Profoundly Gifted versus HFA | Autism PDD
However, I have two very gifted nieces. They get straight A's in a hard high school. Both are also typical teens--Poms, friends, they are smart enough socially to use the teen lingo and not huge words, and are very socially appropriately. Neither had strangeness as infants or toddlers. Autism is autism, regardless of IQ--these kids will not know certain ways of communicating or behaving in spite of their IQ's. Gifted without autism kids will know.That's what 2E is. Asperger's and giftedness.
My 19-1/2 yr old was dx at 8 as borderline ADD and gifted. In recent years what I read about Aspergers, that sounds more like him. Although he would never get tested at this point.
He has a very ecclectic array of friends and interests and will always be an odd man out. But as long as he is happy with himself, I have to leave it alone.
It is difficult to decide what to do, and what NOT to do sometimes.
Mary
There are some websites to evaluate giftedness. I remember when my son was about 2 1/2 realizing that he could do half of what was required to enter kindergarten at that age. But the one that stood out was puzzles. About 95% of gifted children have a special talent for puzzles. My ds at 5 1/2 still has a hard time with puzzles unless they are the board ones that have pictures under it. I don't mean the kind that are individual pieces - the one that combines into a picture, but still... And, he is just starting to get the social and independent pieces on those lists as well. Thank goodness we held him out a year!
I remember going to an indoor playground and there was a mom and about a 4 year old son sitting on the floor with a V-tech alphabet/number desk. She was desperately trying to get the little boy to learn his numbers. We have the same toy at our house and my ds (who was 20 months old at the time) was about to go over and start naming off the numbers (since he could already identify them at that age 0-9 and most of the alphabet as well). I stopped him of course, thinking that poor mom would be panicked if a 20 month old could do what her 4 year old could not. I thought that because ds could do all of these rote skills (including identifying colors and shapes - he learned "oval" at 20 months as well) that he was gifted. He may well be - we haven't had his IQ tested. I know he's very bright in some areas. But his fine motor skills are way behind and he has issues with auditory processing/listening and following more than a 2-step direction (he can, but it is harder for him and takes much more work).
I guess I'm not sugar-coating this very well am I? But, I think that a lot of the things you mentioned are huge red flags for me and I would get your ds evaluated. He may very well be gifted in some areas, but you need to get him working on the other areas that he is behind in as well.
I would recommend also doing the CHAT test (which you can Google and find online). You can do this yourself - it really doesn't take training, in my opinion. However, you have to be very honest about it and try to look objectively at your son, which is hard to do. Maybe you should have someone else there when you do it.
I am going to assume this is your first child? It is much harder in that case to know what is "normal". I even worked for Head Start and worked with kids all my life and didn't really spot it for sure (although I had concerns) until my ds was past 3. He was able to do a lot of things and was just a little bit behind in some things - although some things he was a lot further behind than I realized - I thought he just wasn't interested. It turned out he wasn't interested because he couldn't do it!
Welcome to this forum and please feel free to ask lots of questions - that's why we're all here. Your son sounds a lot like kids I have read about on here. My ds had precocious speech, but otherwise I see a lot of similarities as well.
I have learned to accept that ds is going to be advanced in some areas and in other ways behind - it is frustrating and heartbreaking at the same time. I wish I had a magic answer for you - but if I did I certainly would have already used it for my son! Getting an evaluation and early intervention is key though - so you are only helping your son by doing so. It may be harmful in the long run not to - you will wish you had done it sooner if you choose to put it off now. Trust me!
Bug is my first child - and I thought his early letter/shape/color/number recognition was giftedness (it still could be) - but he was dramatically behind in other areas when I finally got him diagnosed last month.
I wrote off a LOT of early symptoms as "quirky giftedness" - like the stubborness, willfulness, introvertedness, the sensory issues, etc. etc.
I'd check this link that AndrewsMommy posted earlier:
http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/actearly/
It seems sooooo obvious to me now, just how delayed my son is. At three - not so much... (Denial goes a lonnnng way).
Connor is a 2e kid, and I actually don't think the term does him, or others like him justice, because in addition to Asperger's, you generally get a rannge of other things that go with it, like ADHD, anxiety and learning disabilities. I prefer to think of Connor as a 4e child (gifted, Asperger's, ADD and learning disabilities)
On the surface it seems as though our children are the most fortunate ones on the spectrum. But really, we are the parents of the "Nowhere Children". My kid doesn't fit in comfortably anywhere. He is certainly more comfortable in the typical world, and shuns any involvement in the special needs world, but he is contantly challenged, and always has to think about what he says or how he behaves. Very stressful for a 12 year old. He's learning to navigate through these very bumpy waters with some success, and his fair share of failures. Of course, his best defense is to withdraw, which only exacerbates his situation. We take everything one day at a time.
I know this may have been answered before, but I am just wondering. Based on the "excitabilities" and such, it may be difficult to dicern what it is you're dealing with.
At 21 months a child who has speech that is on the low end of normal (and really isn't used to communicate), still can't point consistently to body parts (and the ones he knows took A LOT of work to remotely recognize), is unable to see different solutions to a problem (a ball that is under/behind something can only be obtained by the path it took to get there), and is definitely socially aloof to children, but also doesn't really even respond well to adults (unless they go out of their way to make the effort - which adults will do more than another child), has very limited ability to complete puzzles and no ability to construct with blocks (or even stack two for that matter), and still has difficulty following basic commands unless the command involves "getting" or identifying a very familiar toy or object . . . but, this same child can label many, many common things (mostly pictures in books), knows many colors, can recognize half of the capital letters in the alphabet and is currently catching on to shapes.
Might a child like this be gifted instead, or are there other criteria besides the rote learning that goes along with identifying basic symbols? Do PG kids develop early problem solving/abstract thinking skills as well? I figure many of you would know and have been down this road before.
Why can't kids like this be as good with the names of people? This same child still doesn't seem to remember (or care about) names of family members he sees on a regular basis, and the ones he does seem to know aren't names he says to "call" the person, but rather as if to label the person as a familiar object.
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