Is my child gifted?

What is high intellectual potential?

High Intellectual Potential is a feature that affects a small part of the population. These are people with an intelligence quotient (IQ) above average. Often, these profiles will have an atypical personality. Endowed with a tree-structure thought, people with High Intellectual Potential will be very creative. Hypersensitivity is also found in gifted people, which may require special emotional needs.

Signs of precocity: how to recognize a gifted baby 0-6 months

From birth, the gifted baby opens his eyes wide and looks at everything that is happening around him with attention. His scrutinizing gaze is sparkling, open and very expressive. He stares in the eyes, with an intensity that sometimes baffles parents. He is on constant alert, nothing escapes him. Very sociable, he seeks contact. He does not speak yet, but has antennae and perceives changes in the mother’s facial expression immediately. It is hypersensitive to colors, sights, sounds, smells and tastes. The slightest noise, the smallest light that he does not know awakens his hypervigilance. He stops sucking, turns his head towards the noise, asks questions. Then, once he receives an explanation: “It’s the vacuum cleaner, it’s a fire brigade siren, etc.” », He calms down and takes his bottle again. From the outset, the precocious child experiences calm awakening phases that last more than eight minutes. He remains attentive, focused, while other babies are only able to fix their attention for 5 to 6 minutes at a time. This difference in his ability to concentrate is perhaps one of the keys to his exceptional intelligence.

What are the signs of precocity to detect from 6 months to 1 year

From 6 months, the child with high potential observes and tries to analyze the situation before embarking on an activity. For example, in the nursery, precocious babies do not launch themselves into the arena like the others, they do not rush to trudge, they observe finely first, sometimes by sucking their thumbs, what is happening in front of them. They scan the scene, assess the situation and the risks before participating. Around 6-8 months, when he reaches out for an object, he needs it immediately, otherwise it is a fit of rage. He is impatient and doesn’t like to wait. It also imitates the sounds it hears perfectly. He was not yet a year old when he said his first word. More toned, he sits before the others and skips certain steps. He often goes from sitting to walking without going on all fours. He develops good hand / eye coordination very early on because he wants to explore reality on his own: “This object interests me, I catch it, I look at it, I bring it to my mouth”. As he wants to stand up and get out of bed very early, children with high intellectual potential often walk around 9-10 months.

Recognize the signs of precocity from 1 to 2 years

He speaks earlier than the others. Around 12 months, he knows how to name the images in his picture book. By 14-16 months, he is already pronouncing words and constructing sentences correctly. At 18 months, he speaks, takes pleasure in repeating complicated words, which he uses wisely. At 2 years old, he is able to have a discussion in an already mature language. Some gifted people are silent for up to 2 years and speak with “subject verbs complements” sentences all at once, because they were preparing for it before starting out. Curious, active, he touches everything and is not afraid to venture out in search of new experiences. He has a good balance, climbs everywhere, goes up and down stairs, carries everything and turns the living room into a gym. The gifted child is a tiny sleeper. It takes less time for him to recover from his fatigue and he often has a hard time falling asleep. He has a very good auditory memory and easily learns nursery rhymes, songs and musical tunes. His memory is impressive. He knows exactly the flow of the text of his books, down to the word, and takes you back if you omit passages to go faster.

Profile and behavior: Signs of precocity from 2 to 3 years

His sensorality is hyperdeveloped. It recognizes spices, thyme, Provence herbs, basil. He distinguishes the smells of orange, mint, vanilla, the scent of flowers. His vocabulary continues to grow. He pronounces “stethoscope” at the pediatrician, articulates wonderfully and asks for details on the unknown words “What does that mean?”. He memorizes foreign words. Its lexicon is precise. He asks 1 questions “why, why, why?” and the answer to his questions should not delay, otherwise he will get impatient. Everything must go as fast as in his head! Hypersensitive, he has a huge problem with managing emotions, he easily stings anger, stamps his feet, shouts, bursts into tears. He plays the indifferent when you come to pick him up at the nursery or at his nanny. In fact, it protects itself from an overflow of emotion and avoids dealing with the emotional overflow caused by your arrival. Writing particularly attracts him. He plays at recognizing letters. He plays at writing his name, he scribbles long “letters” that he sends to everyone to imitate the adult. He likes to count. At 2, he knows how to count to 10. At 2 and a half, he recognizes the hour digits on a clock or a watch. He understands the meaning of adding and subtracting very quickly. His memory is photographic, he has an excellent sense of direction and remembers places with precision.

