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You are here: Experts > Education > Gifted Children > Gifted Children > Is my child gifted?
Expert: Ettina - 10/27/2009
Question
My daughter is five years old now. She was a very alert baby. We had difficult time making her sleep since she would wake up and cry for attention when the phone rings, or even when we talked quietly in the house. She was a very active toddler. We had a hard time when we first put her into a preschool classroom. She was not able to sit still during circle/story time and was not able to stay in one spot during snack time. We got complains from her teachers always so I thought she's a trouble maker and was just a handful kid. When she reached 4, she began to settle down and was able to follow classroom routines better.
She was a late talker. She didn't really start talking until she's close to three. She understands commands and follows direction well when she's in a good mood. But when she's distracted or when she's not happy, she wouldn't respond at all. She's a very strong will kid. She started to talk a lot more clearly when she was four. However, her speech is still not very fluent. We speak only Chinese at home but I teach her vocabularies in English. So when she talks, it's a combination of both chinese and english. We have no problem understanding her, but she seems to have problem expressing herself or answer questions in only one language, mainly English.
Due to her speech delay, I used to think that she was behind other kids. But she loves to read very much! And she has very good memory. I read a few new books to her once when she was 4 and later when she saw a picture somewhere, she was able to tell me from which book as well as from which page she saw the picture before. I thought she was lying at the beginning. But the she proved herself right by picking up a book and turning to the page and show me a very tiny picture there. I was very impressed. She learned her shapes, colors and alphabets when she was around 3. I didn't need to put much effort to teach her. She has a very strong musical sense. She learns piano pieces very fast. When she hears a song or melody that she likes, she is able to play it by herself.
She is in kindergarten now. Her teacher told me that knowledge-wise, she's ahead of most of the students in the classroom. Although she's still not talking fluently, she's already learned phonics and is able to spell some words using phonics. She also solved problems in a very different way than other students. When teacher expected her students to make a different ABABAB pattern using different colors (without saying colors but just different), my daughter was not able to do it. When I figured out why, she didn't think that different colors make it any difference. She thinks that different patterns is different. Since she always has the concept of other patterns like AABBAABB, or even ABCABC. But she made her teacher believe that she didn't understand the word "different"
Another concern from her school is her daydreaming as well as using a lot of cartoon scripts. My daughter enjoyed pretending to be cartoon characters since she was 2. Though she didn't talk fluently, she was able to memorize all the cartoon scripts clearly. She would pretend the movements, the tones and just enjoyed by herself. Sometime, she would pretend that she's talking to some cartoon characters and put herself into part of the story. It makes other kids difficult to understand her sometime. I was concern at the beginning since I wondered if she lives in her own world (like what her teacher was concern about). But she is very outgoing. When we take her to the park, she would invite other kids to play together by saying something like, "come play the slide with me!" or "let me help you push the swing" etc.
Both my husband and my aunt (from my dad's side) were gifted children. My father didn't go through any assessment in his childhood but he was a very smart kid as well as a late talker. Both my husband and I have earned graduate degrees and we performed well in school when we were kids. I'm still not sure if my daughter is gifted. Her teacher believes that she's having some language as well as social disorder since she doesn't answer questions correctly and didn't take part in role playing with other kids. When she goes into her classroom, it usually takes a long time for her to settle down. She would just stand there and look around without being able to find an activity to do. When she is not able to find something that interests her, she would pretend to be a cartoon character again and enjoy in her own imagination. I'm not sure if it's a concern.
Your advice and information would be much appreciated!
Thank you!
Answer
She sounds like she probably is gifted, but accompanied with some sort of developmental difference as well. To me, it sounds like she might be mildly autistic. Her language is significantly delayed (bilingual children are slower, but not that slow), and she does seem to have some social differences (although her being so sociable is unusual for autism). In addition, the role-playing is a kind of behavior often seen in atypically autistic kids, such as kids with pathological demand avoidance syndrome or some kids with Asperger Syndrome.
In terms of whether or not to be concerned, personally I wouldn't be particularly worried, since she's fairly high functioning. With her intelligence and how mildly affected she is, she stands a good chance of achieving well in adulthood. My main concern is that she could have a rough time in childhood.
The first thing that worries me is bullying. Four year olds are pretty tolerant, but as she gets older, you and her teachers will have to keep an eye on her and make sure there's no tolerance for bullying. And if anyone does bully her, make sure she knows it's not her fault and doesn't mean it's a bad thing to be different - the bully is the one who has a problem, not the kid who's bullied.
Another concern, particularly for a child who's also highly creative, is conflict with teachers. Some teachers don't like it when kids do strange things, even if there's no real harm in what they're doing, and both creative and autistic kids have a tendency to be less obediant than most kids. It's not that they're defiant or like to misbehave, but just that their idea of what they should or shouldn't do is based more on an internal sense of right and wrong than on what the people around them want. If you go more for the spirit of the rules and explain why the rules are in place, these kids aren't a problem, but some teachers want kids to obey them just because they're in charge, without questioning their commands. This really bugs many autistic or creative kids, and they won't obey people like that (or only under extreme pressure, which is really bad for the child).
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