Is she very advanced for her age?

[nestie]

Hopefully I have successfully managed to change my nickname on this one. I don't want people to think I'm boasting as this is a genuine question, not a boast.

My DD is twenty four months old and whilst I've just thought of her as normal a couple of conversations with people who work with child development have led me to wonder whether my daughter might be quite advanced for her age.

At two she can say over 500 words. She started talking early and always uses three or four word sentences, sometimes five or six. They are not rare. She is able to maintain a conversation and make some quite complex statements, like yesterday I asked her if she was okay, when I was driving in the car, and she replied that she was 'looking pretty stars mummy'.

She knows most of her colours including pink / purple / brown / orange and has done for about 6 months now.

She sings most nursery ryhmes, and whilst not all the words are there, words like 'the' and 'and' etc get left out, but otherwise she can sing the full nursery ryhmes for at least half a dozen songs, and part of the lyrics for at least another dozen.

She has known her basic shapes, like circle, traingle, square etc for at least four months and is now learning more complex ones like diamond, semi circle, arch etc.

At two she obviously does not read, but she does know what writing is, and will often point to written numbers and say 'what number mummy'.

She can count to fifteen reliably, and when asked can sometimes recoginse one or two objects in your hand. So if you ask her how many apples have I got, and you've got one or two, she is fairly reliable at getting that right, although by no means completely.

She is a very confident child who will talk to anyone and everyone. She is also quite bossy too. She will regularly say I, me, you, it, although she often gets them wrong still.

So is this normal for a 24 month old child, or is she particularly advanced? If she is, should I be doing anything to encourage this, or just leave it all up to fate? I would not want to hot house her in any way shape or form, but I would not want to see talents go undiscovered. I would just like to add, that I have not hot housed her or formally taught her anything, this is merely what she has picked up from reading books with my husband and I, and from playing with us and going to nursery, which she attends part time. She is also an only child. Thanks for your help. Again, I haven't written all this to boast, but just so that you get a flavor for what she is like and whether you think her abilities are good but normal, or whether it is more than that, and if so what should I do about it. Thank you for your help.

[NomDePlume]

she sounds pretty advanced. If childcare professionals have told you that in their opinion she is advanced for her age, why do you feel the need to ask on here ? Do you not trust the opinoins of thse people or do you just think they were saying those things o flatter/humour you ?

[NomDePlume]

Sorry, just rr-read that last post, it sounds a bit confrontational. That really was not how it was meant, I'm just curious.

[NomDePlume]

're-read', sorry my typing has gone awry today

[expatinscotland]

I couldn't agree more, NdP. Wise words, as usual.

[NomDePlume]

oooh, thankyou, expat

[LIZS]

Maybe she is advanced now but the thing about young children is that their development and interests ebb and flow so what she can do well now won't necessarily continue to be her strengths and other children may well catch up on these things over the next 6 - 12 months. By then she may have developed in other ways and perhaps seem more advanced in different ways. There may well already be other children more physically advanced than her atm, for example, as they all vary enormously at this age - some just walking , some running and jumping or already toilet trained. tbh I don't think you shoud do anything specific abut it, enjoy her and follow her interests and natural curiosity.

[baublerock]

Sounds to me like she enjoys learning and has a natural aptitude for picking things up. I don't see any harm in encouraging this learning as long as she enjoys it. It's great that you are taking the time to read to her - my DS2 is also 2, I'm not going to compare as obviously they are all different, but kids are amazing aren't they?

[MistyEyed]

Is she your first child? It sounds as if she is. Although most second or subsequent children nearly always seem to be further ahead than the first. Also most second time mums give up trying to analyse their children's development.

[Cam]

I would say there is a whole spectrum for child development and, whilst your dd is probably at one end of it she is still developing normally. By that I mean within the normal range (which is pretty wide).

My dd was the same and so was I (according to my Ma).

[frogs]

Of course she's currently advanced for her age. My 23 month-old dd2 has about 20-30 single words, mostly acquired in the last month. She wouldn't know a triangle from a hole in the road, and prefers animal noises to actual words. But I think she's the funniest, cutest, most fantastic creature going, as do her big brother and sister.

Your child's development is likely to even out as she gets older -- these things go in bursts. The fact that she's ahead now doesn't mean she'll be ahead all the way through school, or that she'll get 4 A's at A-level followed by a Cambridge first. So be careful you don't set her up to feel a failure if she ends up being closer to average than she is at the moment.

On the other hand she may genuinely be somewhere off the chart in terms of intelligence. My oldest child has been consistently at the top of her class by a considerable margin, and I can say with some assurance that people who think that's what they want for their child should be careful what they wish for, because it causes endless problems.

Most likely your child is a bright, intelligent, sparky child who has had a great deal of input from you to encourage and foster her development. Which is great. Keep doing what you're doing, and you and she will have a great time.

[SoupDragon]

I'm just wondering where you found the time to count how many words she knows

Children vary so much and I'd say she's certainly at one end of the spectrum as Cam says.

Personally I wouldn't do anything to "encourage" it as such, I think you should just carry on with whatever you have been doing and whatever your DD enjoys doing.

[nestie]

Thank you for feedback so far. In response to your questions so far, the answers are:

Yes she is an only child.