Signs of precocity from 3 to 4 years

He manages to decipher the letters on his own and sometimes very early on. He understands how syllables are constructed and how syllables form words. In fact, he learns to read on his own the brand of his cereal packet, the signs, the names of the stores … Of course, he needs an adult to make sense of the signs associated with certain sounds, answer his questions, correct his deciphering attempts. But he doesn’t need a reading lesson! He has a gift for drawing and painting. When entering kindergarten, his talent explodes! He manages to photograph and render all the details of his characters, the bodies of profiles, facial expressions, clothes, the architecture of houses, and even notions of perspective. At 4 years old, his drawing is that of an 8 year old child and his subjects think outside the box.

Signs of precocity from 4 to 6 years

From the age of 4, he writes his first name, then other words, with stick letters. He gets angry when he can’t form the letters the way he would like. Before 4-5 years, fine motor control is not yet developed and its graphics are clumsy. There is a gap between the speed of his thought and the slowness of writing, resulting in anger and a significant percentage of dysgraphias in precocious children. He loves numbers, counts tirelessly by increasing the tens, the hundreds… He loves to play merchant. He knows all the names of dinosaurs, he is passionate about planets, black holes, galaxies. His thirst for knowledge is unquenchable. In addition, he is very modest and refuses to undress in front of others. He asks existential questions about death, illness, the origins of the world, in short, he is a budding philosopher. And he expects adequate answers from adults, which is not always easy!

He has few friends his age because he is out of step with other children who do not share his interests. He is a little apart, a little in his bubble. He is sensitive, skin-deep and more quickly injured than others. It is essential to take into account his emotional fragility, not to make too much humor at his expense …

Diagnosis: Remember to check your IQ with an HPI (High Intellectual Potential) test

5% of children are thought to be intellectually precocious (EIP) – or around 1 or 2 pupils per class. The gifted little ones stand out from other children by their ease in interacting with adults, their overflowing imagination and their great sensitivity. “We contacted the school psychologist in the middle section because Victor was crying for ‘nothing’, doubted his abilities and we no longer knew how to help him,” says Séverine. If you have any doubts, do not hesitate to have your child take an IQ test in order to draw up his psychological assessment and act accordingly!

Not so easy to be gifted!

If they have a higher IQ than their classmates, the gifted are not all the more fulfilled. “These are not children with disabilities but weakened by their skills,” says Monique Binda, president of the Anpeip Federation (National Association for Intellectually Precocious Children). According to a TNS Sofres survey carried out in 2004, 32% of them fail at school! A paradox, which for Katy Bogin, psychologist, can be explained by boredom: “In first grade, the teacher asks her students to learn the alphabet, except that the gifted child was already reciting it at the age of two. … He is constantly out of step, dreamy, and lets himself be absorbed by his thoughts ”. Victor himself “disturbs his comrades by talking a lot, since he finishes his work before everyone else”. A behavior which, too often, is mistaken for hyperactivity.

Interview: Anne Widehem, mother of two precocious children, her “little zebras”

Interview with Anne Widehem, coach and author of the book: “I am not an ass, I am a zebra”, ed. Kiwi.

High potential child, gifted child, precocious child… All these terms cover the same reality: that of children endowed with extraordinary intelligence. Anne Widehem prefers to call them “zebras”, to highlight their uniqueness. And like all children, above all, they need to be understood and loved. 

In video, the author, mother of two small zebras and a zebra herself, tells us about her journey.