I wonder if it's more of a personality trait or learning style? While I agree that it often goes with giftedness, I can't imagine that there aren't typical kids who don't have obsessions. I think it's just that a higher percentage of gifted kids are like this.
Â
Ds has always had obsesssions (there's really no other word for it). Age 2-4, garbage trucks, age 4-5 fire trucks, age 5-7 city buses and transportation, age 7-8 it was penguins, age 8-9 baseball, 9-10 any and all sports (not as a player, but finding out information/statistics, following players, etc.) These obsessions aren't a sign of something wrong, it's just what he does. He can easily shift attention when he needs to. He just likes one thing at a time. He is 2E with SPD, but I don't see that as contributing to his focus. Ds isn't highly gifted. He just likes things ordered (this is the kid who would, in his garbage truck phase, go around the neighborhood and set all the recycling bins upright). He likes details, which I think leads to his obsessions. He'll only read one book at a time. He doesn't like re-reading books.
Â
His sister is moderately-highly academically gifted, but doesn't have obsessions. She's got interests, but it doesn't feel the same as ds' obsessions. She's usually got 3-4 going at one time (right now it's Harry Potter, Little House books (acting out), looking up information about actors she likes, and writing a play). Dd is usually in the middle of about 3 books too. She'll re-read ad nauseum. (When she was 3, we read Lois Lowry's "All about Sam" about 10 times before I quit. Dh quit after the 5th time.) But, she's a big picture kind of kid.
Â
I really liked that article -- I'm starting to worry about dd's emotional development -- she definitely has the emotional overexcitability, and probably the imaginational one as well. She's also intense and sensitive. She's tending toward anxiety. She had a meltdown in church yesterday because the wind picked up as a front came through and she was terrified of the wind, that there was going to be a tornado or a hurricane -- we live in the pacific NW. There's been one tornado since we've lived here. It's too cold for hurricanes. Her logical mind can learn this, but her emotional overexcitability + her imagination runs away with her. Now that I think of it, my highly gifted sister was like that. This article helped me put things in perspective. She's not just being stubborn, but I do have to watch the anxiety bit.
