Speech Delays, Social Concerns and Giftedness
By Inderbir Kaur Sandhu, Ph.D
Q:
My daughter is five years old now. She was a very alert
baby. We had difficult time making her sleep since she would
wake up and cry for attention when the phone rings, or even
when we talked quietly in the house. She was a very active
toddler. We had a hard time when we first put her into a
preschool classroom. She was not able to sit still during
circle/story time and was not able to stay in one spot
during snack time.
We got complains from her teachers always so I thought she's
a trouble maker and was just a handful kid. When she reached
4, she began to settle down and was able to follow classroom
routines better.
She was a late talker. She didn't really start talking until
she's close to three. She understands commands and follows
direction well when she's in a good mood. But when she's
distracted or when she's not happy, she wouldn't respond at
all. She's a very strong will kid. She started to talk a lot
more clearly when she was four. However, her speech is still
not very fluent. We speak only Chinese at home but I teach
her vocabularies in English. So when she talks, it's a
combination of both Chinese and English. We have no problem
understanding her, but she seems to have problem expressing
herself or answer questions in only one language, mainly
English.
Due to her speech delay, I used to think that she was behind
other kids. But she loves to read very much! And she has
very good memory. I read a few new books to her once when
she was 4 and later when she saw a picture somewhere, she
was able to tell me from which book as well as from which
page she saw the picture before. I thought she was lying at
the beginning. But the she proved herself right by picking
up a book and turning to the page and show me a very tiny
picture there. I was very impressed. She learned her shapes,
colors and alphabets when she was around 3. I didn't need to
put much effort to teach her. She has a very strong musical
sense. She learns piano pieces very fast. When she hears a
song or melody that she likes, she is able to play it by
herself.
She is in kindergarten now. Her teacher told me that
knowledge-wise, she's ahead of most of the students in the
classroom. Although she's still not talking fluently, she's
already learned phonics and is able to spell some words
using phonics. She also solved problems in a very different
way than other students. When teacher expected her students
to make a different ABABAB pattern using different colors
(without saying colors but just different), my daughter was
not able to do it. When I figured out why, she didn't think
that different colors make it any difference. She thinks
that different patterns is different. Since she always has
the concept of other patterns like AABBAABB, or even ABCABC.
But she made her teacher believe that she didn't understand
the word "different"
Another concern from her school is her daydreaming as well
as using a lot of cartoon scripts. My daughter enjoyed
pretending to be cartoon characters since she was 2. Though
she didn't talk fluently, she was able to memorize all the
cartoon scripts clearly. She would pretend the movements,
the tones and just enjoyed by herself. Sometime, she would
pretend that she's talking to some cartoon characters and
put herself into part of the story. It makes other kids
difficult to understand her sometime. I was concern at the
beginning since I wondered if she lives in her own world
(like what her teacher was concern about). But she is very
outgoing. When we take her to the park, she would invite
other kids to play together by saying something like, "come
play the slide with me!" or "let me help you push the swing"
etc.
Both my husband and my aunt (from my dad's side) were gifted
children. My father didn't go through any assessment in his
childhood but he was a very smart kid as well as a late
talker. Both my husband and I have earned graduate degrees
and we performed well in school when we were kids. I'm still
not sure if my daughter is gifted. Her teacher believes that
she's having some language as well as social disorder since
she doesn't answer questions correctly and didn't take part
in role playing with other kids. When she goes into her
classroom, it usually takes a long time for her to settle
down. She would just stand there and look around without
being able to find an activity to do. When she is not able
to find something that interests her, she would pretend to
be a cartoon character again and enjoy in her own
imagination. I'm not sure if it's a concern.
Your advice and information would be much appreciated!
A: As a rough guide, at about 3
plus, your daughter should have a vocabulary of around 500
words leading towards 1,200 words or more by age 4. By 5
years of age, she should be able to, identify some letters
of the alphabet, use six words in a sentence, use “and,”
“but,” and “then” to make longer sentence. Having said that,
preschoolers range widely in the number of words that they
use and this guide is just an average development of most
kids within the mentioned age range. On the other hand,
gifted children tend to talk earlier, have larger
vocabularies, and use longer sentences in comparison to
their non-gifted peers.
In your case, having two languages may be an interfering
factor as the child has to master two languages and not all
children have the same lingual ability regardless of whether
they may be gifted or not. However, over time this may not
even be a concern any longer. As for giftedness, there are
benchmarks for determining whether a child is gifted. Most
schools with gifted programs define this as an IQ of 120 or
more on a standardized test. Testing would be appropriate to
determine the exact and specific abilities that your child
has but not all abilities. Advanced verbal development is
one of the most common traits of early giftedness but at the
same time a child who demonstrates other advancements but
late speech development may also be in the gifted range. It
is also found that the phenomenon of late talking in
children who turn out to be normal to gifted in ability is
not uncommon. However, a much delayed speech may cause
delays in the acquisition of a number of other skills. From
your description, there is a high possibility that your
daughter may be gifted and her delays in speech may just be
developmental. Although, early talkers have more access to
learning faster and hence may develop faster that the
average child, it is also possible for the speech of highly
gifted children to be delayed.
There are two groups that late talkers can fall into: the
first that are within normal limits for speech development
(but too late to make parents happy especially in comparison
with others) and next, the ones who are truly late in speech
development. As for your daughter, if she is already
talking, all you may want to do is to improve her verbal
ability. I suggest you see a speech therapist who may be
able to pinpoint the problem and recommend alternatives. A
good book that you may want to read is Late Talking
Children, by Thomas Sowell, a distinguished economist at
Stanford University who has a son who talked very late and
yet is quite gifted.
As for her social development, I don’t really see a cause
for much concern. If she is able to invite other to play in
the park, she is socially normal. Talking to cartoon
characters or pretending to be one is something most
children go through. This is perfectly normal and children
should be encouraged to role play which will add richness to
their imagination. Gifted children may be able to use this
ability even better by, perhaps drawing or even writing a
book. Some gifted children find pretend ply far more
fulfilling than playing with peers who may not understand
them. Your daughter is probably more attuned to her
surrounding in school and perhaps may time more time to
socialize with her class mates – this is normal. She is
bright enough to enjoy learning by doing something that
interests her such as pretend play. That is her unique way
of adapting to her surroundings. Answering questions
incorrectly is not an indication of intelligence – and as
you mentioned, her knowledge is far more advanced than her
peers
Try taking time to talk to her and gauge what her needs may
be. Make her feel comfortable in her environment and show
that it is okay to do things that interest her. Slowly, join
in the character she plays and encourage her to socialize a
little more. The teachers can help by giving her a role that
she enjoys. She will ultimately join in with the rest.
As you also mentioned that giftedness in family, it is not
surprising that she may be gifted. So for now, just
concentrate on her learning skills and help her enjoy her
learning journey.
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