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<div>Originally Posted by <strong>pigpokey</strong> <a href="/community/forum/post/8000339"><img alt="View Post" class="inlineimg" src="/community/img/forum/go_quote.gif" style="border:0px solid;"></a></div>
<div style="font-style:italic;">I find that chart's averages unhelpful given that one of the norms of young child development incl. gifted development is that everything does not come together at the same rate. In my bloodline, for three generations of gifted (assuming my kids are), we say next to nothing verbally until 14-15 months. But some of those physical skills ... 33 months to throw a ball at 30% advanced? My son could wang you in the head at 10 feet at 18 months.<br><br>
We have a friend-child also of gifted parents who was not walking, IIRC, at 15-16 months and his enunciation is bad but he expresses a lot of deep thoughts. My child, 27 months, same age, talks shockingly clearly for his age and will use this vocabulary to identify pieces of sporting goods and talk about pretty girls he likes.</div>
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I have the same issues with the charts. The children in our family were all over the map in development, with personality and birth order playing a strong role. My oldest didn't speak until 22 months old, although no one could really tell after he had a few months under his belt.<br><br>
I found 9 months to be a very hard age because it was like an in-between age for the baby. The child is an older baby and he/she wants to do things that are just a touch out of reach. Mine used to get overstimulated when I took them out at that age because (I now know) they're introverts. And they couldn't walk yet but they wanted to get to things that required walking or climbing. One of my sister's kids was similarly frustrated at that age because she was an extrovert and needed to see new things.<br><br>
My oldest would just sit and largely hang out at 9 months. He had a very long attention span and he would be amused by the strangest, most simple things. He would stare at the decorations on the walls or he would do weird things like try to stand hairbrushes up on their ends. My second son, at 10 months, would sit in a pile of books for longer periods of time. One of my sister's kids was like my oldest and was relatively content with little. Another of hers (they're all "out there" in some way) would find ways to amuse herself by getting into things. Her kids climbed and walked at this age so it was really hard for my poor sister! At least one of her kids was literally into or on top of everything!<br><br>
I think that families with a strong and pervasive history of giftedness, of the higher variety, probably have good reason to suspect giftedness in their babes. I think parents of babes who are doing highly unusual, greatly advanced milestones, also have reason to suspect it. I wouldn't, personally, count boredom at 9 mos as a sign of giftedness. And I think that, for most people, it's an issue of time revealing things. One of my family members was completely typical until age 5, when she started memorizing the Latin names of bones and spontaneously reading (like 3rd grade level or above). I thought my oldest was delayed because he was so quiet and content, in addition to other things that I won't get into here. I think this is a hard thing to peg at such a young age.