The people to whom I chatted to about her development, was spoken to in a social context. They did not hear all of the story, just a bit about her language, and made a comment that it seemed particularly impressive. I don't want to overplay what might be an innocent off the cuff conversation, that they might have just said but not meant, but it did get me thinking.

She has always been earlyish at most stuff, but never what I would have thought excessively early. She sat at 5 months, crawled at 7 etc. She can now jump, do roly polys, dance etc but its not something I particularly pay much attention to.

If I encourage her, any ideas as to what I should do next?, or just carry on as I have been, which is not a great deal, really.

[polly28]

your dd sounds a lovely child,eager and receptive to learning new things.

My dd was very much like this ,she is now nearly 14 and doing really well at school and socially,which i regard as more important.

I have a ds who is 3 and I find myself comparing him to her at this age and the difference is staggering,girls ,i think,develop much quicker than boys.

I agree with others ,you will probably find that your dd will even out developmentally.In other words ,the other kids will catch up with her.

Don't think you need "to do " anything except enjoy her.

[Socci]

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[Kaz33]

Well my Ds1 was very similar at about the same age, thought never coumted his vocab. Now he is 4 and is at school, very communicative, continues to ask voracious amount of questions and likes to do at well at school.

You are giving her a great start in the world, continue to read/talk with her, encourage her in her interests. All great things but remember that there is more to success than educational prowess. Pushy parents are a nightmare, a major cause of low self esteem in their children. I know .

You know that your DD1 is bright and sparky, but don't push her just encourage her and give her loads of love.

[Socci]

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[skinnycow]

she sounds like my dd at that age. She is still very much like a sponge and absorbs information and just "knows stuff" without havign to be taught IYKWIM. As someone else said, it sounds like the high end of normal and as long as she develops similarly socially then it sounds like you have a lovely kid

[Gobbledigook]

She sounds like she is coming on well but as someone else said, all children develop at different speeds and so she may be just at the same level as her peers by the time she is 3, 4 or 5. My friends ds and dd spoke very early and had lots and lots of words at a very young age whereas I'd say my eldest 2 ds's started to talk quite late (or more like average) - now though, at 4.8 ds1 is much more articulate than many of his peers who may have started talking much earlier (lots of people tell me this) and ds2 who is 3 speaks much more clearly than my friends dd who spoke much, much earlier but I'd say has slowed down considerably.

Anyway, it does seem that she is advanced for her age (though, like others have said both my ds's have done several of the things you list at that age - colours, counting - but deffo didn't have 500 words!) but if I were you I'd just keep going along as normal as it could well be that between now and school her and her peers all balance out to pretty similar.

[jstbcs]

Sounds like my dd too! she could do all of the above and knew her alphabet, she could recite and recognise the letters well before 24 months. However, although she was well advanced in comparison to her peers, she was the last one to come out of nappies, only really getting potty trained at 3! when all her friends were out of nappies at 2 - 2.5!

It is easy to get carried away with your childs development, and this isnt meant to be patronising, because i have been there myself, but children really do develop in different stages.

I have spoken to HV and teachers about my dd, because she is very bright but her bday is in Nov so she will miss out on school until 2007!

All have advised me the best thing to do to stretch your child is to extend their learning in to arts, crafts and music, baking, messy play, sports etc... ( I know there are good language programmes designed for little ones, french, german cds, etc)
Make it all fun and let them develop different talents.

Good luck and well done on having a delightful child!

[edam]

I would say your dd is doing very well, so you are entitled to feel a bit proud!

Trying not to word this in a boastful way, but being practical, I think she's doing well because my ds is pretty similar and people have told me he's bright (particularly the staff at his day nursery, who use the Birth to Three Matters curriculum so know better than me what is 'average' and what is 'good' or each age).

Ds is three months older than your dd but the ages you give for skills emerging are the same (and he can do a little more now).

I'd guess you should just carry on, encouraging her interests without worrying too much about hot-housing her.

[baka]

ds2 (3 anda half) has started to get comments on his intelligence, both from nursery and strangers - interestingly they often comment on his vocabulary which I find amusing as a) he was a late talker and b) I think his speech can be a bit Aspie ish at times.

His older brother is severely autistic and something I can tell you about bright children (possibly all normally developing children) is that you don't have to do very much to stimulate them, or help them learn. The best thing you can do is give them your time (something that is often hard in our house - so he gets farmed out to grandparents a lot) and play with them and just talk to them. They don't need programs or formal learning or therapy in the way that children with learning difficulties do because they just soak up whatever is going on around them.

I also have zero expectations of him. If he grows up to be academic fine, if he doesn't, also fine. I think it is very difficult to tell what direction a child will go in until late primary years at the earliest.

[Enid]

yes definitely advanced, but they do tend to drop off a bit as they get older if my dd2 is anything to go by

she was about the same as yours at 2 (although not sure about the amount of words) but at 3, apart from being stupendously chatty, she seems pretty much the same as her peers.

[Marina]

You might be stuck with stupendously chatty for the foreseeable future enid and nestie
As others have said, nestie, she sounds lovely, keep enjoying her, and not worrying about activities to "develop" her further

[HappyMumof2]

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