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Highly Advanced Development of a ToddlerBy Inderbir Kaur Sandhu, Ph.D
Q: I am the mother of a truly amazing child (as all mothers say). Everyone who meets him is just amazed. I took a test and he scored 88 (he just turned 2) the test was designed for children of the age 4.Average scoring was 40-60 out of 100. The questions did not begin to describe his talents.
He is able to recognize a guitar and drums and violin in music that has multiple instruments playing together. Also at 10 months he started speaking in complete sentences such as "I want that, Mama." The other day he started correcting my grammar such as, I said 5 bucks his response was "It's 5 dollars, Mommy." At dinner I asked if mommy was done eating. His response was "Mommy is now finished with her dinner."
He also can recognize composers such as Bach by name when he hears a song and he can recognize art such as Van Gogh with no assistance or encouragement. Just as a matter of fact. Last example is he could spell his name at 20 months and at 2 he knows his phone number. Along with counting to thirty (I have never had him go further) and counting by 10s to 100. Please tell me what I have here. Is he a genius or am I just being his Mommy.
A: You are indeed a mother of a truly amazing child. Yes, your son is gifted and I hope you will help him maximize his potentials. It is rare that someone at his age is able to recognize composers and this development is truly amazing! His speech development, especially conversational is splendid and these, coupled with the other descriptions, certainly indicate highly above average development for someone in that range of age.
Try to find out his other interests and develop them. For a start, you may want to help him with his artistic abilities. Encourage him with art and music based learning activities. Get him into the reading mode by setting an example yourself. Read him books to develop his knowledge. You may want to read him books on Bach’s life when he was a child as he will be able to relate this with his experience to Bach’s music. His musical abilities must be encouraged and developed as he is showing incredible gifts in music and perhaps arts. However, I believe that he needs to do well in other areas of development as well and you should not only concentrate on one of two skills. He needs to learn other important skills such as social skills to help him develop well emotionally.
You may also want to get him tested to confirm the direction of his skills and get advice for the appropriate educational program for him based on the interpretation of the results. I see a highly advanced child here and I hope you would do your very best to nurture his skills and bring him to different heights without negotiating his other areas of development, especially social competency. My best wishes to a wonderful journey with a very special child.
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