Do I mention son's "super abilities" to Early Intervention?

MK13 - posted on 08/21/2012

This is my very first post here but I thought I'd chime in. My son is 2 years 5 months. He has been in EI for 3 months now. At 24 months he only had 8 words ... yet he recognized the whole alphabet (both upper and lower case letters), knew all the phonics sounds, counted objects to 20 ... at 26 months would know 10 colors and all the basic shapes ... about the same time we started with EI for speech and developmental delays but both his therapists were quite confused as he's been giving mixed signals. We all are starting to realize he knows a lot more than he's showing. A month ago (exactly at 2 years 4 months) he started reading basic words (sounding them out phonetically). His first words that he'd read were cat, dog, cow and apple. I was floored. At that point he had about 50 words in his vocabulary (I don't count the 20 numbers or letter sounds). now, 5 weeks later he's reading words like zebra, tiger, monkey (5-6 letter words) ... still very much speech delayed, doesn't want to repeat words but will repeat whole phrases instead ... hard to understand what he's saying but you know it's the same phrase someone just said in front of him. He's not interested in me reading books but he brings me his magna doodle board and wants me to write words for him and here's where his "gift" of reading is coming handy. We've started using the magna doodle during therapy. The new words we want him to say, we write them down and teach him that way. He usually only reads words he has in his vocab but if I write something new down, I tell him what it is once or twice and the next time he knows it and starts using the word. I give him one or two new words a day this way. It's like magic for us! We were at first concerned he might be autistic but the last couple of months he's proved to us he's a lot more "with us" than we thought. He just wasn't interested in the simple things we were expecting him to do! He now challenges us all! The therapist tries to teach him something, he pays zero attention to her and just flat out ignores her but the next time she comes, he sees her and starts saying or doing what she wanted from him the week before! ... it's like a game for him! We've been lucky to have great therapists who have a lot of fun with him. I think it's a welcome change for them as they've both said they've never had a child this advanced in their care. when he was tested for EI 3 months ago, he was 15-18 MONTHS behind in comprehension (what we all thought) ... yet now he's on and beyond Kindergarten level in reading and well advanced in comprehension (he's proving this by knowing what he's reading). So I would definitely mention it to your therapist! As long as you have some trust in her! ... I've had some bad experience with EI therapists my older one had but this time we're really lucky!

Heidi - posted on 08/17/2012

My son was delayed in speech as well. At 9 months he was not making any vocal sounds, but when he started talking it was in phrases, and quickly sentences. We told the speech teacher, she said they were just "splinter skills" rather implying that we had forced him to memorize them, so we didn't bring it up again. I don't think that they are skilled in noticing or working with gifted children.

Melissa - posted on 06/23/2012

My son was in the 2nd percentile for speech at 26 months, but he was interested in letters and numbers from the time he started crawling. He started reading before he turned 3 and that actually helped his speech a lot. His therapist thought that he was just a perfectionist because he would practice under his breath before "performing" any new words for us. Now, he has entered elementary school and he is several years ahead of his classmates in math, reading, and science. I have not encouraged him any more or less than his siblings. He is just naturally drawn to certain academic areas. Perhaps your son may be the same way. I would definitely mention it to your EI teacher, though. Anything they can use to gain his interest will be helpful, even if it's just rote memorization or recognition at this point. :)

User - posted on 06/21/2012

My son was behind in his speech, and has had therapy as well. He has just turned 3 (june 5th) and has been reading for just over a few months now.Early intervention wanted him tested for gifted at 2 but i said no wait till his speech is clearer. If you want to send him to public school its worth talking about getting him tested but if like me you are going to homeschool then its not necessary. However, I am going to pay $600 to have my son tested privately. Also might i suggest you get hold of your kindergarten school curriculum. My son is currently working through first grade curriculum, i keep work samples and mock test papers (kumon tests) and we do exciting projects, he just finished the volcano project and loved the baking soda and vinegar volcano i made him. He also wrote down a few facts and then made a book on how we made our volcano.

Louise - posted on 06/20/2012

Yes it is worth a mention, I am surprised that he can sound out or tell you what letters are but does not speak! This is definitely a thing to mention to the speech therapist as she can work with this.

He does sound bright, as a mother of a gifted and talented student I would encourage you to keep stimulating him to bring his speech up to scratch and then work from there.