learned a lot from the video posted and all I have to say is that my son blew all of those milestones out of the water. Which, is to say, his first year was absolutely exhausting for us (did your baby also not want to sleep much as a newborn? ours seemed to have continual energy but he wasn't a "collicky" baby--he would fall asleep and then wake up like "what?! did I miss something?!"). Our son was sitting up by 2.5 months by himself, rolling over at 3, crawling and saying first words (Cantonese & English) at 5, pulling up and cruising at 6, walking at 8, running at 9, climbing stairs at 10 and feeding himself with a spoon at 16 and now he is just in love with books and words and puzzles. I also worry that he's getting bored (actually, I know he is) so we're always trying to find new experiences for him to have and get him in touch with other babies. But, the thing is, he is more interested in older children playing. Is your baby like that too? My son doesn't care much for the play of the babies his own age--but if a group of older kids (5-7) are around him he's trying to join in the fun.

I think we just try to keep up with them, right? They're always ahead of the curve anyway so we have to be ahead too a bit.

Thanks again for the question and the post.

[carang]

how old is your son? maybe we can get the two together sometime?

[mumbloxy]

Hi Cara, I think my son should meet your daughter. He's born end feb 07, same age yes? He talks nonstop all day in full complex sentences, recognise all alphabets & can say ''a for apple, b for balloon.... upto z for zebra''. Counts upto 20, spells his own name (Calum), cat & dog. he's been in montessori & his teachers tell me he can concentrate on the pink tower for upto half an hour. everyone he's met thinks he's more like 3/4 yrs old. don't mean to be going on so much, i am just so thrilled to share. there doesn't seem anything special we need to do except for what we've been doing. IQ test, however reliable, don't work for such young age. i know you are in the boonies, we're in central, it would be very interesting to meet! :)

[carang]

i've not concentrated so much on the alphabets/recognition or spelling or anything like that.
she can count to 20 in english and at least 10 in cantonese. many people have thought my daughter is older as well.

my teaching schedule during the summer is a little crazy with Tuesdays being my only day off... maybe we could all get together at playtown or something like that one day during the summer if you are all around?

PS> my daughter was supposed to be born in March 2007, but was born early February.

[0ze_Kid]

We had DD tested (not to confirm or see if she was gifted. I was trying to sort out some behavioral issues and felt that testing would show me if she was left or right brained focused. With this knowledge I might be able to communicate with her in a way that worked - ha!) The result was that she is a bit of both (left and right brained) but does have a high IQ and needs more advanced games and materials to keep her occupied.

Our tester also said that you can not accurately badge a child as gifted until about 5-6 years of age and I have to say that I stopped calling her 'gifted' pretty quickly as it does conjure up these ideas of high expectations and being pushed too hard.

I just think of her as having a high IQ and know that she can mentally keep up with older kids but we were doing damage (we had her in the kindy class at 3 1/2 with 4-5 year olds. Which was fine except that the class had several 6 year old boys who had been "held back" and that 3 year gap was just too much) to her self esteem because she was physically and emotionally not old enough.

Anyhoo, back on track. I think both your kids are gifted (as I think our youngest is too - smarter than the older one. We have no intention of getting her tested as she doesn't have the same emotional issues as her sister). You have neglected to add that your kids are bi-lingual too which means that they are grasping English AND Chinese which is not easy at any age. I think you have reached the right conclusion by keeping her entertained at the level she can cope with.

I must add that having her tested has provided us with some insights (which may be good for you too) that we would not have reached otherwise. For example, a list of things to look at when considering schools (such as acceleration options as DD may skip a grade or be able to do credits in higher subjects) and monitoring her progress as she is at risk of underachieving (gets that from DH!) given the chance.

I also have contact details for an educational psychologist which I can pass on. Just PM me. He is not in HK very often but he may be able to help or lead you in the right direction.

[carang]

oze, did you do it here or back in oz?

[aussiegal]

Now this is a gifted child. Turning pages at 4 months old!
Chatterbox Anika, 6, a rare genius : thewest.com.au

[Bumps]

This is an interesting article too....

http://www.kelly****.com/corporate/d...70901_scmp.pdf