Did your advanced baby become a gifted child?

[Anonymous]

If you had an advanced baby (one who constantly met milestones way ahead of time), did the baby eventually become a gifted child? Or did things even out later on?

[Anonymous]

Milestones and being gifted are unrelated.

[Anonymous]

Nope. Ended up with ADHD and dyslexia

[Anonymous]

Normally hitting milestones ahead is not a reliable marker for a gifted child.

[Anonymous]

Yes. But both parents are "gifted" Not my favorite word.

[Anonymous]

No correlation. My mom can attest that my sister and I were pretty ordinary babies. Hit milestones on the slightly early side (like, if walking milestone was 12 months, maybe at 11 months or 11.5 months) but nothing worth writing home about. By kindergarten or so, it became evident we were gifted. In hindsight, my mother recognizes non-quantifiable signs we had an toddlers. But what parent in hindsight wouldn't look back and see signs of specialness in their kids? We are both iq 160+. I remind myself of this when my toddler son spends most of his day smashing cars together and pounding his head into pillows.

[Anonymous]

Yes, in my case. Then there's Einstein to didn't speak for years.

As PPs said, there isn't a direct correlation. What I would say is that you should focus less on what the milestones are, and more on what your kid wants. If you kid seems ready to play with a toy, or do a certain activity that is usually done by an older child, go ahead and expose them to it (provided it's not a choking hazard or something like that.)

No point in making them "wait" if they are ready to move on to the next thing.

[Anonymous]

My hit-milestones-right-on-time kid got into the Highly Gifted Center for 4th grade. I think he's bright and motivated, but I don't think he's gifted necessarily.

[Anonymous]

TOo early to tell.

[Anonymous]

No, he turned out to have learning disabilities.

[Anonymous]

Yes, mucho gifted-tastic!

[Anonymous]

PP here. If you think about the stats (that something like 10% of society is "gifted" for purposes of hitting iq 130 for school programs, and that 50% of kids hit their milestones on time or early)... then assume that say, half of kids are deemed to hit milestones "on time", so 25% hit them "early".... it's highly probable that a large number of kids identified as gifted also hit their milestones early. And also probable that another large number will not identify as gifted.

There's actually very limited research on what a gifted kid looks like in preschool or earlier. You can google it, and you'll see some checklists. But then if you delve further into it, you'll see that those checklists merely are what people "think" gifted kids might look like at 1 year old (because 1 years olds doing these things look different and special compared to their peers). But there is no research that shows that the kid who, say, counts to ten at 12 months measures gifted as an adult. There are a bunch of studies asking parents of gifted kids in hindsight to list the traits their kids had - but no surprise, the parents all remember their kids as little progidies. But I don't think there were control tests (parents of nongifted kids) also asked. My suspicion if you asked the non-gifted group, they would also attest that their kids were little geniuses. There is only one good study I ever found about giftedness in early ages, where a gifted center gave questionnaires to ALL parents who brought in kids for iq tests below age 5 (if i recall). The parents all came to the center thinking their kids were gifted. Half or more didn't test gifted. The center asked all the parents about the qualities they thought their kids had that evidenced giftedness. The parents of gifted versus parents of non-gifted pretty much all identified teh same things: early speech, complex speech, early reading, etc etc. There were a couple minor variations, but they were not quantifiable milestones (i think they were things like alertness, activity level, etc).

[Anonymous]

My "advanced baby" turned out to have both gifts and challenges, like most kids. Fortunately, my own expectations and rigidity evolved and continue to evolve, so it's all worked out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Milestones and being gifted are unrelated.

Yup. Like PP have lots of LDs.

[Anonymous]

My super-verbal early-talker is very bright and sometimes shockingly perceptive as well as successful in school. We have not had her formally tested.